Let's Go To The Movies

Let's go to the movies
Let's go see the stars.
Red lights holler
deep Depression
What do we care?
Movies are there!
Only happy endings (boy gets girl, yes)
that's our recipe!
Welcome to a lovely
M-O-V-I-E!

Yeah, I was 6 years old when Annie came out in theaters, and this song is ingrained in my memory, shuddup.

Last night I was invited to a sneak peek event for the new AMC Theatres Fork & Screen concept in Olathe. It officially opens to the public on Friday, October 31st. I got to bring the husband, and we raced home to let the dog out and get all the way out to Olathe by 6:45, when we were to check in. We loitered around the lobby with a collective of other bloggers while we received a press kit, were highly encouraged to snap pictures, twitter and post anything we wanted about the event and venue. Being the lazy blogger you all know me to be, I twittered some, snapped some camera phone pics, and am posting a review almost a full day after the fact. There are a lot of super dedicated bloggers that took high res pics you can view, like I, Shane 's Flickr feed, Scene Stealers' blog, KC Word of Mouth blog, etc, etc.

First of all, let me say that MacGuffins, the bar, looks really really cool. Glamorous, even. I posted the beer list here earlier, along with links to their menus, and yes, I did have a Guinness. I paid for it too. Which they unfortunately poured into a frosty glass, but hey, you can't expect everyone to be a beer snob, can you? The bartender was nice & friendly, which overwrites many sins in my mind. Next time I'll ask for a pint glass that wasn't just pulled out of a freezer. Lucky for me it warmed up quickly.



So why is it called MacGuffins? According to AMC's wonderful tour guide Andy, AND the walls where it was clearly spelled out for all to see, a MacGuffin is a term Alfred Hitchcock coined, and no one outside of film students & movie theater corporate employees probably know. But that might change if more people go to MacGuffins. Wikipedia has an entry for it. It is a plot device that advances the story line, motivating the characters, but the specifics of the object matter very little. Perhaps that is true about the bar as well. It motivated me to love the Fork & Screen, but the specifics of it didn't matter all that much to me.

We were given a buffet of appetizers to sample, which beyond quesadillas and pizza, consisted entirely of fried items. Tasty, to be sure but still all fried. The booths at MacGuffins are borderline sound proofed, so you really get the sense that no one in that cavernous space would hear an intimate conversation.

After that interlude, the well spoken Tour Guide Andy, who I strongly suspect did a stint at Disney at some point in his life, took us into a premium CinemaSuites theatre, where we all plopped down in big, red, leather, cushy recliners and celebrated our luck. Unfortunately, we were not to be able to STAY in the nice theatre, and were escorted back to a Fork & Screen theatre, minus the recliners. Sigh. But honestly? You pay $10 extra for a big cushy chair, and have less people in the theater with you. Roughly 70 people less. It's quieter. But it's still $10 more, each. The Fork & Screen experience is still good, by all theatre standard. There is something like 4 feet of clearance between the back of your chair, and the next row. There are NO feet on the back of your chair. There is a little cocktail table/counter that runs across the front of each row, and servers swing by to see if you'd like a drink, a little snack, anything. It's awesome. Slightly distracting, but you get over it quickly.

We got a $10 appetizer order of chicken fingers, and the husband ordered another beer, and our total in the theater was $14. Considering we can drop $20 for big drinks & popcorn on a usual outing, this is not bad at ALL!! As a childless couple that do not go to the movies all that often, or at least not in the evenings/at night, this really might get us to consider it more often.

I had to do it. I Googled it again. God almighty, KC bloggers are some timely bastards.I swear I am the last to post. But on the other hand, I found a picture of myself being an antisocial geek. That's the problem with some "social" media people. More media, less social. So here I am twittering, playing with my phone, Guinness waiting for me on the side. Sorry ramseym, I stole your pic.