Looking back, I think I've been pretty lucky in my moviegoing -- I've almost never missed out due to technical problems, power failures, etc. I noticed this now because this evening I got burned for the second time in nine months. The first time was when I saw Peter Jackson's King Kong last December; I think someone forgot to rewind one of the reels, because the movie suddenly started running upside down and backwards. This evening it was a burned-out projector motor -- the movie started to slow down, everyone's voices dropped low, and finally it came to a stop and the screen went blank. The thing is, it took five minutes for anyone in the the audience to realize it was a problem. How could that happen? Well, the movie in question was Crank, and if you've seen it, you're aware of all the strange effects it uses to depict the protagonist's mental state. So when everything got a little dreamlike and slow, and Jason Statham started sounding like a Hebridean Thulsa Doom , everyone took it in stride till the lights came up.

Unfortunately the problem couldn't be fixed and so, just like Devonshire did with King Kong, the Silver City management handed out free passes and popcorn coupons. That's nice and everything, but they still have my $9.95 for half a movie. It doesn't actually cost them anything to let me in to see another movie, and popcorn should basically be free. I suppose if I had really made a stink I could have got my money back. I just hope I'm not turning into a movie jinx in my old age.