More from the Cinema Files

This goes a little further into comments from the past week.

As I noted March 26, I wouldn't pay $35 a ticket for the concept proposed by Village Roadshow, especially when you consider that food is not part of the package. Like Patricia, I have paid higher prices for special-event screenings: as much as $18 for films at the Tribeca Film Festival, $22 for Metropolitan Opera screenings or $25 for Dreamgirls at the Ziegfeld. However, all of these were unusual and worth it.

I absolutely can justify the cost of a film-festival viewing (although I'm happy Tribeca is cutting costs this year): Not only do you see a movie, but you also have a Q&A with someone affiliated with it, and you're getting a product to which you often otherwise would have no exposure. I've discovered some fabulous documentaries thanks to my past two years of volunteering with Tribeca, such as The Saint of 9/11, The Heart of the Game and The Devil Came on Horseback.

The Met Opera screenings, currently priced at $22 (please don't go up!), also are worth the money. When Jen Roberts and I went to one last year, it was our first exposure to opera. People from 12 to 82 were at our sold-out showing of The Barber of Seville. We really could appreciate the acting, something I couldn't do nearly as well when I attended an opera later that year, and we had interviews and tidbits to entertain us during intermission. Terry Teachout, the theater critic for The Wall Street Journal, extols the virtues of seeing opera in a movie theater in this column here.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120673472354572541.html

Unlike most of you, I don't have a cool place to see a movie; I just go where the showtime is most convenient to where I am. However, I will make an exception for the Ziegfeld, an amazing old-time theater with velvet and chandeliers and an enormous screen. This is where the celebrity-laden NYC premieres take place, where people lined up for days in 1999 to buy advance tickets to Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. It's also where I paid more money for a movie ticket than I ever have before - and it was worth every penny.

When Dreamworks rolled out Dreamgirls in December 2006, it started with a two-week "special engagement" at the Ziegfeld. The movie screened once a day, at 8 p.m. For $25, one received a 64-page glossy book about the movie, a laminated ticket and a chance to ogle costumes from the film. As it was right before Christmas, I took my 15-year-old Beyonce-loving sister as her present. I'd give the movie itself three stars, but the experience was a four-star one. As in a live theater, the audience applauded when people came on screen. The many gay men in the theater sang along with Effie (Jennifer Hudson); in fact, I had to buy the soundtrack to actually hear Ms. Hudson, Beyonce and Eddie Murphy. I also laughed when Erin decided the Dreamgirls story was in fact about Destiny's Child - man, is she young. She has no idea who the Supremes are.

That night was worth $25. It even may be worth $35. But nothing Village Roadshow could offer would be.