The El Portal was your typical movie theater. A couple dozen rows of seats with each row a bit higher than the row in front of it. Sometimes you were lucky and the theater wasn't full, increasing your chances of an empty seat in front of you and guaranteeing an unobstructed view of the screen.
Other times, however, someone rather tall or wearing a hat or a beehive hairdo would sit in front of you, guaranteeing a movie-long workout to try and see around or over the blockade. Not a lot of fun, though I will say that a polite request to remove the hat was honored in olden times, but sometimes ignored. The hairdo or tall person? You couldn't do much except moving to another seat or trying to sit higher.
While I have never observed a fistfight or any violence toward a human blockade, I've wondered what could be done to assure that all patrons of the theater will enjoy an unobstructed view of the movie regardless of where they sat.
Well, as fate would have it, someone beat me to it.
Build movie theaters with seats arranged as they are in sports venues. Stadium seating! But instead of two teams trying to win a game, there's a movie being shown on a giant screen.
Across the country and probably the world, new theaters are being built with stadium seating, and older theaters are being retrofitted as such.
The trick to making stadium seating successful is to do it right from the start. I have observed at least one example of stadium seating that, in my humble opinion, leaves a bit to be desired. Along with my friend, Jim Kula, we try to see the Oxnard Film Society's foreign film on Monday nights at a multiplex in Oxnard. This appears to be a newer theater, or has been substantially upgraded. All 14 auditoriums feature stadium seating. Jim and I sit in the last row at the very top for the best view and no disruption from anyone behind us because there is no one behind us. Fortunately, it's rare that the seats in front of us are occupied, making our experience that much better.
However, on my most recent visit, I had the distinktive (I misspelled it on purpose; you'll see why) pleasure of sitting behind a guy who was tall enough to scratch an itch on his head by rubbing it on any ceiling. Not only did Mr Sequoia Tree not slouch a bit (like most folks), he moved from side to side, seemingly with intention, but I'm sure it wasn't. Luckily, there was a seat to my right which got me out from behind him.
This madcap Adventure at the Movies was a bit annoying, but after the movie, I spent some time trying to figure out why my row wasn't as much higher as it should have been (in theory). This was the last row, but somehow needs to be raised a few inches. Looking at the steps, I noticed that the rise from the next row forward is the same, but the seats don't seem much higher. An optical illusion, perhaps, but something seems...off. I could possibly explain to management what the problem is and make suggestions as to how to fix it if I were to spend the time to take measurements and photos, but something tells me that management would write me off as "that crackpot with OCD."
Who else but I would put so much effort into something that really needs no such analysis? I think that the best course of action for me would be to stick to going to the theater and just watch the movie like everyone else.
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