Editor:

This weekend I enjoyed a movie directed by Terry Gilliam and a documentary on the big screen. Despite the dire warnings in Jessie Fawson’s opinion piece critical of discount theaters (“Who doesn’t love a discount movie theater?” Oct. 28), the seat I chose functioned perfectly. The floor was no more sticky than a typical movie theater floor. I was able to avoid the enticements of overpriced popcorn (which was equally overpriced the last time I went to a full-price theater). I did not feel threatened, scared or intimidated by my fellow patrons.

It seems Fawson is of such refined sensibilities that the adequate and functional facilities of the discount theater, along with its “strangers” of an apparently unacceptably lower social stratum than her own, are enough to make her want to pay some 500 to 800 percent more for the same product, so that she may enjoy it in a “real theater.”

The sole valid point she makes in her tirade is the fact that one must wait a few extra weeks or months to see a particular film. Ironically, one of the “solutions” she poses to the non-problem of the conditions of the discount theater is to view the movie of your choice at home. Of course, one would have to wait even longer for the movie to be released on a home-viewable format.

I was disappointed in the factually incorrect and elitist tone of Fawson.

I was at campus for, ironically, a free-movie showing. Unfortunately, my experience at the screening of “Demonlover” was far more disappointing than any I’ve had at a discount theater. The crew in charge of presenting the film had to stop the projector multiple times to adjust the lens, get the focus right and try to correct an annoying sound problem. I left in frustration after waiting more than half an hour for them to get the film to show properly.

So, while I disagree with Fawson’s views that the financial savings aren’t worth the alleged trade-offs at the discount theater, it is true that generally, with entertainment, you get what you pay for.

James Mouritsen

Alumnus