After watching Good Night, and Good Luck, I started to wonder why it had been so long since I had gone to see a movie. In theory, I like the medium very much; why wouldn't I like to do something where I can sit in a comfortable chair in the dark and just think about things?

Sure, I knew right offhand that there were plenty of reasons why I didn't go to see a lot of movies. Far too many of them substitute special effects for plot. The simple reality is that if I wanted to see explosions, I'd rather find a remote bit of land where I could safely blow stuff up myself.

After going to see the latest attempt to put Jane Austen's classic Pride & Prejudice on the big screen, I realized that there was far more to the whole movie experience than whether stuff blows up. Even a movie based on a novel with spectacular depth can be a dud on-screen. Some adaptations just won't work. And there's quite a lot to the whole theater.

I'll continue my occasional movie reviews here, addressing such questions as how well the material was presented on-screen. But to this, I am going to add a new series, of movie theater reviews. There are plenty of theaters around the Columbus area, so I'm going to make it a point to visit as many as I reasonably can over the course of the next year or so and report the results here.

My scoring will be largely arbitrary. I'll create a quick synopsis of the experience there with a note about what works and what annoyed me. Some hints at how I'll score can be discerned from my judging criteria:

Admission Price

How much do they charge me to get in the door?

Concessions Price

I've often joked about six dollar drinks, but I'm pretty sure that at more than one theater, that's not much of a joke anymore.

Video Quality

Are we watching a modern digital movie or is this a second-grade film strip?

Sound Quality

Okay, okay, sometimes explosions are really cool.

Crowd

As a general rule, I try to avoid being among morons almost as much as I try to avoid being a moron. Being a moron isn't about how well one scores on an IQ test; it's all about how inconsiderate one can be and just how badly the whole moviegoing experience of others can be ruined.

Staff

A gallon of hairspray alone does not a competent movie house staffer make. (No, two gallons aren't better than one.)

Cleanliness

If someone spills their “bladder buster” Coke at noon, I really don't want for my shoes to be stuck to the floor if I'm watching a movie there six hours later.

Previews

I daresay that I like to see some previews, but I don't want to see wind-ups for car insurance and a bunch of other crap. Nor do I want to watch movie trailers for an hour before my two hour movie.

Location

Getting to the theater is part of the deal. Is the theater all by itself, surrounded by a sea of parking spaces? Can I get into the neighborhood, get something to eat, then go to the theater? Are there things to do or to see afterward?

With people now getting television screens the size of theater screens in their own homes, it seems to me that theaters need to do an awful lot more than be a “big screen” to lure people out of their La-Z-Boy™ chairs and away from their remote controls. People will not only need to have a place worth going to, but they'll need to know where such places can be found. Watch here for future updates.