I agree with the poor projectionist arguments -- there's a theater here in Pittsburgh where I've seen damaged prints more often than not, including a green line running through every reel of The Green Mile and sound that amounted to static throughout most of Any Given Sunday (yes, I know, I wasn't missing much).

Another downside to the multiplex issue is the waste of more screens on fewer films. If a Loew's has 20 screens, it should have 20 films showing, shouldn't it? Instead, we get two or three theaters each showing Daredevil, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and The Hunted. No wonder box office performance is so inflated. It's already an arbitrary figure to begin with due to swollen ticket prices, as opposed to counting actual tickets sold. But now meager films stand to gain from overexposure simply because theater chains are reluctant to fill their five or six extra theaters with foreign, repertory or independent films and instead pander to the bored teenage populace who won't wait around an extra half hour to see Old School.

Films are sold as mass-produced product rather than individual flavors carefully marketed to receptive audiences. No wonder theater employees have the "it's just a movie" attitude.