The moviegoing experience?

This weekend I went to see Outlaw Johnny Black and The Inventor, both films being pretty entertaining. However, the showtimes that Regal was putting up were very limited. While driving on my way to see the latter, I mused about the North Park Theater and the occasional family matinees they have 11:30 AM on weekend mornings. Maybe, I was missing out on a movie that I hadn’t seen in a while and I really wanted to see on the big screen. I figure I probably should’ve gone and checked the website and see what was up (Editor's note: Checking their website, they have none planned for this month or for the first half of next month.), but I just had to shoot my shot because, with the limited showtimes that both movies have, it’s a pretty good chance that Regal isn’t gonna be holding these over for another week.

Also, who knows when they'll end up on Redbox? I mean, for crying out loud, I was forced to see Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret on one of the shadier movie watching sites. It really should’ve been on Redbox long ago and, for all I know, it could be December before it shows up. And another thing: Redbox has become stupidly unreliable. Sure, they have a lot of the bigger movies here but not all of them. What's a film lover to do when a film hovers that weird period of time between getting kicked out of theaters and ending up at Redbox and don't even breathe the words 'pay $14.99 on VOD' unless you have a fortune to lend me. They don't even have a link to the 'coming soon' titles on their page any more. 

It's like if you want to see a relatively recent movie that's out of theaters, it's Redbox or nothing, unless you’re really desperate to watch a movie on one of the less reputable sites. Truth be told, they’ve been helping me with a lot of movies these last few years. Not so much the other night, though. I really wanted to watch John Frankenheimer's 99 and 44/100% Dead, but weirdly enough, it wasn't on there and you'd think it being on a now-hard-to-find Shout Factory DVD that I would’ve maybe ended up on Tubi. It's possible that it ends up there in the future, but what a pain in the ass it is to not be able to watch all the movies you want to watch. I just don’t get it. 

I hope to have more to say about it before month's end, but having gone to the Revue Cinema last month on my trip to Toronto, it really makes me wish we had the equivalent here in this town. Something that shows first run movies every now and then, but more often than not, specializes in revival screenings, the likes of which are way too inconsistent in town. Sure, there's the aforementioned weekend matinees that happen maybe once or twice a month at North Park; once a month screenings of Thursday night terrors at the Amherst Cinema; and of course, there’s The Screening Room but, nine times out of ten, I’ve already seen most of those movies. The thinking with a lot of these theaters seems to be 'you see what’s there or piss off' and that’s just not right.