On New Theaters, Indiana Jones and Skyrocketing Prices

Ground will be broken on the long-anticipated Cineplex Odeon 10-theater complex at the South Towne Center on 1 July 1989. The multiplex movie house is scheduled to open 16 December 1989.

Chris Hicks, Deseret News movie critic, commented on the ground-breaking because the "already oversaturated Salt Lake Valley movie market will be a little more saturated" and "we may see an example of Cineplex Odeon's notorious mini-theater, the 100-seat box with the postage-stamp screen".

A couple weeks earlier, Chris Hicks and his wife saw a movie in Cineplex Odeon's 14-screen multiplex on the top floor of the Beverly Center Mall in Beverly Hills. "We didn't know the size of the auditorium going in, of course - we chose a movie, not a theater. But upon entering we both automatically looked at each other and laughed out loud. 'It feels like we're in someone's living room,' Joyce said. I replied, 'Yeah, watching a movie on the wall.'"

Although the sound was good and the seats comfortable, but there was "a rowdy group of teenagers apparently there to party, not watch a movie. Altogether there were maybe 25 people in this 100-seat theater, and the teens were asked to quiet down by nearly every one of us, from the front row to the back row. There was simply no place to go to get away from them."

Salt Lake's Blue Mouse art theater has only 120 seats, but the auditorium is stretched out like a long hallway and the audience there tends to be more reverent.



Where you should see "The Last Crusade" depends on what you're looking for. The Movies 7 multiplex in Sandy has the least costly showing, and in one auditorium you can experience the THX sound system, "a superlative creation from George Lucas' Lucasfilm company. The Movies 7 print is geared specifically for the THX sound system, and that theater is the only one in Utah equipped with THX sound."

"The Last Crusade" was originally recorded in Dolby Stereo, so the stereo sound at the other theaters is also excellent.

If you want the ultrawide screen experience of 70mm, large upstairs auditorium at Cineplex Odeon's Trolley Corners theater has rocking chairs and great sight-lines for every seat. Mann's Villa Theater, which had the first two "Indiana Jones" films exclusively, has that wrap-around Cinerama screen that really does enhance the picture to "put you in the action.''