St. Croix Falls theater kerfuffle fascinates

Setting aside an evening to see a movie is a special thing to most people. So when the experience is marred by screw-ups at the theater, a little venting is appropriate.
In the old days, you'd pick up the phone which might bring two-way communication and some discomfort. In the Internet age, a one-way message with punch can be delivered with a simple click of the mouse. No interaction needed, so just follow your impulse.
The recipient is in a like position when and if he/she decides to respond: no meaningful interaction or give-and-take necessary - no opportunity to bridge a gap, just click and reply, and in incendiary tones if the spirit moves you.
And the spirit definitely moved Steve Payne, vice president for Evergreen Entertainment LLC of New Brighton. Payne did what many of us fear doing in an unguarded moment. He got frustrated and basically told a customer to take a flying leap. While we can all understand the susceptibility to snapping like this, I think we can better relate to the theater customer who launched this whole episode.
Movie aficionados are coming down on the side of Sarah Kohl-Leaf of Taylors Falls. Sarah was part of a group having an unpleasant experience at the St. Croix Falls Cinema 8 in Wisconsin. We are in an age in which it's a snap to locate the appropriate party online with whom to lodge a complaint and send it with that proverbial click. Most businessmen actually appreciate this. They'd rather hear customer complaints, even if some groundless ones are in the mix, than not to hear them. Payne didn't want to hear from Kohl-Leaf.
I'm writing about this partly because I've had my own experiences contacting theater managers with complaints. I should note immediately that a prudent person would not consider me a chronic complainer. And also, that my communications with the parties in the theater business were amicable, not comparable to the now-quite-celebrated incident involving Kohl-Leaf and Payne, the latter acting like quite the "pain."
I communicated twice with the management of Midway Cinema 9 in Alexandria. (I think it was "8" at the time, and e-mailing was still somewhat new.)
As I stated at the outset of this post, a night of theater-going is considered almost sacred by movie enthusiasts, and we demand that the experience be comfortable. We're paying for it, Mr. Pain, I mean Payne.
The first time, I had driven to Alexandria to see the movie "Timeline" based on the Michael Crichton (RIP) book. I had read the book. Crichton was a marvelously gifted researcher and storyteller even if his writing technique wasn't particularly brilliant. For example: "Genarro sighed." How often do any of us really "sigh?" It's a writing cliche and one that Crichton was prone to, as pointed out in an op-ed piece when "Jurassic Park" was all the rage. Crichton actually said that he made no claim to being a great writer. His books were page-turners because of his remarkable ability to research and speculate on where new scientific inroads were taking us - an enlightened or perilous path?
"Timeline" the book was in the end monumentally disappointing because it didn't deliver on the promise contained in the first one-third or so of the book. If the book's quality could be measured by a line on a graph, that line would dip slowly downward through the last half of the book. And the hope for a "payoff" at the end i.e. a fascinating and/or surprising twist, didn't come close to happening. Instead there was a banal type of ending for a time travel movie. But Crichton was a genius.
So how did the movie "Timeline" go over? In the eyes of the critics, not very well. I eagerly went online to digest various reviews, like from Roger Ebert, and was disappointed. But none of this diminished my enthusiasm for seeing the movie when it came out. So I made the trip to Alex to see "Timeline" on its opening weekend at Midway Cinema 9. There were problems immediately. There was a high-pitched tone over the soundtrack. After just 3-4 minutes the picture disappeared off the screen and an employee who was standing at the rear of the theater announced the obvious: technical failure.
I don't point fingers just because of this. But the lights had never been dimmed, so I suspect the theater knew all along it was going to be a no-go. In the meantime they wanted to make sure they got our money. Instead of a refund we got passes. "Timeline" was written on the pass so I suspected the pass might have to be redeemed for this particular movie.
Thanks to e-mail I got this matter straightened out with the manager in an agreeable way. The pass could be redeemed anytime. I still have a quibble because I would have preferred a refund.
I eventually watched "Timeline" on DVD and liked it.
A later problematic experience at the Alex theater had me visiting to see "Cold Mountain," the Civil War movie showcasing Nicole Kidman and other luminaries. But, of all things, the Alex theater website was off on the starting time by ten minutes. I could have hurried into the theater and maybe caught the start, but I would have had to bypass my usual large Pepsi. I left the theater and subsequently sent another e-mail.
This time the manager communicated that the person who normally updates the website had maternity commitments. Fine, life can get complicated, I reasoned. But I told him that "if you do nothing else on your website, you must get the starting times right."
He sent me another pass.
So I can relate to the experiences of Kohl-Leaf at the St. Croix Falls Cinema 8 in Wisconson. She had two complaints, one that I'm indifferent about, and the other where I sympathize 100 percent. First, the theater would not accept debit or credit cards. The ATM in the lobby was out of cash. Since I'm an old-fashioned cash-on-hand person, I can't really relate to this snag, so let's move on.
Kohl-Leaf's other complaint was truly persuasive in that I can't imagine how theater management could be so stupid.
"Within the first five to ten minutes, a woman came into the theater and announced that eight people were in there who weren't supposed to be in there," Kohl-Leaf was quoted saying in the Star Tribune.
Staff members flashed lights and caused disruption in their "shakedown."
I remember once being annoyed by a simple paging of someone for a phone call at a theater in St. Cloud. It only took a couple of seconds but I still remember it today. How long ago was this? I was seeing "Jaws" when it was current.
So I imagine that Kohl-Leaf and her whole party were furious.
For crying out loud, the theater management ought to know that less damage is done by just letting those eight people sit through this stupid movie ("Shutter Island") than to irritate everyone by trying to ferret them out. Maybe this is an example of the flaws of chain ownership. You get "managers" who are really toothless employees and they're more concerned about covering their asses in a situation like this, than with showing overall good judgment.
Stuff happens.
Kohl-Leaf vented her disappointment with an e-mail. The executive on the other end reacted with such venom that he actually used a Dick Cheney line in responding, the one about doing something to yourself that would be anatomically impossible.
Other expletives followed.
"I honestly didn't think it was the vice president (of Evergreen) who sent it," the Star Tribune quoted Kohl-Leaf saying.
In the age of social media, the likes of Payne can be skewered and quickly. And this has happened, dramatically.
I wouldn't object to Payne if he had just expressed a normal level of human frustration, maybe let down his guard a bit in relations with customers. But behaving like Dick Cheney (who dropped his bomb with Senator Patrick Leahy)? That's an abomination.
Can you imagine the kind of e-mails that patrons of the Morris Theater could have dispatched back in the days when your shoes would stick to the floor? I can't see Bob Collins (RIP) sitting in his office reading e-mails. I can imagine him coming down the aisle with his notorious flashlight, though, ready to give hell to any rambunctious young person (who might be engaged in mischief like throwing jawbreakers at the screen).
Different times, different modes for getting along.
-Brian Williams - Morris Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com