8/18/2023 0 Comments Drive in movie theater seattleSeriously, I can't begin to tell you how moist I am. They had a long list of awesome films: Terminator 2, Bullit, Ronin, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Demolition Man, and To Live and Die in LA - all on 35mm! Looking at their past schedual, I saw films like The Green Slime, Naked Lunch, The Babadook, the holiday double feature of It's A Wonderful Life and Christmas Evil, Bad Lieutenant, The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (giallo? Who runs giallo?!?), Ricki-O, The Big Sleep and on and on and on. So that evening, while I was there, I checked out the coming soon list. But how can I pass up some awesome seventies Chopsocky? Yeah, not going to happen. The Grand Illusion? To quote Obi Wan Kenobi, that's a name I've not heard in a very long time. It was a couple of weeks ago that a friend of mine mentioned that he was going to the Grand Illusion to catch a Shaw Brothers Kung Fu double feature. But, on the whole, I had enough fun to warrant a 4-dot. Some folks would let the low concession quality and chintzy parking validation denial ruin everything. My one significant complaint is that they do not validate your parking pass- like Cinemark Lincoln Square (Bellevue, WA), Cinemark Lincoln Reserve (Bellevue, WA), and Pointe Orlando (FL) all do - which is between $7 & $20 (at night! Forget about daytime rates), depending on the garage. *sigh* Suboptimal, to be sure, but in a case of superb customer service, the manager comped me both items and genuinely apologized for the concessionary shock to the system that rattled the otherwise spectacular experience. However, they made up for it by the soda syrup being out, so I also had a large tankard of carbonated water to wash down the naked popcorn. Whether a mistake or an assumption that I didn't want salt, it was still a major drag. I ordered popcorn without butter and got that - but also without anything. Here's where it gets all "the whole is greater than the parts" and so forth. No jest, it was like living in a video game. Yeah, exactly! Imagine your first 4D movie being THAT spectacle, with the water puff every time they dove into the ocean, or the wind in my face and light tilt of the seat as we rode the "Banshees" through the air, or the rotating light and sound as we were circled by combat choppers. In this case, it was Avatar: The Way of Water. ![]() It was feeling all of the environmental immersion and involvement to a regular movie, and not just the theme park attractions that I knew like my dog's begging eyes. I.! Now, I've been doing 4D for many a year that wasn't what was so cool. I secured my standard popcorn & soda combo and skipped (okay, walked) to the cinema house speculating on the sensory supernova that I was soon to sublime in. ![]() ![]() Making my way upstairs to the box office and concession counter, I was already in like with the unique layout that all but eliminated the bunching up that typically happens at the standard ticket/concession counter. Nestled on a downtown corner across from the convention center that once housed PAX West and Emerald City ComicCon, I found a multilevel monument to cinema culture that delivered a fine first impression. ![]() Aw yeah, this bore investigation, schnell! (That was my Gold Edition, Director's Cut happy place, man, I'm not joking.) So, imagine my shock and joy upon discovering a local movie theater with the same atmospheric special effects (wind, water-spritz, peripheral-vision lightning flashes, gently gliding seats, etc.) as my beloved Minions and Shrek 4D attractions (before being replaced). Moving from FL to Seattle recently, I was wearing a black armband over the uselessness of my still-active Universal Studios Annual Pass. One really good or bad thing doesn't tell the story. As you can tell from any of my reviews, I recognize that the overall experience - from start to finish - is what's actually important.
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