Introducing Two Buck Chuck

Introducing Two Buck Chuck 

Properly aged films at a discount

by Anton Charles "Chuck" Aguiar  (guest blogger)

If you're like me and your love for movies outweighs your need for a super-tilting, aero-dynamic down-filled lounge chair and IMAX, super surround sound, THX, 3D, HD, DTS, with a front of the line pass for the DMV thrown in for good measure, then read on. I'm Two Buck Chuck, guest reviewer here at hardonmovies.blogspot.com and I'll be keeping you up to date with what's happening at LA area discount movie houses. 

I'm a cheap bastid as they like to say in Boston, and there are great savings to be had in a metropolitan city like LA. Some of you stuck up Cinema Snobs may be used to dishing out yer wads at the beloved Arclight Cinemas, and the west side also ran Landmark Theater,  but when you see as many movies as I do, you gotta save a little while still supporting the arts - If I'd signed up for the AMC membership 15 years ago, I'd probably have enough points for a small house in Boyle Heights by now - and yourself. 

For two bucks you can see several recent movie releases. For what it costs to see a single movie at the Arclight (with parking) a family of five can see a matinee at the Regency Academy 6 in Pasadena for the same price. And did I mention that total would include five $1.00 hotdogs to keep those shrinking recessionary bellies full. All movies before 6pm are only two bucks. Pasadena Regency Academy 6 is nothing fancy; It's clean,  staffed by mostly high school age kids that are eager to please, and the concessions are reasonably priced .

The Regency 6 also has an eclectic line-up of films. A few art house flicks mixed in with aging blockbusters and maybe that big budget movie that tanked two weeks ago. An example of flix currently playing: Red, Megamind, Easy A the well reviewed doc Waiting For Superman, Hereafter, and Jackass 3D (2D here). That's a fair mix of highbrow, lowbrow and points in between. Movies after 6 pm are $3 ( Three Buck Chuck just didn't have the same ring), and if you arrive at the right time, you may just find free street parking in the neighborhood. 

I always park in the adjacent Target parking lot, where signs that threaten towing abound. But hey, I pop into Target and grab a soda for a buck, and then walk to the theater a 1/4 block up the street. "I've got my proof of purchase right 'ere." 

There's another discount theater in NoHo - The Regency Valley Plaza 6 - and  Alhambra (It's really not that far) has The Edwards Atlantic Place 10. Also, for a bit more, but not much, the historic Highland Theater on Figueroa @ Ave. 57 in Highland Park is $4 for movies before 6pm, $6 after 6pm and on Tuesday and Wednesdays, all movies are $3 any time. You may have to occasionally cope with a chatty teen, a text offender or a slightly off odor emitting from whereabouts unknown, but if you gotta have your movie fix it's a great way to go. Check out my first review: Easy A after the jump.