Tom Rinaldi is a reporter for Fox Sports. He previously contributed to ESPN's tennis coverage at Wimbledon and the US Open, ESPN's golf coverage, SportsCenter, Outside the Lines, College GameDay and Sunday NFL Countdown. He also did features for the horse racing telecasts.

In 2017, Rinaldi served as a sideline reporter for the NBA playoffs on ESPN.

Rinaldi joined ESPN in May 2003 following a four-year stint as a reporter for CNN/SI from 1998–2002. He worked as a reporter for KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon from 1996 to 1998 and for WNDU-TV in South Bend, Indiana from 1993 to 1996. In December 2020, it was announced that he had left ESPN to sign with Fox Sports, where he is expected to cover major sporting events, including the Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup and major college football games. Prior to his career in journalism, Rinaldi was a high school English and English as a Second Language teacher in addition to being a handball coach at Morris High School in the Bronx, New York.

Rinaldi has won 16 Sports Emmy Awards, 7 Edward R. Murrow Awards, 3 Associated Press Awards and a USA Today Feature-of-the-Year Award.

Rinaldi grew up in Cresskill, New Jersey and graduated from Cresskill High School. After transferring from Fordham University, he earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania (where he was on the parliamentary debate team), before going on to receive his graduate degree at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in nearby Tenafly, with his wife, Dianne, their son, Jack, and daughter, Tessa. In 2016, he wrote a book called The Man in the Red Bandanna, about Welles Crowther, an NYC volunteer firefighter, who rescued 18 people before losing his own life when the World Trade Center collapsed after the September 11 attacks.

From 2006 to 2020, Rinaldi was the lead interviewer and feature reporter for ESPN and ABC's coverage of golf. In this capacity, he has been praised for many of his essays, especially those following the conclusion of major events. Rinaldi conducted the first interview of Tiger Woods after the incident on November 27, 2009 which led to Woods' public disclosure of his extra-marital affairs.

References

External links
 Rinaldi's bio at ESPN.com

Living people
American horse racing announcers
College football announcers
ESPN people
Fox Sports 1 people
National Football League announcers
American television sports announcers
Tennis commentators
Golf writers and broadcasters
National Basketball Association broadcasters
Year of birth missing (living people)
People from Cresskill, New Jersey
People from Tenafly, New Jersey
Competitive debaters

Tom Rinaldi


The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition (ABC) is Atlanta's largest non-profit bicycling advocate.  ABC was founded in 1991 to "create a healthier, more livable Atlanta by making it safer, easier, and more attractive to bicycle for fun, fitness, and transportation."

Programs, initiatives, and events
One of the highest profile programs sponsored by ABC is called Share the Road.  This public awareness program aims to educate both cyclists and motorists that shared use of the road is safest and most enjoyable for all. ABC also teaches Effective Cycling classes as part of its work to educate the public on the benefits of cycling. In addition, ABC offers a number of services, like bicycle counts, bicycle valets for events, and bicycle rack projects (in cooperation with Sopo Bicycle Co-op).

Atlanta Streets Alive
The ABC organizes Atlanta Streets Alive, a ciclovía, which in Spanish means a temporary closing of the street to automobiles for use by people participating in recreational activity, such as bicycling, roller-skating, jogging, strolling, scootering, or skipping. The free event takes place in Downtown Atlanta and the Old Fourth Ward, mostly on Edgewood Avenue. Sections of Auburn Avenue, Park Place, and Equitable Place are also closed to automobile traffic. The event kickoff is held at Woodruff Park. In addition to cultural events, free group activities are offered to participants, including tango, yoga, soccer, hula hooping, and break dancing.  In recent years, since 2012, the Atlanta Streets Alive has been extended to other areas of Atlanta, including two being held in DeKalb County, Georgia, in 2015 and 2016, outside of the city limits of Atlanta, nearby in downtown Decatur, Georgia and in the city of Clarkston, Georgia.  In addition, the Sweet Auburn Curb Market hosts the Urban Picnic, offering a variety of food trucks for hungry participants. The event is meant to promote exercise, good health, and physical activity. Tens of thousands of people attend the events, which are held in the spring, summer, or autumn months to take advantage of Atlanta's mild spring and fall climates.

The Mobile Social
Founded in March 2011, The Mobile Social is a monthly, no-drop, group bicycle ride sponsored by the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition. In response to the Critical Mass cycling events, members of the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition developed a social ride that is formal, organized, and aims to promote the following initiatives:
1. Get more people on bikes.
2. Explore Atlanta (west to east, north to south).
3. Support and love local businesses.
4. Create community through cycling.

Bicycle Friendly Neighborhoods

Connecting the City

Resources for Bicycle Commuters
The ABC has gathered a broad range of resources to provide information about riding safely on city streets.

See also
Cycling in Atlanta
List of United States bicycle advocacy organizations

References

Cycling in Atlanta
United States bicycle advocacy groups
Cycling organizations in the United States
Organizations based in Atlanta
Organizations established in 1991
1991 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)

Atlanta Bicycle Coalition


Joseph Mbuku Nhlanhla (4 December 1936 – 2 July 2008) was an African National Congress national executive and the former South African Intelligence Minister.

Early life
Born in Sophiatown, near Johannesburg, Nhlanhla attended the Ikage Primary School in Alexandra and later matriculated from Kilnerton Training Institute in 1956. He joined the ANC's youth wing, the ANC Youth League, in 1957. He was elected onto the ANCYL's Transvaal executive a year later. In early 1964, he travelled to the Soviet Union to study, completing a Master's degree in economics in 1969. However he never worked as an economist.

ANC career
In 1969 he was appointed head of the ANC's youth and student headquarters in Tanzania, a post he served in for five years before being chosen as the organisation's chief representative in Egypt and the Middle East in 1973. In 1978, the ANC posted him to its Lusaka headquarters as national administrative secretary. In 1981 Nhlanhla became a member of the ANC national executive committee.

In 1986, he joined the organisation's intelligence directorate after serving a three-year stint as secretary to the political military council. The following year he became the ANC's intelligence chief, in which capacity, two years later, he was a member of the ANC group headed by Thabo Mbeki which made contact with South Africa's then-apartheid government.

In 1995, Nhlanhla became Deputy Minister in the Justice Ministry, responsible for Intelligence Affairs. 1999 Nhlanhla was appointed by President Mbeki as Minister of Intelligence.

Death
Joe Nhlanhla, aged 71, died at the Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, after more than one month in a comatose state. No further details of his death were made public.

External links
 http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-07-02-former-intelligence-minister-joe-nhlanhla-dies
 https://web.archive.org/web/20080518075441/http://www.alexandra.co.za/photogallery/heritage/community/community.htm

References

1936 births
2008 deaths
Anti-apartheid activists
Politicians from Johannesburg
African National Congress politicians
Members of the African National Congress
Government ministers of South Africa
South African expatriates in the Soviet Union
Members of the Order of Luthuli

Joe Nhlanhla


Faetar, fully known as Faetar-Cigliàje (Italian: ) is a variety of the Franco-Provençal language that is spoken in two small communities in Foggia, Italy: Faeto and Celle di San Vito, as well as émigré communities in Ontario, Canada (primarily Toronto and Brantford).

Although Faetar shares many similarities with other varieties of Franco-Provençal, as well as Italian, it is distinct from both. Because Faeto and Celle di San Vito have been isolated from the rest of Italy by the Daunian mountains, and also due to the influence of Irpinian dialects (spoken in almost all neighboring villages), Faetar has evolved and changed over the centuries into a distinct language.

After a large wave of emigration from Italy after the Second World War, many Faetano and Cellese settled in North America; with a relatively large group immigrating to Toronto, Canada. The language has been studied both in its native Italy, and in Toronto, because of its small number of speakers, its unique blend of Italian and Franco-Provençal features, and its changes brought on by language contact.

Although not given a distinct language code from Franco-Provençal, it is listed by UNESCO as "definitely endangered".

History

The Faetar language has its beginnings in the 13th century. A Franco-Provençal group of soldiers was sent to the district of Apulia in the Kingdom of Naples to fight the battle of Benevento of 1266. After the battle, some soldiers remained and established communities in the region. Celle di San Vito was founded as a monastery on the mountainside to avoid an outbreak of malaria down the mountain, and Faeto was founded either on 8 July 1268, or 20 October 1274 by an edict from Charles of Anjou.

In the 20th century, hundreds of Faetano and Cellese people left Italy and settled in the Toronto area of Canada, and in small pockets of the United States, such as upstate New York (The demonyms for the people from Faeto and Celle di San Vito are Faetani and Cellese, respectively). The Toronto community has been studied recently to examine the effects of language contact, and to study the differences between the language in Toronto and in Italy.

Language

There have been at least two dictionaries and one grammar published since 2000 that describe the Faetar language in Italian. It has also been studied extensively in English, French, and Italian  as a minority language, a language in contact, and for comparison with other Franco-Provençal languages.

Faetar's grammar is similar to most other Romance languages with articles that agree with masculine and feminine nouns, and verbs that are inflected with different endings for person, number, and tense. Because of these inflected verbs, pronouns are not necessary. However, Faetar has a unique pronoun characteristic in that it has two versions of each pronoun. There is a "strong" pronoun and a "weak" pronoun. In conversation, both the strong and the weak can be used together (the strong always comes first), or only the strong, or only the weak, or no pronoun at all. The weak can also appear after a noun. For example:

(1)  No overt subject pronoun

and that day, [Ø=I] was at the house

(2)  Weak pronoun

and it was vacant

(3)  Strong pronoun

No, he was always…

(4)  Strong + Weak pronoun

She-strong she-weak is my favourite

This case of strong and weak pronouns has been the source of much study as to what constrains, if anything, the choice of pronouns in a given phrase. This also makes Faetar a partial pro-drop language.

References

Franco-Provençal language
Languages of Apulia
Endangered diaspora languages
Endangered Romance languages
Languages of Canada
Culture of Toronto
Brantford
Italian-Canadian culture

Faetar language


Alan Jacob Alborn (born December 13, 1980) is an American former ski jumper. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, he finished 11th in the team large hill and 11th in the individual normal hill events.

Alborn's best finish at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships was 23rd in the individual normal hill event at Lahti in 2001. He finished 32nd in the individual event at the 2002 Ski-flying World Championships in Harrachov.

Alborn's best individual World Cup finish was fourth in a large hill event in Switzerland in 2001. His best individual career finish was second twice in lesser events (2001, 2004).

He held the North American distance record with 221.5 meters (achieved in Planica in 2002) till it was broken by Kevin Bickner in 2017.

References

External links

1980 births
Living people
American male ski jumpers
Sportspeople from Anchorage, Alaska
Ski jumpers at the 1998 Winter Olympics
Ski jumpers at the 2002 Winter Olympics
Ski jumpers at the 2006 Winter Olympics
Olympic ski jumpers for the United States

Alan Alborn


Ronald Eric Bishop CBE FRAeS (27 February 1903 – 11 June 1989), commonly referred to as R. E. Bishop, was a British engineer who was the chief designer of the de Havilland Mosquito, one of the most famous aircraft of the Second World War. He also designed the de Havilland Comet jetliner of 1949.

Early life
Bishop was born in Kensington, London, England.

Career
He joined de Havilland as an apprentice aged 18 in 1921, and would work there for the next 43 years. He joined the company's design office in 1923.

Bishop became the Chief Designer in 1936, taking over from Arthur Hagg. The first aircraft for which he was responsible was the DH95 Flamingo- the company's first all-metal monoplane. It had a stressed-skin and carried 17 passengers, first flying on 22 December 1938. Winston Churchill used one to journey to France in the early months of the war before Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo).

Also in his design team were:
 Charles Walker, chief engineer
 Richard Clarkson (responsible for aerodynamics), who would later design the Hawker Siddeley Trident (de Havilland DH121)
 A.P. Wilkins
 William Tamblin (later OBE, who designed the wings of the Mosquito and Comet)

Wartime
Starting in 1938, the outstanding achievement of his design office was the DH.98 Mosquito. Conceived as an unarmed bomber, it was expected to reach an unprecedented 376 mph, but managed 388 mph when first tested - Britain's fastest aircraft at the time - and became known as the Wooden Wonder. The Air Ministry had not been amenable to the radical and untried idea of an unarmed bomber, let alone one made of a seemingly obsolete material like wood, and did not fund the design. But Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfrid Freeman was interested and boldly championed the concept - through official scepticism the plane became known as Freeman's Folly. However, his confidence was fully justified as it became the fastest wartime aircraft for two and a half years. The concept of a fast, unarmed bomber was amply justified in practice with very low loss rates. The plane was officially announced on 26 October 1942 - de Havilland's first military plane since the Airco DH.10 Amiens of the First World War. On 5 May 1943 its high speed prowess was announced.

The jet age
After the war, Bishop became the design director on the company's board of directors on 27 December 1946 until February 1964, when he retired. Later that year in October, he received the Gold Medal of the RAeS.

In December 1954, Tim Wilkins became head of design at de Havilland.

Designs

Aircraft he was responsible for were:
 Flamingo
 Mosquito
 Hornet
 Vampire – the first ever fighter aircraft to exceed 500 mph
 Dove – twin-engined propeller airliner in 1945
 Venom – developed from the Vampire
 Heron – four-engined propeller airliner in 1950
 DH.108 – the first British swept wing jet, mainly designed by John Carver Meadows Frost, and the first British aircraft to exceed the speed of sound
 DH106 Sea Vixen
 Comet – the world's first jet airliner in July 1949 and the first trans-atlantic jet service in October 1958, later used for the design of the Nimrod, and seeing service until 1973

Personal life
Bishop married Nora Armstrong in Rochford in 1936. They had two sons (one born in 1947). He received the CBE  1946 Birthday Honours. He lived at Fieldgate on Redbourn Lane (B487) in Hatching Green, Harpenden, then South Holme.

He died in St Albans in June 1989, at the age of 86.

See also
 List of de Havilland Mosquito operators
 List of surviving de Havilland Mosquitos
 Roy Chadwick, designer of the Lancaster
 Frank Halford, designer of DH jet engines
 Teddy Petter, designer of the Canberra

References

External links
 Flight Global September 1983
 Der Spiegel

British aerospace engineers
1903 births
1989 deaths
De Havilland
De Havilland Comet
De Havilland Mosquito
Fellows of the Royal Aeronautical Society
People from Harpenden
People from Kensington
Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal winners

Ronald Eric Bishop


Penelope Houston (9 September 1927 – 26 October 2015) was an English film critic and journal editor. She edited Sight & Sound for almost 35 years.

Biography
Born in Kensington, London, she was the daughter of Duncan McNeill Houston and his wife  Eilean (née Marlowe). Her father was a rubber broker, while her maternal grandfather was Thomas Marlowe, an early editor of the Daily Mail. She attended Wimbledon High School, before winning a scholarship to Roedean School, near Brighton; the school was evacuated to the Lake District during the war.

In 1947, she was the first editor of the short-lived film journal Sequence founded by Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz and Gavin Lambert at Oxford University, where she read modern history at Somerville College, and graduated from Oxford with a double first in 1949. For a year, she worked in Whitehall on research into the history of the second world war.

In 1950, she joined Sight & Sound, the journal of the  British Film Institute, as Lambert's assistant. During this early period, she was involved around 1952 with initiating the feature for which the magazine remains best known, the critics' decade poll for the 10 best films ever made. Houston did not create the feature, which she described in September 1962 as an "impossible but intriguing game", but she was responsible for its high profile.

Houston became the editor of Sight & Sound, then a quarterly journal, in 1956 after Lambert departed for a career as a Hollywood screenwriter. She remained in the post until 1990. At the same time, she was a regular contributor to the Monthly Film Bulletin for many years until the mid-1970s. (The two magazines merged shortly after Houston retired). In the late 1960s and early 1970s she oversaw publication of the BFI's "Cinema One" book series. She also had a period as a film critic for The Spectator, deputised for The Times critic and for The Observer as C. A. Lejeune's deputy in 1957. She also wrote for The Observer and, occasionally, for The Guardian.

Houston was the author of several books on cinema, including The Contemporary Cinema (1963) and Keepers of the Frame: Film Archives (1994). She also wrote a short book on a film directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Went the Day Well? (1942).

Houston was an amateur player of golf and a follower of horse racing, on which she gambled. She commented in 2001: "I wouldn't go into film criticism now if you offered me the top job on a plate. It is so boring. Who wants to spend their days looking at special effects movies from Hollywood made for 15-year-olds?"

Her younger brother, Tom, survived her.

References

External links

 In memoriam Penelope Houston: Sight & Sound's collection of material related to its former editor
 Jonathan Rosenbaum on Houston

1927 births
2015 deaths
Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford
English film critics
English journalists
English magazine editors
The Spectator people
British women film critics
Women magazine editors

Penelope Houston (film critic)


In cricket, a wicket is:

 An object made up of three sticks (called stumps) stuck into the earth, with two small sticks (called bails) balanced on them. They are like a target for the fielding team, and can be hit with the ball to try to get batsmen out.
 A batter getting out, meaning they can't bat anymore. A team that has "lost 5 wickets" has had 5 of its batters get out.
 The cricket pitch itself.

Object
There is one wicket in each of the two batsmen's grounds. The fielding team can hit a wicket with the ball to run out a batsman, but only if there is no batsman in the ground of the wicket. In addition, when delivering the ball to the batsman, the bowler can hit the wicket in the striker's ground with the ball to bowl the striker out.

The wicket is said to have been "put down" when any of its 5 sticks fall to the ground because it was hit by the ball or a player holding the ball. The sticks can be put back in place and then hit back off to put the wicket down more than once.

Sides of the field
The field can be defined as having two halves: the "off side" and the "leg side"/"on side", with these being separated by an imaginary line connecting the middle stump of both wickets. The off side of the field is the right side of a field for a right-handed batsman who is looking at the bowler, and the leg side is the left side. (This is reversed for a left-handed batsman.)

Batsman getting out
A batsman is said to have "lost his wicket" when he gets out.

References

Cricket

Wicket


Andrew Peter Mackenzie  (born 1964) is a director of Physics of Quantum Materials at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany and Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.
He became a co-editor of the Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics as of 2020.

Education
MacKenzie was educated Hutchesons' Grammar School in Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in 1986. He went on to study at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a PhD in 1991 for research on the role of stoichiometry in high-temperature superconductivity.

Research and career
Mackenzie is a world leading authority in strongly-correlated systems and renowned for his pioneering experiments in this area. His contributions to this new field of condensed matter physics have been comprehensive, ranging from the growth of the world's highest purity crystals of the materials of interest to the development of techniques for performing extremely high resolution transport and thermodynamic measurements at ultra-low temperatures. His work has led to the discovery of several new quantum many-body states. These include a superconducting analogue of the superfluid He3, a new class of quantum critical states and the first example of a liquid crystal state formed by strongly correlated electrons. He is also leading the way in developing surface-sensitive spectroscopies as future high precision probes of the correlated systems and as part of the long-term quest to see them used in a new generation of quantum electronics.

Awards and honours
Mackenzie was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2015. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2004 and the American Physical Society, and Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society.  He was a co-recipient of the 2004 Daiwa Adrian Prize and recipient of the 2011 Mott Medal of the Institute of Physics, and held a prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) from 1993 to 2001 and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award from 2011 to 2013. Prize lectures have included the 1999 Mott lecture and a 2007 Ehrenfest colloquium in Leiden.

References

Living people
Fellows of the Institute of Physics
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Fellows of the Royal Society
1964 births
People associated with CERN
Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders
Annual Reviews (publisher) editors
Max Planck Institute directors
People from Renfrewshire
Fellows of the American Physical Society

Andrew Peter Mackenzie


Mantis is a fictional character and superheroine from the Marvel Comics universe.  She is also known as the Celestial Madonna. The real name of the character is  Brandt. Mantis has been a in the Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers comics.

Mantis has been a member of the Avengers, the Knowhere Corps and the Guardians of the Galaxy. She usually refers to herself as this one. The character is a human-mutate due to being a Kree experiment.

She was created by Steve Englehart. The character first appeared in Avengers #112 in June 1973.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Mantis is played by French actress Pom Klementieff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). She is in the  movies Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). In the MCU, the character is a daughter of Ego and a half sister to Peter Quill, Starlord.

Marvel Comics superheroes
Marvel Cinematic Universe characters
Guardians of the Galaxy

Mantis (Marvel Comics)


Gerhard Taschner (25 May 1922 – 21 July 1976) was a noted German violinist and teacher.

Biography
Taschner was born in Krnov (in German, Jägerndorf), Czechoslovakia, of Moravian origins.  After studying with his grandfather, he played Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 at his debut in Prague, when aged only 7.  He studied with Jenő Hubay in Budapest 1930-32, and with Bronisław Huberman and Adolf Bak in Vienna. At age 10, he played three concertos with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Felix Weingartner.  By age 17, having undertaken tours in the United States and Germany, he was concertmaster at the City Theatre of Brno.  In 1941, still aged only 19, he was chosen by Wilhelm Furtwängler as Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, while also forging a solo career.  He attracted immediate attention, and his portrait was used on advertisements for the orchestra's upcoming programs.

In 1943, aged 21, he married the 37-year-old pianist Gerda Nette-Rothe.  She then became known as Gerda Nette-Taschner.

In the dying days of the Second World War, the sacked German munitions minister Albert Speer devised a plan to protect the players of the Berlin Philharmonic from the invading Soviet forces.  They would play a concert under Robert Heger and then be whisked away to a safe location out of Berlin.  Gerhard Taschner played the Beethoven Violin Concerto.  At the end of the concert, however, the players voted to remain in Berlin, in solidarity with their patrons, who were unable to escape.  However, Taschner left in a car driven by Speer's chauffeur, taking with him his wife, two children, and the daughter of another musician.  They took refuge in Thurnau.  From 1946 to 1950 he lived in Rüdesheim am Rhein.

After the War he joined the pianist Walter Gieseking and the cellist Ludwig Hoelscher in a celebrated piano trio.  He also played the violin-piano repertoire with Gieseking and Edith Farnadi and the concerto repertoire under conductors such as Karl Böhm, Georg Solti, Joseph Keilberth and Carl Schuricht.  He was mainly responsible for making Khachaturian's Violin Concerto in D minor known in Germany, having had the score made available to him by the Soviets.  In 1947 he made only the third recording of the work, after its dedicatee David Oistrakh in 1944 and Louis Kaufman in 1946.

Wolfgang Fortner dedicated his Violin Concerto to Gerhard Taschner. He premiered it in 1947 and went on to become its greatest champion.  Fortner also dedicated his Violin Sonata to Taschner.

In 1948 Taschner played the Dvořák Violin Concerto in Vienna under Leonard Bernstein, who declined to invite him to the United States at that time.

His personal nature was difficult and uncompromising, often leading to irreparable rifts with students, peers and others.  He had very strong and inflexible ideas which sometimes put him at odds with conductors and composers. In 1944 he suggested to Jean Sibelius that the final movement of his Violin Concerto in D minor be played more slowly than the composer had indicated; a suggestion not taken up by Sibelius. During a rehearsal in the late 1940s, he and the conductor Herbert von Karajan were unable to agree on some matters of artistic interpretation, which led to Taschner storming out of the rehearsal and refusing to play the concert; the two never played together again.

In 1950 Taschner was appointed a professor at the Musikhochschule in Berlin. He also concertised internationally; in South America he was dubbed "the Manolete of the violin".  In Europe, he was seen as the successor to Adolf Busch, Huberman and Fritz Kreisler.

A back condition caused his withdrawal from the concert platform in the early 1960s when still aged only 40.  He continued to teach and play chamber music, and served on various competition juries such as the 1957 Henryk Wieniawski Competition in Poznan; the 1957 and 1959 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris, the 1960 Paganini Competition in Genoa and the 1963 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.

Gerhard Taschner died in Berlin in 1976, aged 54.  He is buried in the III. Municipal cemetery Stubenrauchstraße in Berlin-Friedenau.

Posthumous reputation
Taschner never had a major recording contract. However, he made numerous radio broadcasts and many of these recordings have been re-released, or released for the first time, leading to a latter-day following.  Many of the radio recordings were confiscated by the invading Soviet forces at the end of the war, and came to light only after their return in 1991.

Critical reaction to these recordings varies considerably: one critic compares him with Jascha Heifetz, Bronisław Huberman, Nathan Milstein and Ginette Neveu when it comes to intensity of expression and richness in sound colours, but another says he is not in the same league as Joseph Szigeti, Isolde Menges, Emil Telmányi or Szymon Goldberg.

Of his recording of the Ravel Violin Sonata, one critic says: Taschner projects the Ravel Sonata's jazz-tinged nuances to perfection, but another says His Ravel sonata misses the jazzy comical element and is rather straightforward and serious.

The Berlin University of the Arts created the "Gerhard Taschner Prize for Violin" in his honour.

There is a biography of him: Gerhard Taschner – das vergessene Genie. Eine Biographie, by Klaus Weiler.

Recordings
Gerhard Taschner's recordings include:

 J.S. Bach: Chaconne from Partita No. 2, BWV 1004
 Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 (with the Berlin Philharmonic under Georg Solti)
 Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Paul Rother
 Beethoven: Kreutzer Sonata (with Walter Gieseking)
 Beethoven: Spring Sonata; Sonata No. 3 in E flat, Op. 12/3 (with Edith Fernadi)
 Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G major, Op. 78 (with Martin Krause)
 Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 (with Gieseking)
Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26:
 under Hermann Abendroth
 Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hans Müller-Kray
 Dvořák: Sonatina in G major, Op. 100, B. 183
 Blair Fairchild: Mosquitos
 Wolfgang Fortner: Violin Concerto (ded. Taschner)
 Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwängler
 Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hans Rosbaud
 Franck: Violin Sonata in A major (with Gieseking)
 Franck: Violin Sonata in A major (with Cor de Groot, 1942)
 Gershwin: Short Story
 Grieg: C minor and G major sonatas
 Handel: Sonata Op. 1, No. 13 (with Cor de Groot)
 Khachaturian: Violin Concerto in D minor
 Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Artur Rother
 North German Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
 Kreisler: Praeludium and Allegro
 Paganini: Sonata No. 12 (with Gerda Nette-Taschner)
 Pfitzner: Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 34 (Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Rudolf Kempe)
 Ravel: Violin Sonata
 Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen (with Michael Raucheisen)
 Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy (Bamberg Symphony under Fritz Lehmann)
 Sarasate: Romanza Andaluza, Op. 22/1 (with Gerda Nette-Taschner)
 Schoeck: Violin Sonata in D major, Op. 16
 Sibelius: Violin Concerto (Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra)
 Tartini: Devil's Trill Sonata (with Hubert Giesen)
 On a recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra under Joseph Balzer, the soloist was identified as "Fritz Malachowsky", but this is believed to in fact be Gerhard Taschner.

References

1922 births
1976 deaths
German classical violinists
Male classical violinists
German male violinists
Austrian classical violinists
Child classical musicians
German music educators
Violin pedagogues
Concertmasters
Sudeten German people
German people of Moravian-German descent
Austrian people of Moravian-German descent
People from Krnov
20th-century classical violinists
20th-century German musicians
20th-century German male musicians

Gerhard Taschner


The Huntaway (also known as the New Zealand Huntaway) is a large, strongly-built breed of dog used for general sheep-herding tasks in New Zealand, where they originate. They were bred to use their loud, deep bark to drive sheep.

The breed dates from the late-19th century, and is distinguished only on working ability. There is no prescribed appearance or lineage, but they are usually black-and-tan coloured. Only dogs that win at trials may be registered by the New Zealand Sheep Dog Trial Association in their studbook.

Description

Huntaways are large, deep-chested dogs that generally weigh in the region of . Their coats can vary in colour; colours include black and tan (usually) with some white or brindle. Their coats can also come in different textures; they can be smooth, rough, or grizzly and they are generally floppy eared. A huntaway's height is usually in the range of .

They are required to have great intelligence, agility and stamina for days of working on steep, rough country over large distances, driving very large mobs of sheep. Their bark is deep and repeating, usually with a short pause between barks, which allows the barking to be sustained for very long periods.

History

The huntaway was developed as a breed in response to farming conditions found in the New Zealand high country. The vast pastoral runs or "stations", such as those in the high country of the South Island, required teams of dogs who could work mustering for days on end, covering great distances on rough steep country. High country stations typically cover many thousands of hectares, and were often unfenced. British sheepdogs used by early New Zealand farmers mostly worked sheep silently, but occasionally a dog would use its bark to herd sheep. This characteristic was liked by some farmers, especially for driving sheep on rough, steep hill country where a dog may disappear from view, making a dog that drives stock by sight less useful. Collies and other working sheepdogs with the barking trait would have been crossed with any other breed that had other desirable traits, including size, stamina and a steady barking ability, as these are the traits that differentiate the huntaway from the heading dog today, but the exact lineage is not known.

The earliest references to huntaways are in the late 19th century. A sheepdog trial with a specific class for huntaways was advertised in the Upper Waitaki in 1870. "Wanted" advertisements for "huntaway sheepdogs" were in the Otago Daily Times newspaper in 1884, heading and huntaway collies were advertised for sale in 1885.
The huntaway was further developed as a separate breed from the heading dog during the 20th century.

Breed recognition
As of August 2013 the Huntaway breed was recognised by the New Zealand Kennel Club (NZKC). This is the first recognition of a dog breed of New Zealand origin.  There is an NZKC standard for the Huntaway breed, but the standard notes:
It is the opinion of the New Zealand Sheepdog Trial Association that a Huntaway should never be shown, due to the large variance in colour, type and size and the inability to prove in a show ring their core (and only) task of working stock. It is the opinion of the New Zealand Sheepdog Trial Association that a New Zealand Huntaway should not be kept solely as a pet. No changes to the official breed standard of the New Zealand Huntaway will be made without consultation with the New Zealand Sheepdog Trial Association.

General information
Huntaways generally live to around 12 to 14 years of age. They are generally very healthy, but some inheritable diseases have been identified. They are intelligent, friendly, very energetic, active dogs that require a lot of exercise. They have been bred to muster in the hills and mountains of New Zealand where it is difficult to walk or ride, so worded commands and whistles are used to communicate commands to these dogs when they are at a distance. They are well known for being a noisy dog, especially when working. There can be variation both in appearance but also in nature and abilities depending on the bloodline, some dogs being more suited to large station work which requires them to eagerly run and give noise all day, some being a more laid back and "handy" dog with an instinct to head stock off and use noise only when necessary while still being larger and more powerful than most heading dogs.

They are the second most common breed of dog in New Zealand, after Labrador Retrievers. They are becoming increasingly popular in other countries with a New Zealand Huntaway Club started in Japan and huntaways being bred and used in Australia for work and yard dog trials.

Hunterville in the North Island of New Zealand is known for its statue of a Huntaway.

See also
 Dogs portal
 List of dog breeds

References

External links
 General Huntaway Information
 Huntaway Club UK

Herding dogs
Dog breeds originating in New Zealand

Huntaway


Igor Aleksander FREng (born 26 January 1937) is an emeritus professor of Neural Systems Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London. He worked in artificial intelligence and neural networks and designed the world's first neural pattern recognition system in the 1980s.

Life and work
Aleksander was educated in Italy and graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, arriving in the UK in the late 1950s, intending to become a research student under Colin Cherry. Instead he found work with Standard Telephones and Cables, later joining Queen Mary College where he gained a PhD, subsequently becoming a lecturer there in 1961. He moved to the University of Kent in 1968 as a reader in Electronics and then to Brunel University as professor in 1974. In 1984 he became professor at Imperial College London as professor of the Management of Information Technology. He was Head of Electrical Engineering and Gabor Professor of Neural Systems Engineering at Imperial College from 1988 to his retirement in 2002. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (1988), and he served as Pro-rector of External Relations at Imperial College (1997). In 2005 he presented the Bernard Price Memorial Lecture.

His work centred on the modelling capability of artificial neural networks. He devised neuromodels of the visual system in primates, visuo-verbal system in humans, the effect of anaesthetics on awareness, and artificial consciousness. He inspired the engineering design  of one of the first stand alone neural pattern recognition systems, the WISARD (anonym for Wilkie Stonham Aleksander's Recognition Device) which was named after the co-inventors Bruce Wilkie, John Stonham and Igor Aleksander. This Brunel University prototype WISARD was commercially developed and marketed by Computer Recognition Systems, Wokingham, under the trade name of 'CRS WISARD' in 1984. After this, the further developments of this system do not appear to have been documented. A popular link for WISARD is that of "the wisard pattern recognition machine" at the Winton Gallery, British Science Museum.

Aleksander received an honorary degree in Computer Engineering from University of Palermo in Jul 2011.

See also
 Artificial consciousness
 Artificial Imagination
 Cybernetics Society
 Journal of Consciousness Studies
 Philosophy of artificial intelligence
 Strong AI
 Superintelligence

Selected publications
Books
 2005, The World in My Mind, My Mind In The World: Key Mechanisms of Consciousness in Humans, Animals and Machines published by Imprint Academic, .
 2000, How to Build a Mind, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson
 1996, Impossible Minds: My neurons, My Consciousness published by Imperial College Press .
 1975, I.Aleksander, F. Keith Hanna, Automata Theory: An Engineering Approach New York: Crane Russak, London: Edward Arnold.
 1971, Microcircuit learning computers, London: Mills & Boon Monographs and Technical Library

Articles
 2008, "Machine consciousness", Scholarpedia 3(2):4162.
 2003, "Axioms and Tests for the Presence of Minimal Consciousness in Agents", in: Journal of Consciousness Studies
 1997, Evolutionary Checkers in: Nature, Vol. 402, Dec. 1999, pp. 857–860.
 1997, I. Aleksander, C. Browne, R. Evans, N. Sales, "Conscious and Neural Cognizers: A Review and Some Recent Approaches", in: Neural Networks, Vol. 10, No. 7, pp. 1303–1316.
 1996, N. Sales, R. Evans, I. Aleksander. "Successful naive representation grounding", in: Artificial Intelligence Review, vol. 10, no.1–2, pp. 83–102.
 1994, K. Warwick. "Weightless brains", Review of Neurons and Symbols by Igor Aleksander and Helen Morton, The Times Higher Educational Supplement, p. 31, February (1994)

References

External links
 Artificial Intelligence, 1999-04-29, BBC Radio program In Our Time

1937 births
Academics of Imperial College London
Academics of the University of Kent
Academics of Brunel University London
Artificial intelligence researchers
Cyberneticists
Living people
Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
People associated with The Institute for Cultural Research
Croatian engineers
British computer scientists

Igor Aleksander


Pat Glennon (23 August 1927 – 14 February 2004) was an Australian jockey raised in the Ascot Vale area in Melbourne, not far from the Flemington Racecourse. Glennon rode his first winner, a horse named Alares, trained by his father, at a bush track Bacchus Marsh at the age of 13.

Glennon then moved to South Australia, where he rode with great success, quickly becoming one of the leading apprentices in Adelaide. Linking with Jim Cummings' team (the father of the great Bart), he went on to pilot Comic Court to victory in the 1950 Melbourne Cup. He would later go on to win another Cup in 1959 with the Richard W. Roden trained Macdougal.

Wanting to embellish his already solid career, Glennon went abroad seeking further opportunities. Settling in Ireland,
where he stepped into shoes of Garnet Bougoure as Vincent O'Brien's number one hoop. He soon blossomed into a fearsome rider, winning the jockey's championship. While in Ireland, he came to terms with the French trainer Etienne Pollet and accepted a contract to ply his trade in France.  It is here that he and Sea-Bird came together.  He and the son of Dan Cupid would sweep through the 1965 flat season winning all before them, culminating in victories in both The Derby and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Sea-Bird would end his racing days as the highest rated flat horse of all time.

Pat Glennon would become the only Australian jockey to taste success in the Epsom Derby, Melbourne Cup and the Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe. He died on 14 February 2004 at the age of 76.

References

1927 births
2004 deaths
Australian jockeys
Jockeys from Melbourne
Australian Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees
Burials in South Australia

Pat Glennon


A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as the big screen, the silver screen, movie house, the movies, picture house, the pictures, picture theater, or simply theater is a business that contains auditoria for viewing films (also called movies) for public entertainment. Most are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing tickets.

The film is projected with a movie projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium while the dialogue, sounds and music are played through a number of wall-mounted speakers. Since the 1970s, subwoofers have been used for low-pitched sounds. Since the 2010s, the majority of movie theaters have been equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create and transport a physical film print on a heavy reel.

A great variety of films are shown at cinemas, ranging from animated films to blockbusters to documentaries. The smallest movie theaters have a single viewing room with a single screen. In the 2010s, most movie theaters had multiple screens. The largest theater complexes, which are called multiplexes—a concept developed in Canada in the 1950s—have up to thirty screens. The audience members often sit on padded seats, which in most theaters are set on a sloped floor, with the highest part at the rear of the theater. Movie theaters often sell soft drinks, popcorn and candy, and some theaters sell hot fast food. In some jurisdictions, movie theaters can be licensed to sell alcoholic drinks.

Terminology

A movie theater might also be referred to as a movie house, film house, film theater, cinema or picture house. In the US, theater has long been the preferred spelling, while in the UK, Australia, Canada and elsewhere it is theatre.

However, some US theaters opt to use the British spelling in their own names, a practice supported by the National Association of Theatre Owners, while apart from Anglophone North America most English-speaking countries use the term cinema , alternatively spelled and pronounced kinema . The latter terms, as well as their derivative adjectives "cinematic" and "kinematic", ultimately derive from Greek κίνημα, κινήματος (kinema, kinematos)—"movement, motion". In the countries where those terms are used, the word "theatre" is usually reserved for live performance venues.

Colloquial expressions, mostly applied to motion pictures and motion picture theaters collectively, include the silver screen (formerly sometimes sheet) and the big screen (contrasted with the smaller screen of a television set). Specific to North American term is the movies, while specific terms in the UK are the pictures, the flicks and for the facility itself the flea pit (or fleapit). A screening room is a small theater, often a private one, such as for the use of those involved in the production of motion pictures or in a large private residence.

The etymology of the term "movie theater" involves the term "movie", which is a "shortened form of moving picture in the cinematographic sense" that was first used in 1896 and "theater", which originated in the "...late 14c., [meaning an] open air place in ancient times for viewing spectacles and plays". The term "theater" comes from the Old French word "theatre", from the 12th century and "...directly from Latin theatrum [which meant] 'play-house, theater; stage; spectators in a theater'", which in turn came from the Greek word "theatron", which meant "theater; the people in the theater; a show, a spectacle", [or] literally "place for viewing". The use of the word "theatre" to mean a "building where plays are shown" dates from the 1570s in the English language.

History

Precursors
Movie theatres stand in a long tradition of theaters that could house all kinds of entertainment. Some forms of theatrical entertainment would involve the screening of moving images and can be regarded as precursors of film.

In 1799, Étienne-Gaspard "Robertson" Robert moved his Phantasmagorie show to an abandoned cloister near the Place Vendôme in Paris. The eerie surroundings, with a graveyard and ruins, formed an ideal location for his ghostraising spectacle.

When it opened in 1838, The Royal Polytechnic Institution in London became a very popular and influential venue with all kinds of magic lantern shows as an important part of its program. At the main theatre, with 500 seats, lanternists would make good use of a battery of six large lanterns running on tracked tables to project the finely detailed images of extra large slides on the 648 square feet screen. The magic lantern was used to illustrate lectures, concerts, pantomimes and other forms of theatre. Popular magic lantern presentations included phantasmagoria, mechanical slides, Henry Langdon Childe's dissolving views and his chromatrope.

The earliest known public screening of projected stroboscopic animation was presented by Austrian magician Ludwig Döbler on 15 January 1847 at the Josephstadt Theatre in Vienna, with his patented Phantaskop. The animated spectacle was part of a well-received show that sold-out in several European cities during a tour that lasted until the spring of 1848.

The famous Parisian entertainment venue Le Chat Noir opened in 1881 and is remembered for its shadow plays, renewing the popularity of such shows in France.

Earliest motion picture screening venues
The earliest public film screenings took place in existing (vaudeville) theatres and other venues that could be darkened and comfortably house an audience.

Émile Reynaud screened his Pantomimes Lumineuses animated movies from 28 October 1892 to March 1900 at the Musée Grévin in Paris, with his Théâtre Optique system. He gave over 12,800 shows to a total of over 500,000 visitors, with programs including Pauvre Pierrot and Autour d'une cabine.

Thomas Edison initially believed film screening would not be as viable commercially as presenting films in peep boxes, hence the film apparatus that his company would first exploit became the kinetoscope. A few public demonstrations occurred since 9 May 1893, before a first public Kinetoscope parlor was opened on 14 April 1894, by the Holland Bros. in New York City at 1155 Broadway, on the corner of 27th Street. This can be regarded as the first commercial motion picture house. The venue had ten machines, set up in parallel rows of five, each showing a different movie. For 25 cents a viewer could see all the films in either row; half a dollar gave access to the entire bill.

The Eidoloscope, devised by Eugene Augustin Lauste for the Latham family, was demonstrated for members of the press on 21 April 1895 and opened to the paying public on 20 May, in a lower Broadway store with films of the Griffo-Barnett prize boxing fight, taken from Madison Square Garden's roof on 4 May.

Max Skladanowsky and his brother Emil demonstrated their motion pictures with the Bioscop in July 1895 at the Gasthaus Sello in Pankow (Berlin). This venue was later, at least since 1918, exploited as the full-time movie theatre Pankower Lichtspiele and between 1925 and 1994 as Tivoli. The first certain commercial screenings by the Skladanowsky brothers took place at the Wintergarten in Berlin from 1 to 31 November 1895.

The first commercial, public screening of films made with Louis and Auguste Lumière's Cinématographe took place in the basement of Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris on 28 December 1895.

Early dedicated movie theatres

During the first decade of motion pictures, the demand for movies, the amount of new productions, and the average runtime of movies, kept increasing, and at some stage it was viable to have theaters that would no longer program live acts, but only movies.

Claimants for the title of the earliest movie theatre include the Eden Theater in La Ciotat, where L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat was screened on 21 March 1899. The theatre closed in 1995 but re-opened in 2013.

L'Idéal Cinéma in Aniche (France), built in 1901 as l'Hôtel du Syndicat CGT, showed its first film on 23 November 1905. The cinema was closed in 1977 and the building was demolished in 1993. The "Centre Culturel Claude Berri" was built in 1995; it integrates a new movie theater (the Idéal Cinéma Jacques Tati).

In the United States, many small and simple theaters were set up, usually in converted storefronts. They typically charged five cents for admission, and thus became known as nickelodeons. This type of theatre flourished from about 1905 to circa 1915.

The Korsør Biograf Teater, in Korsør, Denmark, opened in August 1908 and is the oldest known movie theater still in continuous operation.

Design

Traditionally a movie theater, like a stage theater, consists of a single auditorium with rows of comfortable padded seats, as well as a foyer area containing a box office for buying tickets. Movie theaters also often have a concession stand for buying snacks and drinks within the theater's lobby. Other features included are film posters, arcade games and washrooms. Stage theaters are sometimes converted into movie theaters by placing a screen in front of the stage and adding a projector; this conversion may be permanent, or temporary for purposes such as showing arthouse fare to an audience accustomed to plays. The familiar characteristics of relatively low admission and open seating can be traced to Samuel Roxy Rothafel, an early movie theater impresario. Many of these early theaters contain a balcony, an elevated level across the auditorium above the theater's rearmost seats. The rearward main floor "loge" seats were sometimes larger, softer, and more widely spaced and sold for a higher price. In conventional low pitch viewing floors the preferred seating arrangement is to use staggered rows. While a less efficient use of floor space this allows a somewhat improved sight line between the patrons seated in the next row toward the screen, provided they do not lean toward one another.

"Stadium seating", popular in modern multiplexes, actually dates back to the 1920s. The 1922 Princess Theatre in Honolulu, Hawaii featured "stadium seating", sharply raked rows of seats extending from in front of the screen back towards the ceiling. It gives patrons a clear sight line over the heads of those seated in front of them. Modern "stadium seating" was utilized in IMAX theaters, which have very tall screens, beginning in the early 1970s.

Rows of seats are divided by one or more aisles so that there are seldom more than 20 seats in a row. This allows easier access to seating, as the space between rows is very narrow. Depending on the angle of rake of the seats, the aisles have steps. In older theaters, aisle lights were often built into the end seats of each row to help patrons find their way in the dark. Since the advent of stadium theaters with stepped aisles, each step in the aisles may be outlined with small lights to prevent patrons from tripping in the darkened theater. In movie theaters, the auditorium may also have lights that go to a low level, when the movie is going to begin. Theaters often have booster seats for children and other short people to put on the seat, to sit higher, for a better view. Many modern theaters have accessible seating areas for patrons in wheelchairs. See also luxury screens below.

Multiplexes and megaplexes

Canada was the first country in the world to have a two-screen theater. The Elgin Theatre in Ottawa, Ontario became the first venue to offer two film programs on different screens in 1957 when Canadian theater-owner Nat Taylor converted the dual screen theater into one capable of showing two different movies simultaneously. Taylor is credited by Canadian sources as the inventor of the multiplex or cineplex; he later founded the Cineplex Odeon Corporation, opening the 18-screen Toronto Eaton Centre Cineplex, the world's largest at the time, in Toronto, Ontario. In the United States, Stanley Durwood of American Multi-Cinema (now AMC Theatres) is credited as pioneering the multiplex in 1963 after realizing that he could operate several attached auditoriums with the same staff needed for one through careful management of the start times for each movie. Ward Parkway Center in Kansas City, Missouri had the first multiplex cinema in the United States.

Since the 1960s, multiple-screen theaters have become the norm, and many existing venues have been retrofitted so that they have multiple auditoriums. A single foyer area is shared among them. In the 1970s, many large 1920s movie palaces were converted into multiple screen venues by dividing their large auditoriums, and sometimes even the stage space, into smaller theaters. Because of their size, and amenities like plush seating and extensive food/beverage service, multiplexes and megaplexes draw from a larger geographic area than smaller theaters. As a rule of thumb, they pull audiences from an eight to 12-mile radius, versus a three to five-mile radius for smaller theaters (though the size of this radius depends on population density). As a result, the customer geography area of multiplexes and megaplexes typically overlaps with smaller theaters, which face threat of having their audience siphoned by bigger theaters that cut a wider swath in the movie-going landscape.

In most markets, nearly all single-screen theaters (sometimes referred to as a "Uniplex") have gone out of business; the ones remaining are generally used for arthouse films, e.g. the Crest Theatre in downtown Sacramento, California, small-scale productions, film festivals or other presentations. Because of the late development of multiplexes, the term "cinema" or "theater" may refer either to the whole complex or a single auditorium, and sometimes "screen" is used to refer to an auditorium. A popular film may be shown on multiple screens at the same multiplex, which reduces the choice of other films but offers more choice of viewing times or a greater number of seats to accommodate patrons. Two or three screens may be created by dividing up an existing cinema (as Durwood did with his Roxy in 1964), but newly built multiplexes usually have at least six to eight screens, and often as many as twelve, fourteen, sixteen or even eighteen.

Although definitions vary, a large multiplex with 20 or more screens is usually called a "megaplex". However, in the United Kingdom, this was a brand name for Virgin Cinema (later UGC). The first megaplex is generally considered to be the Kinepolis in Brussels, Belgium, which opened in 1988 with 25 screens and a seating capacity of 7,500. The first theater in the U.S. built from the ground up as a megaplex was the AMC Grand 24 in Dallas, Texas, which opened in May 1995, while the first megaplex in the U.S.-based on an expansion of an existing facility was Studio 28 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which reopened in November 1988 with 20 screens and a seating capacity of 6,000.

Drive-in

A drive-in movie theater is an outdoor parking area with a screen—sometimes an inflatable screen—at one end and a projection booth at the other. Moviegoers drive into the parking spaces which are sometimes sloped upwards at the front to give a more direct view of the movie screen. Movies are usually viewed through the car windscreen (windshield) although some people prefer to sit on the bonnet (hood) of the car. Some may also sit in the trunk (back) of their car if space permits. Sound is either provided through portable loudspeakers located by each parking space, or is broadcast on an FM radio frequency, to be played through the car's stereo system. Because of their outdoor nature, drive-ins usually only operate seasonally, and after sunset. Drive-in movie theaters are mainly found in the United States,  where they were especially popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Once numbering in the thousands, about 400 remain in the U.S. today. In some cases, multiplex or megaplex theaters were built on the sites of former drive-in theaters.

Other venues

Some outdoor movie theaters are just grassy areas where the audience sits upon chairs, blankets or even in hot tubs, and watch the movie on a temporary screen, or even the wall of a building. Colleges and universities have often sponsored movie screenings in lecture halls. The formats of these screenings include 35 mm, 16 mm, DVD, VHS, and even 70 mm in rare cases. Some alternative methods of showing movies have been popular in the past. In the 1980s the introduction of VHS cassettes made possible video-salons, small rooms where visitors viewed movies on a large TV. These establishments were especially popular in the Soviet Union, where official distribution companies were slow to adapt to changing demand, and so movie theaters could not show popular Hollywood and Asian films.

In 1967, the British government launched seven custom-built mobile cinema units for use as part of the Ministry of Technology campaign to raise standards. Using a very futuristic look, these 27-seat cinema vehicles were designed to attract attention. They were built on a Bedford SB3 chassis with a custom Coventry Steel Caravan extruded aluminum body. Movies are also commonly shown on airliners in flight, using large screens in each cabin or smaller screens for each group of rows or each individual seat; the airline company sometimes charges a fee for the headphones needed to hear the movie's sound. In a similar fashion, movies are sometimes also shown on trains, such as the Auto Train.

The smallest purpose-built cinema is the Cabiria Cine-Cafe which measures  and has a seating capacity of 18. It was built by Renata Carneiro Agostinho da Silva (Brazil) in Brasília DF, Brazil in 2008. It is mentioned in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The World's smallest solar-powered mobile cinema is Sol Cinema in the UK. Touring since 2010 the cinema is actually a converted 1972 caravan. It seats 8–10 at a time. In 2015 it featured in a Lenovo advert for the launch of a new tablet. The Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis, Minnesota has recently begun summer "bike-ins", inviting only pedestrians or people on bicycles onto the grounds for both live music and movies. In various Canadian cities, including Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa and Halifax, al-fresco movies projected on the walls of buildings or temporarily erected screens in parks operate during the Summer and cater to a pedestrian audience. The New Parkway Museum in Oakland, California replaces general seating with couches and coffee tables, as well as having a full restaurant menu instead of general movie theater concessions such as popcorn or candy.

In certain countries, there are also Bed Cinemas where the audience sits or lays in beds instead of chairs.

3D

3D film is a system of presenting film images so that they appear to the viewer to be three-dimensional. Visitors usually borrow or keep special glasses to wear while watching the movie. Depending on the system used, these are typically polarized glasses. Three-dimensional movies use two images channeled, respectively, to the right and left eyes to simulate depth by using 3-D glasses with red and blue lenses (anaglyph), polarized (linear and circular), and other techniques. 3-D glasses deliver the proper image to the proper eye and make the image appear to "pop-out" at the viewer and even follow the viewer when he/she moves so viewers relatively see the same image.

The earliest 3D movies were presented in the 1920s. There have been several prior "waves" of 3D movie distribution, most notably in the 1950s when they were promoted as a way to offer audiences something that they could not see at home on television. Still the process faded quickly and as yet has never been more than a periodic novelty in movie presentation. The "golden era" of 3D film began in the early 1950s with the release of the first color stereoscopic feature, Bwana Devil. The film starred Robert Stack, Barbara Britton and Nigel Bruce. James Mage was an early pioneer in the 3D craze. Using his 16 mm 3D Bolex system, he premiered his Triorama program in February 1953 with his four shorts: Sunday In Stereo, Indian Summer, American Life, and This is Bolex Stereo.  1953 saw two groundbreaking features in 3D: Columbia's Man in the Dark and Warner Bros. House of Wax, the first 3D feature with stereophonic sound. For many years, most 3-D movies were shown in amusement parks and even "4-D" techniques have been used when certain effects such as spraying of water, movement of seats, and other effects are used to simulate actions seen on the screen. The first decline in the theatrical 3D craze started in August and September 1953.

In 2009, movie exhibitors became more interested in 3D film. The number of 3D screens in theaters is increasing. The RealD company expects 15,000 screens worldwide in 2010. The availability of 3D movies encourages exhibitors to adopt digital cinema and provides a way for theaters to compete with home theaters. One incentive for theaters to show 3D films is that although ticket sales have declined, revenues from 3D tickets have grown. In the 2010s, 3D films became popular again. The IMAX 3D system and digital 3D systems are used (the latter is used in the animated movies of Disney/Pixar).
The RealD 3D system works by using a single digital projector that swaps back and forth between the images for eyes. A filter is placed in front of the projector that changes the polarization of the light coming from the projector. A silver screen is used to reflect this light back at the audience and reduce loss of brightness. There are four other systems available: Volfoni, Master Image, XpanD and Dolby 3D.

When a system is used that requires inexpensive 3D glasses, they can sometimes be kept by the patron. Most theaters have a fixed cost for 3D, while others charge for the glasses, but the latter is uncommon (at least in the United States). For example, in Pathé theaters in the Netherlands the extra fee for watching a 3D film consists of a fixed fee of €1.50, and an optional fee of €1 for the glasses. Holders of the Pathé Unlimited Gold pass (see also below) are supposed to bring along their own glasses; one pair, supplied yearly, more robust than the regular type, is included in the price.

IMAX
IMAX is a system using 70 mm film with more than ten times the frame size of a 35 mm film. IMAX theaters use an oversized screen as well as special projectors. The first permanent IMAX theater was at Ontario Place in Toronto, Canada. Until 2016, visitors to the IMAX cinema attached to the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, could observe the IMAX projection booth via a glass rear wall and watch the large format films being loaded and projected. The largest permanent IMAX cinema screen measures  and was achieved by Traumplast Leonberg (Germany) in Leonberg, Germany, verified on 6 December 2022.

IMAX also refers to a digital cinema format that uses dual 2K resolution projectors and a screen with a 1.90:1 aspect ratio; this system is designed primarily for use in retrofitted multiplexes, using screens significantly smaller than those normally associated with IMAX. In 2015, IMAX introduced an updated "IMAX with Laser" format, using 4K resolution laser projectors.

Premium large format
The term "premium large format" (PLF) emerged in the mid-2010 to refer to auditoriums with high-end amenities. PLF does not refer to a single format in general, but combinations of non-proprietary amenities such as larger "wall-to-wall" screens, 4K projectors, 7.1 and/or positional surround sound systems (including Dolby Atmos), and higher-quality seating (such as leather recliners). Cinemas typically brand PLF auditoriums with chain-specific trademarks, such as "Prime" (AMC), "BTX" (Bow Tie), "Superscreen" (Cineworld), "BigD" (Carmike, now owned by AMC), "UltraAVX" (Cineplex), "Macro XE" (Cinépolis), "XD" (Cinemark), "RPX" (Regal Cinemas), "Superscreen DLX"/"Ultrascreen DLX" (Marcus), "Titan" (Reading Cinemas), "Vue Extreme" (Vue International), and "X-land" (Wanda Cinema Line).

PLFs compete primarily with formats such as digital IMAX; the use of common "off-the-shelf" components and an in-house brand removes the need to pay licensing fees to a third-party for a proprietary large format. Although the term is synonymous with exhibitor-specific brands, some PLFs are franchised. Dolby franchises Dolby Cinema, which is based on technologies such as Atmos and Dolby Vision.

Programming

Movie theaters may be classified by the type of movies they show or when in a film's release process they are shown:
 First-run theater: A theater that runs primarily mainstream film fare from the major film companies and distributors, during the initial new release period of each film.
 Second-run or discount theater: A theater that runs films that have already shown in the first-run theaters and presented at a lower ticket price. (These are sometimes known as dollar theaters or "cheap seats".) This form of cinema is diminishing in viability owing to the increasingly shortened intervals before the films' home video release, called the "video window".
 Repertoire/repertory theater or arthouse: A theater that presents more alternative and art films as well as second-run and classic films (often known as an "independent cinema" in the UK).
 An adult movie theater or sex theater specializes in showing pornographic movies. Such movies are rarely shown in other theaters. See also Golden Age of Porn. Since the widespread availability of pornographic films for home viewing on VHS in the 1980s and 1990s, the DVD in the 1990s, and the Blu-ray disc in the 2000s, there are far fewer adult movie theaters.
 IMAX theaters can show conventional movies, but the major benefits of the IMAX system are only available when showing movies filmed using it. While a few mainstream feature films have been produced in IMAX, IMAX movies are often documentaries featuring natural scenery, and may be limited to the 45-minute length of a single reel of IMAX film.

Presentation

Usually in the 2010s, an admission is for one feature film. Sometimes two feature films are sold as one admission (double feature), with a break in between. Separate admission for a short subject is rare; it is either an extra before a feature film or part of a series of short films sold as one admission (this mainly occurs at film festivals). (See also anthology film.) In the early decades of "talkie" films, many movie theaters presented a number of shorter items in addition to the feature film. This might include a newsreel, live-action comedy short films, documentary short films, musical short films, or cartoon shorts (many classic cartoons series such as the Looney Tunes and Mickey Mouse shorts were created for this purpose). Examples of this kind of programming are available on certain DVD releases of two of the most famous films starring Errol Flynn as a special feature arrangement designed to recreate that kind of filmgoing experience while the PBS series, Matinee at the Bijou, presented the equivalent content. Some theaters ran on continuous showings, where the same items would repeat throughout the day, with patrons arriving and departing at any time rather than having distinct entrance and exit cycles. Newsreels gradually became obsolete by the 1960s with the rise of television news, and most material now shown prior to a feature film is of a commercial or promotional nature (which usually include "trailers", which are advertisements for films and commercials for other consumer products or services).

A typical modern theater presents commercial advertising shorts, then movie trailers, and then the feature film. Advertised start times are usually for the entire program or session, not the feature itself; thus people who want to avoid commercials and trailers would opt to enter later. This is easiest and causes the least inconvenience when it is not crowded or one is not very choosy about where one wants to sit. If one has a ticket for a specific seat (see below) one is formally assured of that, but it is still inconvenient and disturbing to find and claim it during the commercials and trailers, unless it is near an aisle. Some movie theaters have some kind of break during the presentation, particularly for very long films. There may also be a break between the introductory material and the feature. Some countries such as the Netherlands have a tradition of incorporating an intermission in regular feature presentations, though many theaters have now abandoned that tradition, while in North America, this is very rare and usually limited to special circumstances involving extremely long movies. During the closing credits many people leave, but some stay until the end. Usually the lights are switched on after the credits, sometimes already during them. Some films show mid-credits scenes while the credits are rolling, which in comedy films are often bloopers and outtakes, or post-credits scenes, which typically set up the audience for a sequel.

Until the multiplex era, prior to showtime, the screen in some theaters would be covered by a curtain, in the style of a theater for a play. The curtain would be drawn for the feature. It is common practice in Australia for the curtain to cover part of the screen during advertising and trailers, then be fully drawn to reveal the full width of the screen for the main feature. Some theaters, lacking a curtain, filled the screen with slides of some form of abstract art prior to the start of the movie. Currently, in multiplexes, theater chains often feature a continuous slideshow between showings featuring a loop of movie trivia, promotional material for the theater chains (such as encouraging patrons to purchase drinks, snacks and popcorn, gift vouchers and group rates, or other foyer retail offers), or advertising for local and national businesses. Advertisements for Fandango and other convenient methods of purchasing tickets is often shown. Also prior to showing the film, reminders, in varying forms would be shown concerning theater etiquette (no smoking, no talking, no littering, removing crying babies, etc.) and in recent years, added reminders to silence mobile phones as well as warning concerning movie piracy with camcorders ("camming").

Some well-equipped theaters have "interlock" projectors which allow two or more projectors and sound units to be run in unison by connecting them electronically or mechanically. This set up can be used to project two prints in sync (for dual-projector 3-D) or to "interlock" one or more sound tracks to a single film. Sound interlocks were used for stereophonic sound systems before the advent of magnetic film prints. Fantasound (developed by RCA in 1940 for Disney's Fantasia) was an early interlock system. Likewise, early stereophonic films such as This Is Cinerama and House of Wax utilized a separate, magnetic oxide-coated film to reproduce up to six or more tracks of stereophonic sound. Datasat Digital Entertainment, purchaser of DTS's cinema division in May 2008, uses a time code printed on and read off of the film to synchronize with a CD-ROM in the sound track, allowing multi-channel soundtracks or foreign language tracks. This is not considered a projector interlock, however.

This practice is most common with blockbuster movies. Muvico Theaters, Regal Entertainment Group, Pacific Theatres and AMC Theatres are some theaters that interlock films.

Live broadcasting to movie theaters
Sometimes movie theaters provide digital projection of a live broadcast of an opera, concert, or other performance or event. For example, there are regular live broadcasts to movie theaters of Metropolitan Opera performances, with additionally limited repeat showings. Admission prices are often more than twice the regular movie theater admission prices.

Pricing and admission

In order to obtain admission to a movie theater, the prospective theater-goer must usually purchase a ticket from the box office, which may be for an arbitrary seat ("open" or "free" seating, first-come, first-served) or for a specific one (allocated seating). As of 2015, some theaters sell tickets online or at automated kiosks in the theater lobby. Movie theaters in North America generally have open seating. Cinemas in Europe can have free seating or numbered seating. Some theaters in Mexico offer numbered seating, in particular, Cinepolis VIP. In the case of numbered seating systems the attendee can often pick seats from a video screen. Sometimes the attendee cannot see the screen and has to make a choice based on a verbal description of the still available seats. In the case of free seats, already seated customers may be asked by staff to move one or more places for the benefit of an arriving couple or group wanting to sit together.

For 2013, the average price for a movie ticket in the United States was $8.13. The price of a ticket may be discounted during off-peak times e.g. for matinees, and higher at busy times, typically evenings and weekends. In Australia, Canada and New Zealand, when this practice is used, it is traditional to offer the lower prices for Tuesday for all showings, one of the slowest days of the week in the movie theater business, which has led to the nickname "cheap Tuesday". Sometimes tickets are cheaper on Monday, or on Sunday morning. Almost all movie theaters employ economic price discrimination: tickets for youth, students, and seniors are typically cheaper. Large theater chains, such as AMC Theatres, also own smaller theaters that show "second runs" of popular films, at reduced ticket prices. Movie theaters in India and other developing countries employ price discrimination in seating arrangement: seats closer to the screen cost less, while the ones farthest from the screen cost more. Movie theatres in India are also practicing safety guidelines and precautions after 2020.

In the United States, many movie theater chains sell discounted passes, which can be exchanged for tickets to regular showings. These passes are traditionally sold in bulk to institutional customers and also to the general public at Bulktix.com. Some passes provide substantial discounts from the price of regular admission, especially if they carry restrictions. Common restrictions include a waiting period after a movie's release before the pass can be exchanged for a ticket or specific theaters where a pass is ineligible for admission.

Some movie theaters and chains sell monthly passes for unlimited entrance to regular showings. Cinemas in Thailand have a restriction of one viewing per movie. The increasing number of 3D movies, for which an additional fee is required, somewhat undermines the concept of unlimited entrance to regular showings, in particular if no 2D version is screened, except in the cases where 3D is included. Some adult theaters sell a day pass, either as standard ticket, or as an option that costs a little more than a single admission. Also for some film festivals, a pass is sold for unlimited entrance. Discount theaters show films at a greatly discounted rate, however, the films shown are generally films that have already run for many weeks at regular theaters and thus are no longer a major draw, or films which flopped at the box office and thus have already been removed from showings at major theaters in order to free up screens for films that are a better box office draw.

Luxury screens

Some cinemas in city centers offer luxury seating with services like complimentary refills of soft drinks and popcorn, a bar serving beer, wine and liquor, reclining leather seats and service bells. Cinemas must have a liquor license to serve alcohol. The Vue Cinema and CGV Cinema chain is a good example of a large-scale offering of such a service, called "Gold Class" and similarly, ODEON, Britain's largest cinema chain, and 21 Cineplex, Indonesia's largest cinema chain, have gallery areas in some of their bigger cinemas where there is a separate foyer area with a bar and unlimited snacks.

Age restrictions

Admission to a movie may also be restricted by a motion picture rating system, typically due to depictions of sex, nudity or graphic violence. According to such systems, children or teenagers below a certain age may be forbidden access to theaters showing certain movies, or only admitted when accompanied by a parent or other adult. In some jurisdictions, a rating may legally impose these age restrictions on movie theaters. Where movie theaters do not have this legal obligation, they may enforce restrictions on their own. Accordingly, a movie theater may either not be allowed to program an unrated film, or voluntarily refrain from that.

Revenue

Movie studios/film distributors in the US traditionally drive hard bargains entitling them to as much as 100% of the gross ticket revenue during the first weeks (and then the balance changes in 10% increments in favor of exhibitors at intervals that vary from film to film).  Film exhibition has seen a rise in its development with video consolidation as well as DVD sales, which over the past two decades is the biggest earner in revenue. According to The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry, Philip Drake states that box office takings currently account for less than a quarter of total revenues and have become increasingly "front loaded", earning the majority of receipts in the opening two weeks of exhibition, meaning that films need to make an almost instant impact in order to avoid being dropped from screens by exhibitors. Essentially, if the film does not succeed in the first few weeks of its inception, it will most likely fail in its attempt to gain a sustainable amount of revenue and thus being taken out from movie theaters. Furthermore, higher-budget films on the "opening weekend", or the three days, Friday to Sunday, can signify how much revenue it will bring in, not only to America, but as well as overseas. It may also determine the price in distribution windows through home video and television.

In Canada, the total operating revenue in the movie theater industry was $1.7 billion in 2012, an 8.4% increase from 2010. This increase was mainly the result of growth in box office and concession revenue. Combined, these accounted for 91.9% of total industry operating revenue. In the US, the "...number of tickets sold fell nearly 11% between 2004 and 2013, according to the report, while box office revenue increased 17%" due to increased ticket prices.

New forms of competition
One reason for the decline in ticket sales in the 2000s is that "home-entertainment options [are] improving all the time— whether streamed movies and television, video games, or mobile apps—and studios releasing fewer movies", which means that "people are less likely to head to their local multiplex". This decline is not something that is recent. It has been observed since the 1950s when television became widespread among working-class homes. As the years went on, home media became more popular, and the decline continued. This decline continues until this day. A Pew Media survey from 2006 found that the relationship between movies watched at home versus at the movie theater was in a five to one ratio and 75% of respondents said their preferred way of watching a movie was at home, versus 21% who said they preferred to go to a theater. In 2014, it was reported that the practice of releasing a film in theaters and via on-demand streaming on the same day (for selected films) and the rise in popularity of the Netflix streaming service has led to concerns in the movie theater industry. Another source of competition is television, which has "...stolen a lot of cinema's best tricks – like good production values and top tier actors – and brought them into people's living rooms". Since the 2010s, one of the increasing sources of competition for movie theaters is the increasing ownership by people of home theater systems which can display high-resolution Blu-ray disks of movies on large, widescreen flat-screen TVs, with 5.1 surround sound and a powerful subwoofer for low-pitched sounds.

Ticket price uniformity

The relatively strong uniformity of movie ticket prices, particularly in the U.S., is a common economics puzzle, because conventional supply and demand theory would suggest higher prices for more popular and more expensive movies, and lower prices for an unpopular "bomb" or for a documentary with less audience appeal. Unlike seemingly similar forms of entertainment such as rock concerts, in which a popular performer's tickets cost much more than an unpopular performer's tickets, the demand for movies is very difficult to predict ahead of time. Indeed, some films with major stars, such as Gigli (which starred the then-supercouple of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez), have turned out to be box-office bombs, while low-budget films with unknown actors have become smash hits (e.g., The Blair Witch Project). The demand for films is usually determined from ticket sale statistics after the movie is already out. Uniform pricing is therefore a strategy to cope with unpredictable demand. Historical and cultural factors are sometimes also cited.

Ticket check
In some movie theater complexes, the theaters are arranged such that tickets are checked at the entrance into the entire plaza, rather than before each theater. At a theater with a sold-out show there is often an additional ticket check, to make sure that everybody with a ticket for that show can find a seat. The lobby may be before or after the ticket check.

Controversies

 Advertising: Some moviegoers complain about commercial advertising shorts played before films, arguing that their absence used to be one of the main advantages of going to a movie theater. Other critics such as Roger Ebert have expressed concerns that these advertisements, plus an excessive number of movie trailers, could lead to pressure to restrict the preferred length of the feature films themselves to facilitate playing schedules. So far, the theater companies have typically been highly resistant to these complaints, citing the need for the supplementary income. Some chains like Famous Players and AMC Theatres have compromised with the commercials restricted to being shown before the scheduled start time for the trailers and the feature film. Individual theaters within a chain also sometimes adopt this policy.
 Loudness: Another major recent concern is that the dramatic improvements in stereo sound systems and in subwoofer systems have led to cinemas playing the soundtracks of films at unacceptably high volume levels. Usually, the trailers are presented at a very high sound level, presumably to overcome the sounds of a busy crowd. The sound is not adjusted downward for a sparsely occupied theater. Volume is normally adjusted based on the projectionist's judgment of a high or low attendance. The film is usually shown at a lower volume level than the trailers. In response to audience complaints, a manager at a Cinemark theater in California explained that the studios set trailer sound levels, not the theater.
 Copyright piracy: In recent years, cinemas have started to show warnings before the movie starts against using cameras and camcorders during the movie (camming). Some patrons record the movie in order to sell "bootleg" copies on the black market. These warnings threaten customers with being removed from the cinema and arrested by the police. Some theaters (including those with IMAX stadiums) have dogs at the doors to sniff recording smugglers. At particularly anticipated showings, theaters may employ night vision equipment to detect a working camera during a screening. In some jurisdictions this is illegal unless the practice has been announced to the public in advance.

 Crowd control: As movie theaters have grown into multiplexes and megaplexes, crowd control has become a major concern. An overcrowded megaplex can be rather unpleasant, and in an emergency can be extremely dangerous (indeed, "shouting fire in a crowded theater" is the standard example of the limits to free speech, because it could cause a deadly panic). Therefore, all major theater chains have implemented crowd control measures. The most well-known measure is the ubiquitous holdout line, which prevents ticket holders for the next showing of that weekend's most popular movie from entering the building until their particular auditorium has been cleared out and cleaned. Since the 1980s, some theater chains (especially AMC Theatres) have developed a policy of co-locating their theaters in shopping centers (as opposed to the old practice of building stand-alone theaters). In some cases, lobbies and corridors cannot hold as many people as the auditoriums, thus making holdout lines necessary. In turn, ticket holders may be enticed to shop or eat while stuck outside in the holdout line. However, given the fact that rent is based on floor area, the practice of having a smaller lobby is somewhat understandable.

 Refunds: Most cinema companies issue refunds if there is a technical fault such as a power outage that stops people from seeing a movie. Refunds may be offered during the initial 30 minutes of the screening. The New York Times reported that some audience members walked out of Terrence Malick's film Tree of Life and asked for refunds. At AMC theaters, "...patrons who sat through the entire film and then decided they wanted their money back were out of luck, as AMC's policy is to only offer refunds 30 minutes into a screening. The same goes for Landmark, an independent movie chain... whose policy states, 'If a film is not what is expected… and the feature is viewed less than 30 minutes a refund can be processed for you at the box office.'"
 Snack prices: The price of soft drinks and candy at theaters is typically significantly higher than the cost of those items at any other place. Popcorn prices can also be exorbitant. It has been "...estimated that movie theaters make an 85% profit at the concessions stand on overpriced soda, candy, nachos, hot dogs and, of course, popcorn. Movie-theater popcorn has been called one of America's biggest rip-offs, with a retail price of nine times what it costs to make."

Cinema and movie theater chains

In Africa, Ster-Kinekor has the largest market share in South Africa. Nu Metro Cinemas is another cinema chain in South Africa.

In North America, the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) is the largest exhibition trade organization in the world. According to their figures, the top four chains represent almost half of the theater screens in North America. In Canada, Cineplex Entertainment is by far the largest player with 161 locations and 1,635 screens.

In the United States, the studios once controlled many theaters, but after the appearance of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Congress passed the Neely Anti-Block Booking Act, which eventually broke the link between the studios and the theaters. Now, the top three chains in the U.S. are Regal Entertainment Group, AMC Entertainment Inc and Cinemark Theatres. In 1995, Carmike was the largest chain in the United States- now, the major chains include AMC Entertainment Inc – 5,206 screens in 346 theaters, Cinemark Theatres – 4,457 screens in 334 theaters, Landmark Theatres – 220 screens in 54 theaters, Marcus Theatres – 681 screens in 53 theaters. National Amusements – 409 screens in 32 theaters and Regal Entertainment Group – 7,334 screens in 588 cinemas. In 2015 the United States had a total of 40,547 screens. In Mexico, the major chains are Cinepolis and Cinemex.

In South America, Argentine chains include Hoyts, Village Cinemas, Cinemark and Showcase Cinemas. Brazilian chains include Cinemark and Moviecom. Chilean chains include Hoyts and Cinemark. Colombian, Costa Rican, Panamanian and Peruvian chains include Cinemark and Cinépolis.

In Asia, Wanda Cinemas is the largest exhibitor in China, with 2,700 screens in 311 theaters and with 18% of the screens in the country; another major Chinese chain is UA Cinemas. China had a total of 31,627 screens in 2015 and is expected to have almost 40,000 in 2016. Hong Kong has AMC Theatres. South Korea's CJ CGV also has branches in China, Indonesia, Myanmar, Turkey, Vietnam, and the United States. In India, PVR Cinemas is a leading cinema operating a chain of 500 screens and CineMAX and INOX are both multiplex chains. These theatres practice safety guidelines in each cinema halls. Indonesia has the 21 Cineplex and Cinemaxx (as of 2019, renamed as Cinépolis) chain. A major Israel theater is Cinema City International. Japanese chains include Toho and Shochiku.

Europe is served by AMC, Cineworld, Vue Cinema and Odeon.

In Oceania (particularly Australia), large chains include Event Cinemas, Village Cinemas, Hoyts Cinemas and Palace Cinemas.

See also

 Cinema etiquette
 Film poster
 Film screening
 Home cinema
 Inflatable movie screen
 List of drive-in theaters
 List of movie theaters
 Mini theater
 Movie palace
 Multiplex (movie theater)
 Nickelodeon (movie theater)
 Saturday morning pictures

References

External links

Movie theaters early users of air conditioning – Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois newspaper)
https://secretcroll.com/dungeons-and-dragons/

Audiovisual introductions in 1895
Audiovisual introductions in 1896
Auditoriums
Promotion and marketing communications
Theatres

Movie theater