The Uptown Theater in D.C.

Going to the movies should be a majestic experience of sight and sound; a magical time of wonder and imagination. This is how movies were made to make us feel. Our eyes should be wide with amazement at what we are seeing on screen. The sounds of the movie should fill the theater and swim around us as if we were part of whatever the scene may be. There is nothing better than the feeling of being at a theater, sitting in your seat with anticipation of the movie about to be shown, holding your bag of popcorn, and looking up, wide-eyed, at the screen, like a character in a Steven Spielberg film, watching as the auditorium goes dark and the light from the projector fills the air and illuminates the canvas. This is how a movie going experience should be. At the Uptown Theater in Washington DC, this is, in fact, how your experience will be.

I am from a small town in Illinois and the movie theaters there are, in a word, horrid. The sound is never channeled correctly, the seats are extremely uncomfortable, and most of the screens are so small that the image from the film spills off onto the curtains. My love of film goes back to my childhood and I have many wonderful memories of seeing films at the theater. Those were the days of the single theater. No multiplexes. One film played and people would fill the theater to see that one film, not to go up to the box office and try to decide which film to see. The Uptown is a throwback to those times and has been a respected and treasured movie theater since it’s opening in 1933.

As you walk up to the theater, you will see the old fashioned marquee with the title of the movie spelled out in big, red, letters, just like it used to be. They sometimes have a couple of cast member’s names or a quote from the movie displayed under the title. There is actually a box office where you buy your tickets. These days you walk up to a counter with two or three registers to purchase your tickets as if you were going to an amusement park. Here at the Uptown there is one person in the box office and they will courteously  help you purchase your tickets.