Coupeville Sports

I just wasted 18 miles worth of gas, and I’m rapidly losing 23 years worth of goodwill.

I should be sitting in theater #2 at the Oak Harbor Cinemas right now, watching Tom Cruise punch people in the face in “Jack Reacher.” But, I and 14 others, are not, thanks to what is becoming a weekly ritual at said theater — an inability to keep a film running, or, in this case, even start it in the first place.

If this was a one-time occurrence, it would be easy to forgive and forget. But, as I said, this has become the routine at the theater I call home.

And I do mean home. I am not a casual film-goer who shows up for a movie every six months.

Between theaters in Oak Harbor and Anacortes and the wonders of home video, streaming and TV, I have seen 393 films in 2012. During this year I have paid to view close to 98.2% of what the local triplex has brought in (I have no great interest in “Paranormal Activity 53” or the shenanigans of Tyler Perry).

My butt has left grooves in the back row seats of the Oak Harbor Cinemas for 23 years, stretching from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” in ’89 until today.

I accept that things have changed.

That we have to watch ads before the trailers. That nimrods will turn on their cell phones in the theater, glowing squares controlled by morons with no self-control. That the days when Oak Harbor would take a chance on a “Pulp Fiction,” “The Crying Game” or “The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag” are long gone.

Christmas Day, while real theaters get “Les Miserables” and “Django Unchained,” we’ll be getting “Parental Guidance,” with a mummified Billy Crystal and Bette Midler, a movie that looks so freakishly bad it could trigger a real Mayan Apocalypse on its own.

Time moves on. The pay phone in the parking lot is gone. The liquor store across the street shuttered. Somehow, Dairy Queen hangs on, and I say a silent thank you.

Far Away Entertainment, which owns the Oak Harbor Cinemas, needs to do what it needs to do to make a profit.

So, I accept the ads, I’m thankful (most times) for the movies they manage to bring in under a distribution system that it set up to rip the soul out of small theaters, I understand the frequent under-staffing which often makes the same person sell tickets, run to the candy counter and then sprint upstairs to fire up the projector.

But when the movies fail, and fail, and fail again, it begins to eat away at my willingness to drive an 18-mile round trip from Coupeville.

“Red Tails” crashed and burned in the first five minutes. “Prometheus” stopped 217 times and only finished by some miracle. “Jack Reacher” didn’t even start.

That’s only three times, you say. To which I reply, how much time do you have, because if I publish the entire list of movies that sputtered, went black, went out of focus, went up on the ceiling or never started at Oak Harbor Cinemas this year, we’d be here all day.

So, you can take a refund, move to a different movie (both of which had already started, so what’s the point?) or get a pass and try your luck the next time. Which means throwing another 18 miles worth of gas on the roulette table and hoping we hit the jackpot.

I witnessed ONE movie failure in 22 years (though I prayed unsuccessfully for “Made in America” and “With Honors” to melt) and then, in 2012, it becomes a semi-weekly happening.

Something has to change.

You drive away the one-timers, they grumble, they move on, they probably don’t come back. You lose money, but you can take that hit.

Do you really want to take the hit when you lose the 23-year veterans?