Place- Linway Cinema

I think I am supposed to like Art House Movie Theaters. No one has ever told me this but I like documentaries, I like bands with "and the" in the name-- Edward Sharp and The Magnetic Zeros, Florence and the Machine, Fitz and the Tantrums,-- I like Polaroid cameras. I own a Polaroid camera with which I took a photo of my roommate standing in the snow with no shirt on. Her thick blond hair keeps the image G rated. It looks like a Free People ad. I feel shame when I look at it. But yet, I am ambivalent towards Indie movie theaters. I genuinely want to fall into the active support section of the spectrum but I am at most a passive support, more honestly neutral.

I like large and impersonal when it comes to my movie theaters. I like Linway Cinema in Goshen, Indiana. I bike there not on the adorable and quaint alley ways that one would take to the local art house theater (called in fact Art House) but on a main street where cars whip by me mercilessly spitting water and ice in my boots and down the back of my coat. The bikes I borrow sputter and jerk through potholes and slush. I am too warm on top and too cold on bottom. My thighs burn where the sprayed water freezes. I am pleased with the discomfort. It makes me feel both focused and free.

The theater doesn't like me. The ticket takers don't greet me by name. I have to lock my bike several stores down because Linway does not cater to the green movement. There are too many ways to enter. The doors confuse themselves "Enter Here?" They question their motive. There are two windows were you can buy your ticket. There are three locations where you can purchase snacks. Linway is proud of their market enterprise. I am charmed by the in your face consumerism. At these concession stands every size is refillable- popcorn and soda. This is fairly unorthodox. This is the complexity of Linway Cinema. They are so blatantly trying to make money they almost forget how.

Linway taught me how to be in a “together”. I held my first sweaty boy hand during James Bond, swirled in with strangers. Everyone saw, no one noticed. The power of being a sheep. Linway also taught me how to be in an “alone”.  I am bad at alone. I shuffle uneasily through my own mind when left in the company of solely me. I saw my first alone movie at Linway. I felt judged. I felt swallowed by florescents and nobby carpet and theaters too half full. Alone in an empty theater would have been so lame it would have passed into acceptable and alone in a full theater, surrounded by those experiencing “together”,  would have made me inconsequential. But I was just enough alone and everyone else was just enough together.

The next movie I saw by myself was at an art house theater in Lancaster, PA, Zoetropolis. When I showed up alone everyone assumed I was on the tip of trendy. I looked single and proud and like I was probably going to take notes or something during the movie. I am not looking for affirmation at the theaters. I have my go to places for self confidence boosts and when at the theater I want to matter significantly less than the characters projected.

I typically go to see movies with Sam, my friend with an infatuation for foreign films that he attempts to satiate with critically acclaimed dramas. He holds a delighted disdain for Linway. As we sit in the theater attempting to be witty about the commercials that preview the previews he comments "The only movie goers are middle school students or middle aged couples who no longer have anything in common so they go to movies." Linway does indeed cater to this market. I make a furious attempt every year to see all the Oscar best picture nominees before the big night and Linway makes that very difficult. They are not carrying 12 Years a Slave one of the most nominated movies. They just don't have the audience for a film on history, a film on race.

Linway can be well summarized by my experience trying to contact them. I thought I should add a factual elements to this essay—“when was it built?” “How many renovations have been done (‘I like movie theaters with very large seats,’ Sam said ‘after many renovations Linway has left the seats causing the whole theater to be a mismatched progression of time.’)?” After listening to a recorded list of the many numerals I could press. I was told in order to contact them I needed to call a number not advertised on their website. I call said number and after listening to the phone ring and ring I am subjected to a shrieking scratching buzz the likes of which should only be used in torture or those experiments to see how old you are by how high you can hear. In conclusion no one picked up the phone. Linway is much too self assured for customer feedback.

The word about town is that the movie theater is a dying breed. This is false. In fact the amount of money spent on movie tickets  (10.8 billion according to CNNMoney) in 2012, was higher the year before, the first time in three years that had happened. So obviously soulless theaters are doing something right besides wooing me.