©1995-2001, Evans A Criswell
2001/09/06
From abiworld.org concerning Regal Cinemas (under Bankruptcy Headlines):
Regal announced yesterday that it would seek creditor approval for a plan that would restructure its $2 billion in debt and commence a voluntary bankruptcy filing within the next 45 days. The company intends to continue operations during the restructuring process and complete the restructuring within 60 to 90 days of filing.
2001/09/01
Well, I have not heard any news of Regal filing chapter 11, so Hollywood Reporter appears to have been premature in reporting their news that Regal would file Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the end of this past week.
They shouldn't feel bad, since many have predicted incorrectly before.
2001/08/27
The Hollywood Reporter Online Edition reports this morning that Regal Cinemas appears set to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week.
According to the article, the filing could come as early as today or could be at the end of the week. Carmike Cinemas filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back on August 8, 2000.
2001/08/23
A sad note: Jim Duncan, born September 22, 1921, and known for managing Decatur movie theatres for years, passed away on August 20, 2001.
Here is a link to the obituary from the Decatur Daily. Duncan managed the Gateway and Princess indoor theatres and the Bowline and Thunderbird drive-in theatres in Decatur in the 1960s and 1970s.
2001/08/02
Regal Cinemas locations will not be carrying Rush Hour 2.
Regal is not showing Rush Hour 2 to protest the way that New Line Cinemas wishes to negotiate the terms for film rental. This means that you have two choices in the area for Rush Hour 2: Carmike 10 in Huntsville or Carmike Century Cinema 8 in Decatur.
2001/08/01
Facility deductions for not having adjustable masking are now computed in a more fair manner.
The old method assumed that half the movies were flat and half were scope. Actually, since July 7, 2000, about 44 percent of the movies released to theatres in this area have been scope. This means that my "50 percent" assumption caused a larger deduction for this problem. Now that I have format data for nearly all movies, the software can more fairly adjust this deduction based on the actual percentage of scope and flat movies. Of course, I would love it if Regal would install adjustable masking at Hollywood 18 and Madison Square 12 so the problem (and the calculation) would simply disappear.
2001/07/31
The presentation quality section has a few changes.
In the ratings table, instead of the old "1-5" facility rating, there is now a more useful indication of how many stadium and digital-sound auditoriums at each facility, as well an in indication of how many screens are 1.85:1-only, if any. Letter grades are now present along with the presentation quality ratings to make it more clear that 90 and above is not an "A". In fact, below 90 is failing. On each individual theatre's detail page, there is now a summary of the most frequently-occurring problems before the list of attendances.
2001/07/31
The domain hsvmovies.com now points to this site.
Remembering "hsvmovies.com" should be much easier than the actual physical URL. Tell your friends about hsvmovies.com. Remember, although the new domain name is a ".com", hsvmovies.com is not a commercial site, contains no advertising, and no income is currently generated from this site. hsvmovies.com is in no way associated with any theatre or theatre company. The "hsvmovies.com" domain was registered on July 30, 2001.
2001/07/07
The Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur has achieved an incredible 99.4 presentation quality rating, up another tenth.
Congratulations to the management and staff of this theatre for providing such excellent image and sound quality.
2001/06/24
All theatres in the Huntsville/Decatur area have now been reviewed at least 50 times for presentation quality.
Friday night's attendance of Dr. Dolittle 2 at Carmike Century Cinema 8 was my 50th attendance there.
2001/06/14
Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur now has 4 auditoriums equipped with DTS sound.
During May, 3 new DTS systems were added. Auditorium 6, the largest, has had DTS sound for years, and now auditoriums 5, 7, and 8 have DTS as well.
2001/06/12
Today's Decatur Daily has an article about the possible opening of a new indoor theatre in Athens, AL.
The theatre would be run by the owners of the Cinemagic Drive-In, which did not reopen this summer. Part of the drive-in property was sold and the owners wish to sell the remainder of it to finance the new indoor theatre.
2001/06/04
In the historical information section, information for the Trans-Lux Twin in Huntsville has been improved.
Thanks to Bob Maar from New York, who worked for Trans-Lux for 26 years, for providing the information.
2001/06/01
The format for the graded showings listings in the presentation quality review section have changed.
Browsers seem unable to print the tables properly, so I got rid of the tables and list the graded showings in a format much friendlier for printing. Every bit of information is still there with nothing lost.
2001/06/01
Historical information is now lumped together on a per-city or per-area basis.
Some of you indicated that you would prefer all the historical information for theatres within an area to be on one html page rather than having links to a bunch of small, individual pages for each. The change has been made. Attempts to make cosmetic improvements to the new city pages will be made later. Note that Huntsville and Decatur historical information is now in two separate pages.
2001/05/21
This past weekend, I did more research on old Decatur theatres.
Information for the DeLite, Princess, Capitol, Roxy, and Elite theatres, and the Sunset Drive-In theatre in Decatur have put in place (or have been improved). Did you know that the DeLite theatre was the first Decatur movie theatre to have two projectors and use changeovers to avoid having to stop shows to change reels? See the "Historical Information" section.
2001/05/15
I regret to report that the Cinemagic Drive-In Theatre in Athens will not be re-opening this summer.
I did not want to post this news prematurely before the owners made a final decision, but now that the theatre's recorded message has been changed to make the announcement, I assume that the final decision has been made. Part of the property has been sold and the owners plan to open an indoor theatre in Athens next summer.
2001/05/11
The Regal Hollywood 18 theatre here in Huntsville was robbed on the night of May 10.
The theatre was recently robbed back on April 8 and again on the night of May 10. These types of robberies are most likely to happen after a theatre closes for the night. Exercise caution and always be aware of your surroundings when leaving a theatre, especially the later shows.
2001/05/10
I know many of you are curious about the opening date for the Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens.
The opening date has not yet been determined by the operators of the theatre.
2001/05/01
Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur may soon be getting two new DTS systems.
The new systems, if they become a reality, will likely be in auditoriums 5 and 7.
2001/04/18
A link is now provided for Space Center IMAX showtimes.
2001/04/11
This is a weird week in which some movies are being released today, on Wednesday.
I would not put too much trust in the showtimes information on the WWW sites for Regal theatres today, since Madison Square 12 has "Joe Dirt" on their marquee, but not in their WWW showtimes listing.
2001/04/05
The Perl code for this site has undergone a significant revision again.
The current version is now 5.00 and the new three-column format separates news from new movie announcements. Both are now read from data files and only a few items of each are displayed on the main page, with the remainder being on subpages to improve the appearance and load times for the main page. Please let me know what you think of the new format and if your browser has any trouble rendering any pages.
2001/04/03
The film formats section needs information on IMAX.
I'm compiling some technical information to add to that section since IMAX theatres exist in many major cities.
2001/03/30
Last night, I paid my 50th visit to Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur and saw a flawless presentation of "Heartbreakers".
Entering this visit caused this theatre's rating to rise one-tenth to become 99.3, the highest rating achieved since this site was started. When the site was begun, I never expected any theatre to achieve 99.0, much less 99.3. Congratulations to the management and staff of this location for achieving such high presentation quality so consistently over the nearly 4 years that data has been kept for this location.
2001/03/29
I have heard from one source that the contract for the horrible "Pepsi Girl With The Man Voice" Regal Cinemas policy trailer ends today.
I just hope this information is true and the trailer will be pulled soon and something less annoying will take its place.
2001/03/29
The Perl code that generates this site underwent some major revisions last night!
It's now at version 4.00. Navigation isn't perfect, but hopefully is better than it was. There is more to be done (like putting a second row of buttons which help navigate a subsection of the site, and fixing the ugly, unbalanced look of the opening page, as well as organizing some links that appear in the left column of the main page). Keep in mind that reorganization is not finished, and will continue to improve. Since this was such a major revision, please report any broken links that I missed while debugging.
2001/01/02
This should be no surprise, but the gold and silver projection quality awards for the year 2000 will go to the same theatres as in 1998 and 1999. The gold projection award goes to Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur and the silver award goes to Carmike 10 in Huntsville.
Congratulations to both. River Oaks had a 99.3 average for the year 2000, and Carmike 10 had a 97.5 for the year. These are straight unweighted arithmetic average of the scores of attendances from the year 2000, and not the usual weighted averages from the past 4 years that are normally used for ranking. It is important to note that Hollywood 18 would have gotten the silver award with a 98.9, but the deduction for not having adjustable masking in two thirds of their auditoriums causes their year 2000 average to be 91.4. The awards will be posted to the description files soon.
2001/01/02
Historical information about Colbert Theatre in Shoals area has been entered.
The Shoals historical information is now in fairly good shape.
2001/01/01
Historical information about several theatres in the Shoals area has been updated!
Many closing dates were determined (or more accurately pinpointed) and opening information was added for the Shoals Theatre and Tuscumbian Theatre. Happy New Year, everyone!
2000/12/29
There seem to be no new movies coming to Huntsville theatres this week.
By the way, Regal seems to be turning over their WWW showtimes to fandango.com . I have changed the links to use the Fandango site since the Regal links could become inactive at any time. Due to the nasty form of the link syntax, I expect to have to edit the links in the future. Please let me know if they break.
2000/12/23
Tonight's perfect presentation of What Women Want (7:15, auditorium 5) at Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur, AL has caused their projection quality rating to rise from a great 99.1 to an even more phenomenal 99.2 .
When I first began the ratings, I never thought any theatre would achieve 99.0, much less 99.2 . Congratulations to the management and staff of Regal River Oaks Cinemas for the effort, attention to detail, and years of experience that have led to such consistently high quality of projection and operations over the past three and a half years.
2000/12/04
Regal Cinemas was blocked from making a $28.5 million loan payment last Friday.
This is very similar to what happened to Carmike before their Chapter 11 filing back in August.
2000/12/01
Regal Cinemas, according to variety.com, is shutting down their Funscape arcades, effective immediately.
I have seen Funscape locations at the Mall at Green Hills in Nashville and at West Town Mall in Knoxville. Basically, the Funscape locations were like a very small 2-level mall of arcade and amusement type rooms, with some fast food places mixed in. At West Town Mall in Knoxville, the Funscape location seemed almost like a "mall within a mall". I thought the concept was very neat and it is a shame that Regal was not making money off of them.
2000/11/30
It appears that there are no new movies for the week beginning December 1, 2000.
Maybe the studios felt that Rugrats, 102 Dalmations, and The Grinch were doing well enough.
2000/11/15
Regal Cinemas reports a $113 million loss for the third quarter of 2000. Their liabilities ($2.17 billion) outweigh their assets ($2.11 billion).
2000/09/04
The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens has it's last night of business for the season on Monday, September 4, 2000.
It should reopen in the spring of 2001.
2000/08/23
Carmike has already begun closing some of their theatres after filing for bankruptcy protection on August 8.
In the Nashville, TN area, for instance, Carmike closed their Cool Springs Galleria 10 last week. It was a discount theatre and its last night of business was August 17. The Harding Mall Carmike 6, a discount theatre, will supposedly close after August 24, and so will the first-run Stones River Mall Carmike 6 in Murfreesboro. The Jackson Heights Carmike 6 in Murfreesboro, a discount theatre will supposedly close in a few months as well. I would expect more similar closings in any locations where Carmike has built a new facility near several old Carmike locations.
2000/08/18
The marquee above is new. Let me know if anyone's browser has any problems with it.
I learned to use Adobe Illustrator 9.0 last night, and that's what happened.
2000/08/08
Carmike Cinemas is filing to reorganize their business under chaper 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
2000/08/05
Please read the new disclaimer page.
I hate disclaimers, but I find it necessary to clarify some issues related to this site to clear up some confusion that may exist. Another significant change that was made to the site was the removal of the itemized problem list for the Carmike 8 in Decatur from its description file, since the current manager has made visible improvements to the presentation quality there. The theatre, on August 1, got its first "100" grade on a presentation since December 1997.
2000/07/28
As of yesterday, all theatres in operation in the Huntsville/Decatur area have been visited and reviewed at least 40 times.
As the number of reviews for a theatre increases, so does the overall accuracy of the rating computed, and the greater the chance that my rating is a reflection of the actual average presentation quality at that theatre.
2000/07/08
The Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur has achieved an incredible 99.1 projection quality rating.
Congratulations to the management and staff of this theatre for achieving such an incredibly high average. This theatre's average has been at 99.0 for several months.
2000/07/08
Scary Movie has a joke scene at the end of the credits.
This movie is in the scope format, and I noticed several scenes where actors will be cut out of the scene in the narrow auditoriums at Hollywood 18 and Madison Square 12. Be sure to see this movie in auditoriums 1, 2, 9, 10, 17, or 18 at Hollywood 18, or auditoriums 1, 2, 7, or 8 at Madison Square 12. Otherwise, 23 percent of the image will be lost on the sides at those two theatres.
2000/05/26
Regal 8 (formerly Cobb Cinema 8) on South Memorial Parkway in Huntsville is now closed.
Thursday, May 25, 2000 was the theatre's last night of business. This was a second-run theatre, built in 1982 by Cobb (quite horribly) in a location that was once an A&P grocery store. Regal closed the Gateway Cinema 4 in Decatur two weeks ago.
2000/05/12
The Regal Gateway Cinema 4 in Decatur has closed for business.
Its last night of business was May 11, 2000. This theatre had excellent projection quality for a second-run theatre and I really hated to see it close.
1999/11/22
Hollywood 16 is now Hollywood 18, with stadium seating in all auditoriums, according to their newspaper ad.
