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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 14, 2015)
4C THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 2015 PARTING SHOT A weekly snapshot from The Daily Astorian and Chinook Observer photographers Christopher Morgan, left, and Grant Artz, right, both with the U.S. Coast Guard Color Guard, stand under the shadow of the Astoria Bridge before the start of the Seamen’s Memorial ceremony last week. Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian ODDITY 7KHVZHHWVSRW"-XVWVLWGRZQDOUHDG\ Angsty spats over where to sit at the movies By LEANNE ITALIE Associated Press NEW YORK — Too close! Too far back! Middle? No way, aisle. When it comes to where you plant yourself in a mov- ie theater, you’re either a VHDWVSHFL¿F *ROGLORFNV RU you’re with one. And if, by some miracle, you and your date, spouse, friend or gang from work DO agree on where to sit, chanc- es are you’ve been privy to an angsty pre-show spat or two among the seat-selecting stressed. Are movie-seat beefs legit, in the scheme of not-huge- ly-important problems, or have we lost our minds to the point where not even assigned seating can save us? “My best friend has very strict rules on movie theater seating and it drives me in- VDQH´ VDLG *LQD 0D]]RQH LQ %ORRP¿HOG 1- ³2ULJLQDOO\ she would make us change our seats multiple times until she was happy.” But wait. Said best friend, Caitlin Quagliato, has her rea- sons. ‘Super picky’ “I’m just super picky. I try to avoid distractions. I don’t like to sit too close because my neck strains. I don’t like to sit too far away because I can’t see,” she said. “It drives P\ VLVWHU FUD]\ WRR , JHW headaches and nobody wants The seats he seeks from friends and surreptitiously angles for with dates are on an aisle or front row, second tier behind the rail in theaters that have raised sections sep- arated by a wide walking aisle. “It’s embarrassing. My friends will say, ‘It’s only two hours’ and I’m, like, ‘I know. I’m not doing it on purpose! This way I can just hop over the rail without kicking pop- FRUQDOORYHUWKHÀRRURUVWHS- ping on some old person’s shoes.” %XW LQHYLWDEOH FRQÀLFWV arise for prime real es- tate-seeking Onyema, who goes to three or four movies a month. “There are some friends who want to be in the middle AP Photo/Julio Cortez and they worry that if we’re A wide awake crowd watching the 2012 premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises” inside the Liberty Science Center IMAX on the aisle people are go- theater in Jersey City, N.J. When it comes to where you plant yourself in a movie theater, you’re either a seat-specific ing to be bothering us to get Goldilocks or you’re with one. RXW ,W¶V GH¿QLWHO\ D JLYH DQG take,” he said. “If it’s ‘Lord to deal with me during mi- There are other things that of the Rings’ length or some- So where is his sweet spot? Temptation,”’ he said, regu- graines. That could be what “For at least the past 15 larly dragging his wife and make Pomes a “bit batty” thing like that, I’m going to push to be on the aisle or the started it.” to 20 years, I have very per- 18-year-old twins to theaters about movie seating. The two 24-year-olds who sistently insisted that those at least an hour ahead of show “I don’t like there to be railing. If it’s a shorter movie, met in college about four with whom I see movies in time. lights coming in from anoth- I’ll say ‘OK, I’ll let you have “When we don’t get the er room that you see on the this one.”’ years ago remain regular a theater join me smack dab Daniel Collins and his wife movie companions, but they in the middle of the aisle good seats we want, the whole screen. It’s ritualistic and it now stick mostly to a theater somewhere between 10, but feng shui is just blown,” he should be. I mean Scorsese don’t get to the movies that that allows for assigned seat- no more than 13, rows away said. “To me it’s art. I would once talked about it being like frequently, but with his long LQJWKRXJK²0D]]RQHVDLG from the movie screen,” never go to a museum gallery how he felt when he was a kid legs, the distinct possibility and not look at everything.” — “she still complains.” in church. But my wife does of a work call he can’t miss Pomes said. Does this, er, fever have an think sometimes that I go a and some prostate issues at Anthony Pomes, 43, in Irene Myers, 34, in Phil- KH¶VDQDLVOHPDQ*HWWLQJ the Suffolk County hamlet of adelphia isn’t having it. She origin? little beyond,” he said. there early enough to nab a “It’s some kind of weird East Northport, N.Y., doesn’t goes to a movie most weeks, Pit stops good one isn’t fun. complain so much as feel about 60 percent of the time hybrid of, like, elitism and Afam Onyema, 36, in Los “My wife, who should be very, very passionately about by herself to avoid the “where- sort of trying to get home again, because I do regard Angeles, has other things on teaching master’s courses the subject. And he doesn’t are-we-sitting conversation.” URXWLQHO\ KDYH WKH EHQH¿W RI It’s all about control when ¿OP DV SULPDO´ 3RPHV VDLG his mind. He’s a big guy, a in procrastination, can be a assigned seating. grouped with a huge theater “My older brother took me to former college linebacker, challenge to get out the door,” It’s all about “maximum full of strangers, she surmised. see ‘Star Wars’ in 1977. I was with a wee movie-going bath- said Collin, in suburban Bal- 5 or 6. It has that shot of that room issue. He can’t make it timore. “But she’s working movie-ness,” he said, noting A religion ship that just keeps going over through one without a pit stop hard at improving, and I’m in particular the importance 0RYLH VHDWLQJ WR D ¿OP your head. We were between PLGPRYLH DQG ¿QGV KLPVHOI working hard at not being so, of center screen viewing and sound balance for digital sys- buff like Pomes, is “as near to rows 10 and 13. I remember in seating negotiations all the ‘If we’re not 15 minutes early a religion as Scorsese’s ‘Last WKDWVSHFL¿FDOO\´ we’re late.”’ time. tems used in theaters today. W hile other n ew spa pers give you less, The D a ily Astoria n GIVES YOU M ORE O u r n ew C APITAL B UREAU covers the sta te for you From left: Peter W on g, H illa ry Borru d , M a teu sz Perk ow sk i