The Hollywood Arclight Puts a Nasty Lump in Your Holiday Stocking

The Arclight 
Smearing Lipstick On A Greedy Holiday Pig

And speaking of things turning to ash, when did the Arclight become an even more obvious money grubbing whore?  This year Arclight offers special seasonal prices. Increased prices.  Arclight's always been overly lauded and overpriced, but this holiday season the Grinchy greed for greenbacks by parent company The Decurion Corporation shines brighter than that little star over Bethlehem. The Arclight wants you to think it's a classy call girl with a pretty face, nice clothes and worldly charms; A lovely lass (albeit one you're paying for) working her way through film school who'll offer you a drink before she fucks you. But once you get inside her you discover she's nothing spectacular, she goes through the motions like all the rest. She's a back alley wallet stealin' crack whore disguised as a $2000 a night "escort".  And the thing is you could have had the one on the opposite corner for a few bucks less. Sure, maybe corner girl has a few teeth missing and the knees are worn out on her fishnet stockings, but she's grateful for the business and she knows how to treat a customer. You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. Arclight is a carnivorous pig that feeds on your hard earned dollars.

I went to the Arclight on Wednesday to see Blue Valentine on opening day. I hadn't been to a film at the Arclight Hollywood in over a year, but Blue Valentine was playing in limited theaters and the alternative was The Landmark across town. Slightly less, but ah, that west side traffic. I'll stay in Hollywood and save the aggravation. I have amazing powers in finding street parking, even in Hollywood, so I paralleled parked my way into two bucks of savings. But once inside The Arclight Deathstar, after I'd made my way through the holiday crush line, I came upon a little xeroxed sign (classy all the way) that explained that all movies all the time during the holiday period were $16. No matinee prices ( $14.50), no Monday through Thursday prices ($14.50), sixteen bucks all the time till January 3, 2011. Happy Holidays to you and yours.  Here's a buck fifty Christmas turd in your stocking.  Thank you and on your way out, be sure to buy a gift card.  I pay. I want to write a review and don't want to wait for Blue Valentine's general release.  I ask the pleasant cashier "What's up with that?" and he responds "I know. The corporate machine doesn't care about us".

My distaste for all things Arclight began 3 years ago with the theater's screening of The Bourne Ultimatum in the Dome in August 2007. The Arclight mission statement posits that it won't seat after 5 minutes into the screening. Bullshit. During Ultimatum, late arrivals were ushered into the theater as late as 35 minutes into the film,  a steady continual stream, and ushers made little effort to keep their voices down as tardy talky patrons waddled and shoved their way to assigned seats, many finding that their seats had been taken already. Conversation of whose seat was whose echoed through the dome that even "Ultimatum's" considerable action decibels couldn't drown out.  If Arclight stuck to their guns, these folks would have been refunded their money and asked to try a later showing. But the almighty buck wins again, and all those refunds and reissuing of tickets, isn't financially efficient. Let's go back on our word is the secret motto. It's easier and more cost effective.

Again a few months later ( still 2007)  during a weekday matinee,  I go to concessions to get a drink, but the staff of two are seated on the counter chatting and oblivious to my presence.  I dare interrupt the convo and there's a palpable irritation with my neediness. In the months between August and December there are problems with understaffed concessions and finally a repeat of the Bourne Ultimatum scenario at a Christmas evening showing of Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I want to take Todd's straight razor and slash the throats of every load mouthed movie-goer in my radius and dump their bodies in the parking garage dumpster.  But the Arclight might see an opportunity here and serve "special" meat pies in the their mediocre cafe. "Times is hard" you know. Since Sweeney Todd I've seen only a handful of films at Hollywood Arclight and one at the Pasadena Arclight. Again lipstick on a pig; they barely bother to hide the fact that this is a former AMC (and the day I was there none of the ticket kiosks were functioning),  and now this holiday slap in the face. $1.50 may seem like a pittance, but it's underhanded avarice. Nothing on Arclight's website mentions this price bump until you get to the purchase ticket page, maybe no one will notice.

I sit in the Arclight courtyard and watch the mob of Holiday movie-goers ebb and flow. Cool people, hip, urbane, lots of pork pie hats and sunglasses on a cloudy day(the pork pie hat as of late has become a symbol of things I despise). Hey there goes Ted Shackelford, of Knotts Landing fame. He still looks good, and that dark blue coat is spiffy. There's at least one truth on the Arclight Wiki page, it is a celebrity destination (after the movie I see actor Stephen Nichols, former "Patch" of Days Of Our Lives in the lobby). ApparentlyDecurion filled in their own Wiki page. And speaking of Decurion, parent company of Arclight Cinemas, the bottom line Scrooge; just thought I would post the corporation's philosophy below:

Through our practices, we are pursuing what we call the dual bottom line: superior economic or financial return on the one hand and individual and collective development on the other. Far too often, business is a world where mediocrity and meaninglessness are the norm. Indeed, this is what the consensus culture tells us to expect. But we have come to see that business can be a place to express excellence and purpose. We have found ways to enhance business effectiveness and to realize our individual commitments.  
Our approach is to do our way into knowing. Taking the business issues we face, we lead with practices, tailored to the community in which they are introduced, and then we attempt to codify the knowledge that emerges. We begin with a hypothesis (for example, that work is meaningful, or that people are not only means but also ends in themselves, or that individuals and communities naturally develop); we then act as if the hypothesis is true; and finally we check the results of our actions. We tend to find that the results not only confirm the hypothesis, but that our actions actually cause it to be true.


Is that a load of mumbo jumbo or  what? Apparently the Arclight is tailored to the community in which it exists: A community willing to pay more for mediocrity to a company thats word vacillates based on their current financial needs and how much the market is willing to bear. Count me out. I'm going to The Vista and revisiting an era gone by where the experience of movie-going is based on the film goer in a real way, not in the plastic bells and whistles way the Arclight offers up. Oh, and Happy New Year. Thanks for reading.