I didn't see The Taking of Pelham 123 last night due to a fatal glitch. The sound on the right side started going garbled, and eventually sounded like a speaker was blown (it hadn't). After lending as much expertise as I had in the projection booth (resetting the audio processors, isolating the channel and shutting it off), we were still stuck.

They started and stopped the movie so many times I lost count, but after the fifth or sixth, around half the radio station promo audience left. They shouted "asshole" and "fuck you" at the poor publicist.

They're apparently a DLP-only theater, and the "analog" equipment is rarely ever maintained. Fellow press attendees confided they always have problems showing prints there. When all was said and done, the theater management was blaming the print, but I was blaming the proprietors of the Galaxy Highland 10 for not having a staff capable or knowledgeable enough to show a fucking film print.

As quick as many would be to blame the theater, or the theater would Sony ("must be a bad print" my ass), this is something that is emblematic of the jerky changeover happening as more theaters go digital. It could have been something as simple as cleaning the optical reader that scans the audio, or it could have actually been the print, fine. What I'm saying is that we're in a limbo between two exhibition standards that's bound to cause some more upgrade frustration at the shit-tastic mall theaters where most people see movies.

Did I mention one of the fratty jocks leaving the screening told his botoxed date "pshh, whatever, fuck 'em...I'll just Torrent it"?