I just got out of a press screening of The Dark Knight Rises. I'll have thoughts about the film itself later on, but for now I had to get this out:

Who is it that still allows AMC to set their sound on "extra quiet" for press screenings?

What's the point of even doing these things unless the sound presentation is at least reasonably audible?

I had to lean in so far just to hear what everyone on screen was saying (not just Bane, everybody) that by the end of the movie, I had pushed my head through the screen and halfway into the center channel speaker. Nothing was more audible than a muffled mumble throughout the entire runtime.

Saying something to the press rep resulted in a microscopic uptick in the sound volume. AMC wouldn't dare blast their speakers at acceptable operating levels, since that might requirte them to...I don't know...give a good goddamn?

The worst thing about this is that we freeloading critic-types didn't get unique treatment. This is how most mass-market moviegoers will hear the movie, or rather, not hear The Dark Knight Rises.

If Christopher Nolan or Thomas Tull had been there this morning, the projection and/or management staff would all be jobless. If anyone still cared in the mass-market ehibition business, it never would have happened in the first place.