Movie Theaters

You can't call actor Logan Lerman spineless. "My whole family is in orthotics and prosthetics," he says, "so I grew up having to check for scoliosis every week. 'Come over. Let me feel your spine.' " The 17-year-old costar of "My One and Only" (with Renée Zellweger and Kevin Bacon) is also putting some backbone into his acting, despite his youth. "From a really young age, like 5 or whatever, I really wanted to do this because I really wanted to get out of school," he says with a laugh, calling from a beach at Lake Tahoe, where he's vacationing with his family.

When Tammy Hoffs arrived in Westwood Village as a young bride half a century ago, she was wowed not only by the palm trees and sunshine but also by the movie business. For that, she credits hours spent sitting in the dark with strangers at the Crest Theater. "It played a great role in my enjoyment of films and my appreciation for the aesthetics," said Hoffs, 73, an artist who became a film writer, director and producer. "It has always been one of those extraordinary places . . . a single-screen, beautiful movie palace."

"We're fixing that." That's the refrain from Gerardo "Gerry" Lopez, who was installed last month as chief executive at AMC Entertainment Inc., about how the second-biggest movie theater chain in the country must adapt to keep pace with shifts in consumer habits. Lopez has a few opinions -- not all of them kind -- about the movie theater business, which hasn't radically changed the way it does business in decades.

Moviegoers were paying more in 2007, but that doesn't mean they were going more often. Box-office revenue in the U.S. and Canada climbed 4% to $9.7 billion, the second straight year of higher receipts after dismal results in 2005. But the rise came entirely from costlier ticket prices. Attendance was flat, according to research firm Media by Numbers. Moviegoers bought 1.

Thousands of Southern Californians were no doubt clutching their seats while watching "Cloverfield," last weekend's No. 1 movie at the box office. At least a few of them were clutching their stomachs as well. Since the movie opened last Friday, some patrons said they experienced nausea and dizziness while watching the horror flick, much of which was filmed with a herky-jerky, hand-held cameras.

NEW YORK -- Recently in Fargo, N.D., moviegoers had a choice among "Aliens vs. Predator," "The Great Debaters" -- and "Macbeth," live from New York's Metropolitan Opera. Murder, mayhem, romance -- the plot elements of Verdi's opera were packing 'em in at about 600 theaters across North America, Europe, Japan and Australia. It's all part of a marketing strategy by the Met's general manager, Peter Gelb, to attract a new, younger audience.

Mathew Garcia of Boyle Heights goes to the movies about once a week, ignoring theaters in his Eastside Latino neighborhood and heading straight for the suburbs. His favorite destination: nearby Alhambra, where he says he prefers the more up-to-date and comfortable multiplexes, often featuring big screens, surround sound and stadium seating. The theaters in his neighborhood are "smaller and louder," he said.

A man who stabbed two fellow moviegoers during a Sunday night screening of a bloody horror movie in Fullerton was still being sought Tuesday, police said. The attack, described by police as random, began about 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the AMC theater in the 1000 block of South Lemon Street. Half an hour into "The Signal," a man seated in a back row stabbed a lone moviegoer in front of him, police said.

My favorite place to watch a movie in the summer is projected onto Peter Lorre's back. The mausoleum where he's buried among other early Hollywood notables is located across a grassy expanse of lawn in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, flanked by the Fairbanks memorial, offering just the right stretch of blank white wall. Every summer for the last five years, I've made it a point to make it to at least two of the screenings, and I always end the summer ruefully vowing to go to more next time.

We're lucky. As blockbuster moviegoing season gets into full swing this Memorial Day weekend, we live in a place where it's just as easy to see that new, hot indie as it is to see that old, familiar Indy (think crystal skulls). We get to do so in any one of dozens of unique theaters. And the price? Not so bad, considering the alternatives.