Movie Theatre Information, Huntsville and Decatur, AL

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©1998-2007, Evans A Criswell

News Archive

2008/06/26 The Madison Square 12 theatre at Madison Square Mall in Huntsville has recently changed ownership and is now owned by Touchstar Cinemas. The showtimes link was updated.
2007/11/14 The Monaco Pictures 14 at Bridge Street will have their grand opening in Huntsville on November 16, 2007 at 4:00 PM. Four of the theatres will offer reserved-seating balconies for age 21 and over, offering wine tasting, appetizer dining, and upscale concessions.
2006/07/29 The Cinemagic Theatre in Athens now has a web site, which is now linked from the showtimes area on the left side of this main page. However, their showtimes page looks fine in Internet Explorer, but is mostly unreadable using Firefox. Their information line is (256) 233-0402.
2006/07/14 The showtimes number for the Cinemagic Theatre in Athens is (256) 233-0402. As far as I know, the Cinemagic has no showtimes web site to which I can link.
2006/06/30 Movies showing at the Cinemagic Theatre in Athens this week are Superman Returns, The Devil Wears Prada, Cars, Click, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and with Nacho Libre on the drive-in screen. The number for the theatre information is (256) 233-0402.
2006/06/23 The Cinemagic Theatre began full operation last week with all 5 indoor screens and the drive-in is open as well. Movies showing starting June 23: Click, Cars, Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Nacho Libre, and with Over the Hedge on the drive-in screen.
2006/06/16 The Cinemagic Theatre begins full operation tonight with all 5 indoor screens and the drive-in open as well. Movies showing: Cars,Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Nacho Libre, The Omen, and with X-Men 3 on the drive-in screen.
2006/06/09 The Cinemagic Theatre in Athens is showing Cars, X-Men: The Last Stand, and The Omen. It appears that only three screens are in operation and the drive-in will be open later in June. The information number for the theatre is (256) 233-0402.
2006/06/05 The movie information number for the Cinemagic Theatre in Athens is (256) 233-0402. Several people have asked about the number.
2006/05/22 The new Cinemagic Theatre in Athens will open this Friday, May 26. Three auditoriums will be open, showing The DaVinci Code, Over The Hedge, and X-Men: The Last Stand. The remaining two auditoriums, and the drive-in portion, will open in June. The Cinemagic Theatre will feature stadium seating and digital sound in all auditoriums.
2006/05/01 The new Rave Valley Bend 18 opens May 5. The theatre will have stadium seating and digital sound in all auditoriums and is located behind the Target shopping center in Jones Valley. Auditoriums range in capacity from 465 seats to 105 seats.
2006/04/04 Along with the Cinemagic Drive-In opening in Athens this year, a 5-screen theatre is scheduled to open as well. The new theatre is to have stadium seating and digital sound and will be the first indoor theatre operating in Athens since the Athens Cinema closed in 1983.
2006/01/26 Brokeback Mountain is finally coming to Huntsville and Decatur on January 27. It will be playing at Carmike 10 and Regal Hollywood 18 in Huntsville, and Regal River Oaks Cinemas 8 in Decatur.
2006/01/05 Happy New Year! The first new movies released this year are on Friday, January 6.
2005/12/21 Cheaper By The Dozen 2 and Fun With Dick and Jane start tonight (Wednesday, December 21). Normally, movies start on Friday. Movies released on Friday, December 23 are The Ringer and Memoirs of a Geisha. Rumor Has It and Wolf Creek will start Christmas night.
2005/12/14 If anyone receives SPAM from any user at the hsvmovies.com domain, rest assured it was spoofed and not sent by me, Evans A Criswell, the only admin for this domain. I have received 400 bounced messages that seem to have been sent from sales@hsvmovies.com, and there is no such account (in fact, there is really only one account, which is mine). Anything sent to sales@hsvmovies.com goes to the bit bucket.
2005/12/13 King Kong starts Wednesday, December 14. There will be a midnight showing on Tuesday, December 13 at Regal Hollywood 18 in Huntsville.
2005/11/22 Because of Thanksgiving, this is a Wednesday release week. All new movies start Wednesday instead of Friday.
2005/11/17 There will be midnight showings of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tonight (Thursday) at Regal Hollywood 18 in Hunstsville. I'm also lifting the ban on email from yahoo.com and aol.com to see if the SPAM from those domains has stopped.
2005/09/29 Due to a sudden surge of SPAM coming into this domain, several domains have been blacklisted from sending email to the hsvmovies.com domain. These include yahoo.com, aol.com, partypoker.com, ru55ian.com, and vistech.com. If you are a legitimate person attempting to send email from one of those domains, I apologize for the inconvenience, but I'm not going to sift through dozens of messages containing the exact same binary attachment every day. Messages from these domains will not bounce, but will simply go into the bit-bucket.
2005/09/08 September 8 is the last night of business for the Cinemagic Drive-In for the season.
2005/09/02 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens will pick up Valiant and drop The Dukes of Hazzard. The Brothers Grimm will continue to be shown.
2005/08/26 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens will be showing The Brothers Grimm on screen 1 starting tonight. The Dukes of Hazzard will be on screen 2.
2005/08/19 There is no change in showtimes for the Cinemagic Drive-In this week. Dukes of Hazzard and Sky High continue to be shown.
2005/08/11 The Cinemagic Drive-In will continue showing Dukes of Hazzard on Friday, August 12. Stealth will be dropped and Sky High will be added.
2005/08/05 The Cinemagic Drive-In will begin showing Dukes of Hazzard on Friday, August 5. Stealth will be kept and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will be dropped.
2005/07/28 The Cinemagic Drive-In will begin showing Stealth on Friday, July 29. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will be kept and Fantastic Four will be dropped.
2005/07/21 The Cinemagic Drive-In is keeping Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Four for next week.
2005/07/14 There will be midnight showings of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Wedding Crashers late Thursday night at Regal Hollywood 18 in Huntsville. At the Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will begin Friday night, July 15. War of the Worlds will be dropped and Fantastic Four will be kept as the second movie.
2005/07/07 Fantastic Four starts Friday, July 8 at the Cinemagic Drive-In. War of the Worlds will be kept at the drive-in and Herbie: Fully Loaded will be dropped.
2005/06/29 War of the Worlds starts Wednesday, June 29 at theatres, including the Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens (on screen 1). The Cinemagic is keeping Herbie: Fully Loaded on screen 2 and is dropping Batman Begins.
2005/06/23 The Cinemagic Drive-In will begin showing Herbie: Fully Loaded on Friday, June 24. Batman Begins will be kept and Mr. and Mrs. Smith will be dropped.
2005/06/14 Batman Begins starts Wednesday, June 15. There will be a midnight showing at Regal Hollywood 18 the night of June 14. Also, the movie is starting Wednesday night at the Cinemagic Drive-In
2005/06/09 The Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up Mr. and Mrs. Smith on Friday, June 10. Star Wars III will be dropped and Madagascar will be kept.
2005/06/03 The Cinemagic Drive-In will continue to show Star Wars III and Madagascar. However, Madagascar is moved to screen 1 and Star Wars III to screen 2 starting tonight.
2005/05/26 The Cinemagic Drive-In will keep Star Wars Episode III and get Madagascar starting this Friday, May 27. Kicking and Screaming will be dropped.
2005/05/17 There will be midnight showings of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith at Regal Hollywood 18, Carmike 10, and Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 Wednesday night. Normal showings will begin Thursday, May 19. The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens will also be showing it starting Thursday, May 19.
2005/05/12 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens will drop The Pacifier and pick up Kicking and Screaming on Friday, May 13 A Lot Like Love will continue being shown.
2005/05/05 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens will drop Sahara and pick up A Lot Like Love on Friday, May 6 The Pacifier will continue being shown.
2005/04/26 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens will reopen Friday, April 29, with the movies Sahara on screen 1 and The Pacifier on screen 2. Admission prices are $5 for adults and $2 for children ages 3-11. The box office will open at 7 PM and shows start at dusk. There is only one showing each night of each movie. The drive-in is located on Jefferson Street not far south of US 72.
2005/04/20 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens will reopen for the season on Friday, April 29, 2005. The information line for the Cinemagic is (256) 233-0402 and the showtimes will be available on this web site as the information becomes available.
2005/04/08 As of today, I decided to no longer generate presentation-quality ratings for the theatres as I've been doing since February 9, 1998. I have left all of the Perl code in place to do so, and still provide individual ratings of showings attended, but feel that since I've only seen three movies this year, I'm no longer attending enough movies for my statistics to be as accurate as before. A theatre needs to be visited at least once every two months to provide fair, accurate ratings, and a couple of theatres have not been visited in 5 or 6 months. Another important factor in my decision is the total lack of feedback on the presentation quality review section, due to the sad fact that very few people care about presentation quality in the movie theatres. The historical section generates the most feedback, while the main page with the showtime links and new movie information generates the most hits.
2005/03/29 Beauty Shop starts Wednesday, March 30 this week. Normally, movies start on Fridays.
2005/03/24 Miss Congeniality 2 starts Thursday, March 24 instead of Friday. Friday is the normal release day for movies. Beauty Shop starts Wednesday of next week, on March 30, another odd release day.
2005/02/17 Site down for most of February 17, 2005. A spammer managed to send nearly 20000 bank fraud spam email messages using my account (not simply spoofed) on my domain service provider and the system administrator had no choice but to shut it down while the cause was being investigated. The most likely cause was some old abandoned forum software (now gone) laying around in my account.
2005/01/20 Assault on Precinct 13 started Wednesday, January 19. Normally, movies come out on Fridays. Beyond the Sea and Are We There Yet start January 21.
2004/12/31 It appears no new movies are coming out today. Happy New Years Eve, everyone!
2004/12/25 Merry Christmas, Everyone!
2004/12/23 Please note that the new movies for this weekend start Christmas Day on Saturday. Normally, Friday is the opening day for movies.
2004/12/22 Meet the Fockers starts December 22, on a Wednesday instead of the usual Friday. A number of movies will be starting on Christmas Day this year, and the list will be updated later this week.
2004/11/24 Due to Thanksgiving, this is a Wednesday release week. Alexander and Christmas With the Kranks both start today.
2004/11/10 The Polar Express starts on Wednesday, November 10. Normally, new movies start on Fridays.
2004/11/04 According to Fandango, it appears that Regal Hollywood 18 in Huntsville is running a special showing of The Polar Express at 4:00 PM this coming Saturday. The movie comes out on Wednesday, November 10.
2004/09/30 Carmike 10 in Huntsville is picking up the Monty Python movie Life of Brian. It starts Friday, October 1, 2004.
2004/09/03 The Cinemagic Drive-In will have its last week of the season starting Friday. Princess Diaries 2 (large screen) and The Bourne Supremacy (small screen) will be the movies shown during the final week. September 3 is free movie poster night until supplies run out. The final night of normal operation will be September 9. On September 11, in conjunction with the Huntsville Film Co-op, there will be an animated film festival. The festival films will be for mature audiences only.
2004/08/26 The Cinemagic Drive-In will begin showing Collateral this coming Friday on screen 2 (the small one). Princess Diaries 2 will be kept (on screen 1, the large one) and Alien vs. Predator will be dropped.
2004/08/19 The Cinemagic Drive-In information line is not indicating any new movies for Friday as of 2:45 PM today. This means that Princess Diaries 2 and Alien vs. Predator will continue to be shown.
2004/08/13 The Cinemagic Drive-In will begin showing Princess Diaries 2 and Alien vs. Predator tonight. Princess Diaries 2 is on the large screen, according to the information line.
2004/08/11 Princess Diaries 2 starts today (Wednesday) instead of Friday. Alien vs. Predator and Yu-Gi-Oh! start Friday.
2004/08/05 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens will pick up Catwoman and drop I, Robot tomorrow, August 6. The Village will continue being shown.
2004/07/29 Regal Hollywood 18 in Huntsville will have a midnight showing of The Village tonight. Regular showings of The Village start tomorrow, July 30.
2004/07/28 The Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up The Village on Friday, July 30. I, Robot will be kept and Spider-Man 2 will be dropped.
2004/07/22 The Cinemagic Drive-In's information recording is not indicating any change for this Friday. If there is no change, then I, Robot will continue to be on screen 1 and Spider-Man 2 will continue to be on screen 2.
2004/07/15 There will be a 12:01 (after midnight) showing of I, Robot at Regal Hollywood 18 in Huntsville tonight. According to the showtimes web sites, at 9:50 AM, it's the only showing after midnight tonight. Normal showings of I, Robot start tomorrow.
2004/07/14 The Cinemagic Drive-In will begin showing I, Robot Friday, July 16. Spider-Man 2 will be kept and Garfield will be dropped.
2004/07/08 The Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up Garfield tomorrow night (July 9). Dodgeball will be dropped and Spider-Man 2 will remain.
2004/07/06 King Arthur starts Wednesday, July 7 this week. Normally, new movies start on Fridays.
2004/06/29 Lots of people have asked about Fahrenheit 9/11. It will be showing starting Friday, July 2, at Regal Madison Square 12 in Huntsville and Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur.
2004/06/28 There will be special Tuesday night showings of Spider-Man 2 at 12:01 at Regal Hollywood 18 and Carmike 10 in Huntsville, and Carmike Cnetury Cinema 8 in Decatur. Opening day for Spider-Man 2 is Wednesday, June 30, at the above theatres, plus the Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens.
2004/06/25 Dodgeball and Harry Potter will start at the Cinemagic Drive-In tonight. Dodgeball is on screen 1. Spiderman 2 will start next Wednesday.
2004/06/22 White Chicks starts tomorrow night (Wednesday, June 23). Saved, Two Brothers, and The Notebook will start on the usual Friday (June 25) release day.
2004/06/18 The Cinemagic Drive-In, according to the information line, will still be showing Shrek 2 and The Chronicles of Riddick this week. The recording (at 233-0402) did not change this morning (as of 9:45 AM).
2004/06/16 This is another Wednesday release week. Around the World in 80 Days starts today. Normally, movies are released on Fridays.
2004/06/11 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens is picking up The Chronicles of Riddick tomorrow, June 11 for screen 2. The Day After Tomorrow will be dropped and Shrek 2 will remain on screen 1 (the large one).
2004/06/04 As of 7:40 AM this morning, there has been no change in the Cinemagic Drive-In movie information recording at 233-0402. Shrek 2 on screen 1 and The Day After Tomorrow on screen 2 are still playing.
2004/05/28 The Day After Tomorrow starts tonight at the Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens. Shrek 2 will be kept and Mean Girls will end. Shrek 2 will still be on the large screen.
2004/05/18 This is a Wednesday release week. Shrek 2 opens May 19 at Regal River Oaks Cinema 8, Carmike 10, Regal Hollywood 18, and the Cinemagic Drive-In.
2004/05/14 The Cinemagic Drive-In is continuing to show Van Helsing and New York Minute this weekend. Shrek 2 will start there on Wednesday, May 19, 2004.
2004/05/07 The URL for the Space and Rocket Center IMAX schedule changed again, as it often does. This time, their website has lots of cute JavaScript stuff in it, and to access the IMAX theatre schedule you have to click something that brings up a popup window, and if you have those disabled in your browser (like I do), it won't work. That's a perfect example of how not to design a website for schedule information.
2004/05/07 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens, AL will be showing Van Helsing and New York Minute starting tonight. Van Helsing will be on the large screen, according to the information line (233-0402).
2004/04/26 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens, AL will open Friday, April 30, 2004, with the two movies The Passion of the Christ on screen 1 and Scooby Doo 2 on screen 2. Admission is $5 for adults and $2 for children ages 3-11.
2004/03/19 The Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens, AL will reopen on April 30, 2004 for the season. This drive-in is located on Jefferson Street, south of US 72.
2004/02/29 The Passion of the Christ has continued to cause record numbers of hits on this site. I owe a huge Thank You to all of the site users out there. Friday's hits were only slightly more than Wednesday's, which was surprising. Friday, February 27 is now the day with the most hits ever since the site's creation.
2004/02/26 Wednesday, February 25, 2004 shattered the previous record for number of hits on this site in a day since its creation. This site's heaviest traffic typically always occurs on Fridays, but Wednesday's hits, corresponding with the opening of The Passion of the Christ, saw a 20.8 percent increase over the previous daily hit record. This is important, because this traffic level dwarfs that which happened when Spiderman and Star Wars: Episode II were released, and on a Wednesday. I'm very curious to see what Friday's hit count will be. There is typically a direct correlation between hits on this site and money made at the box office for the top few movies of the weekend. Of course, this week could be an exception. This movie grossed $23.5 million on opening day, the fifth largest for a Wednesday opening ever.
2004/02/23 The Passion of the Christ opens this Wednesday, February 25, 2004. Normally, new movies are released on Fridays.
2004/02/22 The Birmingham, AL and Nashville, TN historical information pages now have the listings of first movies shown at the theatres for which I have grand opening ads. These include 43 Nashville theatres and 16 of the more recent Birmingham theatres. There will be some redundancy between the information from the data files and the description files (the opening date, and for single-screen theatres, the first movie shown). The redundancies will be eliminated as the description files are modified to fit better with the new way of doing things.
2004/02/16 On Saturday, February 14, 2004, I went to Birmingham, AL and got the grand opening ads for 16 of the more recent theatres there, and the information from those will be available soon. The additional historical information, along with the Nashville data collected during December and January (43 grand opening ads), will be added as well. The historical data organization was insufficient to handle that volume of data, so I've been having to rework the data format the program to deal with it in a more flexible way. (Growing pains).
2004/02/03 Welcome to Version 7.00 of hsvmovies.com! Although the HTML generated is almost identical to the previous version (6.20), the Perl code that generates most of the HTML for this site was rewritten from scratch in object-oriented style, which will allow me to more easily modify the site and add new features. Please report any problems or broken links. I expect that there will be more bugs to be ironed out due to the drastic code and data reorganization.
2004/01/04 Historical information for Chattanooga, TN has been added. This was the first Chattanooga research done, on December 29, 2003. Future research will be needed to get more specific dates and to determine if some theatres changed names.
2004/01/03 Historical information for Nashville, TN has been improved. The opening dates for many theatres that opened since 1970 now have the opening date range narrowed to a 6-month interval, improved from a 2-year interval.
2004/01/01 Happy New Year to all hsvmovies.com users! It's been a pleasure maintaining this web site as a hobby and it is hoped that all of you have found it useful during the past 6 years. As we continue into 2004, I wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year!
2003/12/31 The gold and silver projection quality awards go to the same recipients who have earned them in previous years. The gold projection quality award goes to the Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur (highest score of -0.2, an A+) and the silver award goes to the Carmike 10 in Huntsville (second highest score of -1.7, an A). Congratulations to the management and staff of these theatres for maintaining high presentation quality standards.
2003/12/30 Historical Information for Columbia TN has been improved. Opening dates and first movies were found for the Shady Brooks Cinemas, Cinema 1 and 2, Dan-Dee Drive-In, Sundown Drive-In, and Polk Theatre. This research was done today at the Maury County Archives in Columbia, TN.
2003/12/19 I'm hearing widespread reports of digital sound dropout problems with Lord of the Rings: Return of the King when Dolby Digital is used. My advice to moviegoers is to seek showings that use DTS sound and avoid Dolby Digital sound. This is difficult these days, since the digital format in use is not indicated in some ads, and the box office person may not know one from the other. At Carmike 10 in Huntsville, try auditorium 1 or 10 instead of 5 or 6, or try auditorium 6 at Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur. I have already heard about problems at Hollywood 18 and Carmike 10 from several friends. However, this is due to defects in the film itself and is not the theatres' fault. This is happening all over the country.
2003/12/16 From the theatre showtimes sites, it appears that there are showings of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King one minute after midnight tonight. Theatres listing midnight showings for tonight are Regal Hollywood 18 and Carmike 10 in Huntsville, and Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur. The movie opens tomorrow, Wednesday, December 17.
2003/12/08 13 (yes, thirteen) commercials were shown before Bad Santa earlier tonight at a Regal theatre. This is a new record over the previous record of 10. 7 minutes out of the 20 minutes of pre-show material consisted of commercials rather than movie previews. I've noticed a drastic increase in commercials shown before previews at Regal theatres in the past couple of months.
2003/11/24 Four movies will be released on Wednesday, November 26, 2003 instead of Friday, November 28. The reason for the Wednesday releases is Thanksgiving being Thursday of this week.
2003/11/04 The Matrix Revolutions is being released this Wednesday, November 5, 2003. Normally, movies are released on Fridays.
2003/10/30 This weekend, Brother Bear opens on Saturday, November 1, instead of the normal Friday release day. Also, Hollywood 18 is picking up the movie Luther which started at Carmike Century Cinema 8 in Decatur last Friday (October 24). The movie Brother Bear begins in the 1.85:1 aspect (with black bars on the sides), then switches to the 2.39:1 ratio at the point where the Kenai character gets transformed into a bear.
2003/10/22 Huntsville may have yet another new theatre coming soon. The Huntsville Times is reporting today that Rave Motion Pictures, who opened a 10-plex in Birmingham (Vestavia Hills) on November 1, 2002, is planning to put an 18-screen theatre with a total seating capacity of 4090 in the Jones valley area behind the SuperTarget shopping center. Back on September 25, it was announced that Regal was building a 16-plex at Bridge Street in Cummings Research Park. If both of these theatres come to fruition, Huntsville will have 5 theatre complexes with a total of 74 screens, assuming all existing theatres continue to operate. The theatres currently operating in Huntsville are
- Regal Madison Square 12 (since June 28, 1985, originally a Cobb 8-plex)
- Regal Hollywood 18 (since July 15, 1994, originally a Cobb 16-plex)
- Carmike 10 (since March 5, 1998)
2003/10/06 Historical information for theatres in Albertville has been improved. Information has been added based on research done on the night of October 6, 2003.
2003/10/05 Historical information for theatres in Boaz and Guntersville has been improved. Information has been added based on research done on September 27 and October 4, 2003.
2003/09/28 If you are reading this news item, then you are seeing hsvmovies.com on the new server. If so, you may bookmark this page. The DNS change was submitted at 22:25 CDT on September 28. 2003. If any broken links or other problems are encountered, please report them.
2003/09/25 Regal Entertainment is planning a 16-screen theatre for the Research Park area in Huntsville, AL. The theatre is planned for the Bridge Street project, which will be located just west of the intersection of AL 255 (Research Park Blvd. or Rideout Road) and Old Madison Pike.
2003/09/18 On September 18, 2003 at 11 PM, I finished some major reorganization of the Perl program which generates many of the HTML pages of this site. Please let me know of any problems (broken links or other weirdnesses) that I might have missed in the script reorganization.
2003/09/05 September 4, 2003 was the last night of business of the season for the Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens. Freaky Friday and S.W.A.T. were shown there the last week of business.
2003/08/27 The Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up Freaky Friday and will keep S.W.A.T. this Friday, August 29, 2003. These will be the last movies shown there this year. September 4, 2003 will be the last night of operation for the Cinemagic Drive-In this season.
2003/08/13 The Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up Legally Blonde 2 and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen this Friday, August 15. The information number for the Cinemagic is (256) 233-0402.
2002/08/11 The showtimes for the Carmike 8 in Decatur on Carmike's WWW site are working again. Last week, I noticed that the Florence Carmike showtimes were also not working and those have been fixed as well.
2003/08/06 It's another Wednesday release week. Freaky Friday starts today instead of Friday. The Cinemagic Drive-In will get Terminator 3 (and continue to show Spy Kids 3D) and drop Pirates of the Caribbean starting this Friday.
2003/08/04 Attempting to get showtimes for the Carmike 8 in Decatur through Carmike's WWW site is still resulting in an error. It seems that Carmike puts the same level of care into their corporate WWW site as they do in maintaining and improving the Decatur location. The Carmike 10 showtimes work.
2003/08/03 This site is accessible again after the moving of the HiWAAY.net servers. As predicted, this site was inaccessible for roughly 24 hours, but all is again well.
2003/08/01 IMPORTANT: hsvmovies.com will likely be inaccessible during all or part of the time inverval starting Saturday, August 2, 2003 at 10:30 AM CDT until the early hours of Sunday, August 3, 2003. ."HiWAAY.net servers are currently used for the physical storage of the files that make up this site
2003/08/01 Showtimes on the Carmike WWW site are not working for the Decatur location. Attempting to pull up showtimes using the link I provide, or by going through their selection mechanism, yields an ODBC error!
2003/07/18 The Cinemagic Drive-In is continuing to show Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Nemo this week. The movie information line for the Cinemagic Drive-In is 233-0402 (Athens).
2003/07/11 Although Pirates of the Caribbean was released Wednesday, there are two more movies coming today, Friday, July 11. These are League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LXG) and Whale Rider.
2003/07/08 This is another Wednesday release week. Pirates of the Caribbean starts tomorrow (Wednesday, July 9). It will be shown at the Carmike 10, Regal Hollywood 18, Regal River Oaks Cinema 8, and the Cinemagic Drive-In.
2003/07/05 The margin of error column has been removed from the presentation quality review table. Back when there was a large difference in the numbers of rated showings for each theatre, this column served the purpose of indicating that some ratings were more reliable than others. Due to the way that the column was calculated, it really gave no more rating reliability information than the number of visits and the standard deviation. Another problem with the column is that it was calculated on unweighted data rather than weighted data. This column will be left out to avoid creating extra clutter in the ratings table, and if needed in the future, will be replaced with something more mathematically sound.
2003/07/02 Terminator 3, Legally Blonde 2, and Sinbad all start today (Wednesday). Movies usually start on Friday, but this is the week of July 4.
2003/06/30 Historical information for Anniston, Alabama has been improved. Opening and first movie data for the AmStar 12, Calhoun Theatre, Cameo Theatre, Skyway Drive-In, Midway Drive-In, and Bama Drive-In had been collected on Saturday, June 21, 2003, but not entered. This oversight was rectified.
2003/06/30 Historical information for theatres in Rome, Georgia is now in place. I spent a rather fruitful afternoon at the library in Rome this past Saturday afternoon and got opening dates/information for most of their theatres back through 1929.
2003/06/23 Information about the opening of the Ritz Theatre in Athens in 1928 was added. I found a piece about the theatre's opening in the book Moving Places: A Life at the Movies by Jonathan Rosenbaum.
2003/06/15 Historical information for a couple of the Athens theatres has been improved. The opening dates and first movies for the Hatfield Drive-In and Athens Cinema were discovered.
2003/06/07 Historical information for some of the Cullman theatres has been improved. One of my previous sources of information had wrong opening dates for two of the theatres. The Town Square Triple, MarBro Drive-In, and Martin theatres now have opening date information and first movie information.
2003/06/06 Historical information for several of the Gadsden theatres has been improved. Exact opening dates and first movies shown have been added for a few old Gadsden theatres.
2003/05/25 Opening dates for three of Anniston's theatres have been added. The multiplexes of the 70s, 80s, and 90s (the Cheaha, the Plaza, and the Carmike 6) now have their opening dates and first movies shown listed on the historical page for Anniston, AL.
2003/05/14 The Matrix Reloaded will begin May 14 at 10 PM. Even though the release date has been well publicized as May 15, the movie is playing starting at 10 PM on May 14 at Regal Hollywood 18, Carmike 10, and Regal River Oaks Cinema 8.
2003/04/24 The Cinemagic Drive-In will reopen for the season on Friday, May 2, 2003. The movies planned to be shown opening night are X-Men 2 and The Lizzy McGuire Movie.
2003/04/23 The presentation quality rating for the Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur just rose another tenth of a point to -0.1, just one tenth of a point from a perfect score. When I devised the rating scale, I never anticipated a theatre doing this well. Tonight was the 22nd showing attended in a row with no points deducted for any presentation problems, something no other area theatre has ever come close to accomplishing. Congratulations to the management and staff of this location for achieving such outstanding presentation quality!
2003/04/20 According to today's Athens News-Courier, Athens is set to get a 12-screen theatre by April 2004. "Rene Hood is developing a 72-store outlet mall and the theatre
2003/03/14 It appears that the installation of adjustable screen masking in the Huntsville Regal locations (Madison Square 12 and Hollywood 18) is complete. The facility deduction associated with the lack of ability to show both the flat and scope formats properly in the affected auditoriums is now gone. Many thanks to Regal for caring enough about their theatres here to make this improvement!
2003/02/21 The next time you attend a movie, please familiariaze yourself with all of the exits, both from the building in general, and from the auditorium itself. The Rhode Island night club fire is a harsh reminder of how familiarality with the building layout and the locations of the exits can make a difference in life or death in case of a fire. If not already familiar with the layout of the building, look around while on the way to the auditorium. Know where the hallways lead, and where the exits are. Before the lights go down and the projector is started in the auditorium, visually locate every exit in the front and rear and figure the best way to get out in case a fire started in either the front or rear.
2003/02/09 Some of the historical data was improved this weekend. See the historical information section. Information was improved for some of the Gadsden theatres and many small pieces of information were added for many theatres in many cities.
2003/02/07 Adjustable masking upgrades at Regal Hollywood 18 and Regal Madison Square 12 are progressing. All but two auditoriums at each location have not been upgraded. This progress has caused a shift in the projection quality ratings during the past two months. The Hollywood 18 and Madison Square 12 have had drastically improved ratings due to the changes, which will improve again when the work is completed. Many thanks to Regal Cinemas for these important upgrades, which allow the entire movie image to be shown for both scope (2.39:1) and flat (1.85:1) movie prints.
2003/01/02 The upgrades of the smaller auditoriums at Regal Hollywood 18 to have adjustable masking is well under way. Currently, only auditoriums 5, 14, and 15 remain to be upgraded. All others are now capable of properly showing both the flat and scope formats without image cropping. Regal deserves a lot of praise for this upgrade, which is supposedly being done for all former Cobb locations, not just those in Huntsville.
2002/12/31 It's time once again at the end of another year to assign the gold and silver projection quality awards. The Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur gets the gold projection quality award (with a rating of -0.2, an A+) and the Carmike 10 in Huntsville gets the silver projection quality award (with a rating of -1.3, an A). The gold award is given to the theatre with the best presentation quality rating and the silver award to the second-best.
2002/12/25 Two movies were released on Christmas Day this year. Catch Me If You Can and Pinocchio started December 25 (Wednesday) instead of Friday, December 27.
2002/12/18 Regal is in the process of installing adjustable screen masking in the smaller auditoriums at Regal Hollywood 18 and Madison Square 12. This upgrade will allow showing both the flat and scope movie formats without the loss of 23 percent of the image when scope movies are shown. Some screens have been upgraded. Auditoriums 10 and 11 at Madison Square 12, and auditoriums 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 12 at Hollywood 18 have been upgraded. Other screens should be upgraded soon. Regal deserves much praise for fixing this problem that was inherent in both these theatres upon acquisition from Cobb Theatres on August 1, 1997.
2002/12/17 It appears that there will be midnight showings of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers tonight (Tuesday) for those of you who want to see it as soon as possible. The two theatres with the midnight showings are Regal Hollywood 18 in Huntsville and Carmike Century Cinema 8 in Decatur.
2002/12/14 This coming week, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers will be released on Wednesday, December 18. New movies normally come out on Fridays, but this week, like the last week of November, is an exception.
2002/11/26 This week, movies are being released on Wednesday instead of Friday. Look for all of the new movies to start on November 27 this week.
2002/11/08 As of tonight, the Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur has been visited and reviewed by me 20 consecutive times (December 23, 2000 through tonight) with no deductions for presentation quality defects. With tonight's attendance of Punch Drunk Love, this theatre's rating jumped up to an incredible -0.2 (a very high A+). Congratulations to the management and staff of Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 for their incredibly excellent presentation quality!
2002/11/08 The installation of adjustable masking at the Huntsville Regal theatres will likely occur in December. This is a very busy time of the year for the theatre industry, so I would not blame Regal if they delayed this work until after the new year. In any case, it will be great when the complete movie image will be able to be shown in any auditorium at Hollywood 18 and Madison Square 12. This may be the case very soon.
2002/09/05 Carmike Cinemas has reorganized their showtimes on their WWW site. I noticed this morning that the links I had to their showtimes were broken, so I had to change the URLs.
2002/09/05 Tonight is the last night of business of the season for the Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens. It's your last chance to see a movie at a drive-in anywhere near Huntsville or Decatur.
2002/08/28 The final two movies of the season at the Cinemagic Drive-In will start Friday, August 30. Master of Disguise and Crocodile Hunter will both start on August 30. The Cinemagic Drive-In will close for the season on September 5.
2002/08/22 This Friday, August 23, the Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up Spy Kids 2. XXX will be kept and Signs will be dropped.
2002/08/19 I did a bit more theatre research for the Shoals on Sunday, August 18. I now have opening date information for the Majestic, Princess, and Ritz theatres.
2002/08/15 The recording for the Cinemagic Drive-In (233-0402) has not, at this time (14:30 Thursday), indicated any change of movies for this Friday. XXX and Signs continue to be the movies playing there.
2002/08/08 Please note: XXX is the actual title of a movie that starts Friday, August 9. This is not a typo, a bug in my software, or a movie's rating.
2002/08/07 The Cinemagic Drive-In will get the movie XXX on Friday, August 9. Austin Powers in Goldmember will be dropped and Signs will be kept.
2002/08/07 Surprise, surprise. Spy Kids 2 starts today, Wednesday, August 7 instead of Friday, August 9. New movies normally come out on Fridays.
2002/08/01 The Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up Signs this coming Friday, August 2. Stuart Little 2 will be dropped and Austin Powers in Goldmember will be kept.
2002/07/23 The Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up Austin Powers in Goldmember this coming Friday, July 26. Men in Black 2 will be dropped and Stuart Little 2 will be kept.
2002/07/23 It appears that Austin Powers in Goldmember is coming to theatres on Thursday night, July 25. Showings on Thursday night are for 8:00 PM and later only.
2002/07/16 The Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up Stuart Little 2 this coming Friday, July 19. Lilo and Stitch will be dropped and Men in Black 2 will be kept.
2002/07/16 Eight Legged Freaks opens on Wednesday, July 17 of this week rather than Friday, July 19. Normally, new movies come out on Fridays.
2002/07/11 The movie The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course is in scope (2.39:1) format and starts Friday. However, some scenes in the movie have vertical black bars on the sides. This is an effect intended by the director and is not a defect in the theatre's presentation. If this movie is seen in one of the smaller auditoriums at Hollywood 18 that cannot handle full-aperture scope, then the effect may be lost and will not be noticed.
2002/07/10 The Cinemagic Drive-In will pick up Lilo and Stitch this Friday night, July 12. Men in Black II will be kept and Mr. Deeds will be dropped, according to the 233-0402 movie information line recording.
2002/07/02 This is one of those strange holiday weeks where new releases are coming to theatres on Wednesday, July 3 rather than Friday, July 5. The Cinemagic Drive-In is starting Men In Black II on July 3 and is keeping Mr. Deeds and dropping Scooby Doo.
2002/06/27 The Cinemagic Drive-In will be picking up Mr. Deeds this Friday. Sum of all Fears will be dropped. This is according to the recording at 233-0402. Scooby Doo will remain on the large screen.
2002/06/21 The Cinemagic Drive-In is now showing Scooby Doo and Sum of All Fears. Scooby Doo is on the large screen.
2002/06/14 The Cinemagic Drive-In appears to have had a change in plans with their schedule. Now showing is Scooby Doo on screen 1 and Spider-Man on screen 2, according to the recording at 233-0402. Last week, the recording indicated that Spirit would be shown starting tonight, but it's likely that Spider-Man is still bringing a lot of business in for them.
2002/05/31 I would expect the network traffic for the movie showtimes sites to be back to normal this weekend. The Cinemagic Drive-In is continuing to show Star Wars II and Spider-Man.
2002/05/23 Showtimes for Star Wars this coming weekend are the same as last weekend with few exceptions. The showtimes listed in the 2002/05/17 news item are good for this weekend, except Carmike 10 no longer has the 11:30AM showing. The 11:30PM and 12:30AM showings at Carmike 10 are for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday only.
2002/05/17 As I predicted, the showtimes WWW sites are very slow and unresponsive due to many people checking Star Wars showtimes. Here are the current showtimes listed on the WWW for Friday and Saturday:
- Regal River Oaks Cinema 8, Decatur [12:00noon 1:00 3:20 4:20 7:00 7:30 10:15 10:45]
- Carmike 10, Huntsville [11:30AM 12:40 1:00 2:30 3:40 4:00 5:30 6:40 7:00 8:30 9:40 10:00 11:30 12:30AM]
- Regal Hollywood 18, Huntsville [10:00AM 11:00AM 12:00noon 12:30 1:10 2:10 3:20 4:00 4:20 5:20 7:00 7:30 8:00 9:20 10:15 10:45 11:30]
- Cinemagic Drive-In, Athens [dusk]
2002/05/15 In anticipation of the showtimes WWW sites being unresponsive due to masses of people checking showtimes for Star Wars Episode II (which happened with the release of Spiderman on May 3), currently advertised showtimes for Star Wars are listed here. These showtimes are for Thursday, May 16, 2002 and are from the fandango.com and carmike.com sites as of 9:30 this morning.
- Regal River Oaks Cinema 8, Decatur [12:00noon 1:00 3:20 4:20 7:00 7:30 10:15 10:45]
- Carmike 10, Huntsville [12:05midnight 11:30AM 12:40 1:00 2:30 3:40 4:00 5:30 6:40 7:00 8:30 9:40 10:00]
- Regal Hollywood 18, Huntsville [12:01midnight 10:00AM 11:00AM 12:00noon 12:30 1:10 2:10 3:20 4:00 4:20 5:20 7:00 7:30 8:00 9:20 10:15 10:45]
- Cinemagic Drive-In, Athens [dusk]
2002/05/15 The generated_subpages/cities/athens_al.html">Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens

2002/05/13 The theatres showing Star Wars Episode II will be Carmike 10 (Huntsville), Regal Hollywood 18 (Huntsville), and Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 (Decatur). These are the same theatres that showed Star Wars Episode I back in 1999.

2002/05/10 According to the newspaper ad and the recording (233-0402) for the Cinemagic Drive-In, Spiderman and The Scorpion King are both still being shown this week. This will be the drive-in's second week of operation this year.

2002/05/07 As the readers of this site have probably heard, Spider-Man set a record for opening weekend sales. I could see the effect of this by analyzing the WWW logs for this site. Last Friday, May 3, this site got a record number of hits for a Friday! Although this site is just a hobby and is in no way a money-making effort, I sincerely appreciate those of you that use this site and hope it is useful. My main goal is to educate moviegoers concerning presentation quality issues so that the moviegoing public in this area will recognize and demand high-quality booth operations in the local theatres.

2002/04/29 The generated_subpages/cities/athens_al.html">Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens

2002/04/20 The generated_subpages/cities/athens_al.html">Cinemagic Drive-In in Athens

2002/04/17 The presentation quality rating for generated_subpages/facilities/st72a-r8.html">Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur just went up another tenth."

2002/03/08 Movie reviews are now available. "Click the title of a movie on the new movie listing on the right

2002/02/13 I got confirmation from someone at Regal headquarters about the adjustable masking improvements at Madison Square 12 and Hollywood 18. All I can say for sure now is that some screens that lack adjustable masking will be upgraded. I was asked not to make the information public (which is hard to take back since I put a news item on the site on the 8th), since all screens may not be able to be upgraded all at once. Anyway, this is good news. Having more screens that are scope-compatible makes it less likely that any given scope movie will be shown with 23 percent of the image missing. Any screen upgrades, once completed and once I'm able to verify them, will make the facility deductions be less for the affected theatre.

2002/02/08 Regal may be in the process of installing adjustable masking in the auditoriums that lack it at Hollywood 18 and Madison Square 12. I frequently inquire about this, and tonight at the Madison Square 12, the manager told me that installation of adjustable masking was in progress at Hollywood 18 and would be done at Madison Square 12 after Hollywood 18. Let's hope this is indeed the case, which will allow all movies to be shown in all auditoriums without losing part of the image.

2002/01/31 Regal Cinemas is out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company has completed its reorganization and is under the ownership of an investors group led by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz.

2002/01/20 Today's Huntsville Times ran a http://www.al.com/entertainment/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/entertainment/10115217679831170.xml">story about this web site."

2002/01/19 Are you tired of seeing movies that were composed for the static_subpages/formats/aspect.html">2.39:1 "scope" ratio being presented at 1.85:1 in the smaller auditoriums at Regal Hollywood 18 and Regal Madison Square 12?"

2002/01/19 The presentation quality rating for generated_subpages/facilities/st72a-r8.html">Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur has risen yet again to -0.4 (an A+)

2002/01/02 Happy New Year to all hsvmovies.com users! It should come as no surprise to anyone that the 2001 Gold Projection Quality Award will go to
2001/12/28 There appear to be no new movies hitting the theatres today (Friday). Two movies were released on Christmas Day earlier this week.

2001/12/25 Merry Christmas to all hsvmovies.com users! I wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season!

2001/12/07 Contrary to Carmike's WWW site, the movie Novocaine is not playing. It got pulled because it was

2001/12/07 It has been said that I have nothing but negative things to say about all of the local theatres. Look at my reviews of the
2001/12/06 The http://www.decaturdaily.com/">Decatur Daily ran a story today about the poor condition of the Carmike Century Cinema 8 in Decatur."

2001/10/25 The generated_subpages/facilities/st72a-r8.html">Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur now has an incredible "-0.5" presentation quality rating

2001/10/12 Regal Cinemas filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. The filing should not affect theatre operations.

2001/10/01 IMPORTANT: The presentation quality scoring method has changed. Since people tend to have a strong concept of 90 and above is an A" concerning scores and grades

2001/09/06 Are you tired of seeing movies that were composed for the static_subpages/formats/aspect.html">2.39:1 "scope" ratio being presented at 1.85:1 in the smaller auditoriums at Regal Hollywood 18 and Regal Madison Square 12?"

2001/09/06 From http://www.abiworld.org">abiworld.org concerning Regal Cinemas (under Bankruptcy Headlines):"

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.
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

2001/07/31 The presentation quality section has a few changes. In the ratings table, instead of the old 1 to 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

2001/07/31 The domain http://hsvmovies.com/">hsvmovies.com now points to this site."

2001/07/07 The generated_subpages/facilities/st72a-r8.html">Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur has achieved an incredible 99.4 presentation quality rating

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 http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/010612/drivein.shtml">an article about the possible opening of a new indoor theatre in Athens

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

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

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

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.html">disclaimer page."

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.

Site created February 9, 1998

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