Movieville

Movie Times | First Run

Online

777film.com (movielink)
Related to 777-FILM (and now, America Online), the site is the most accurate of the online showtimes listings (by a completely unscientific study) and the only one you can buy tickets from, usually for a $1 surcharge. However, the site is incredibly javascript and graphics intensive and takes forever to load. You can skip some of the bloat by using one of these three links in combination with the theater express codes (listed on my theaters page):
- Los Angeles (they seem to have broken this one)
- Southern California
- Westwood Times

showtimes.com
This link actually just takes you to showtimes.hollywood.com. These times seem as accurate as at Movielink, but occasionally less complete. You also can't buy tickets here. However, it's much much faster to both load and nagivate than Movielink, and if times are all you need then this is the place to go. They also have a structure that allows links to individual theaters, and they have allowed me to do so. Once I get the chance to, I will.

movies.yahoo.com
A Division of The Yahoo World. The times load very quickly and seem on par with showtimes.com for accuracy and completeness. I believe this link will take you right to the Westwood theaters showtimes.

digitalcity.netscape.com/losangeles/movies/...
Another source of movie times online. A large list, sorted by theater name.

Theater Chains
Some of these sites allow you to buy tickets online.

• AMC Los Angeles (or AMC Main)
• Cineplex Odeon Main
• Krikorian Theatres (ugliest site award)
• Laemmle Theatres (or skip past the dumb splash page)
• Landmark Theatres

Individual Theaters

• Mann Plaza Theatre - Usually only has the Weekend Late Show schedule.

Online Versions of Paper Publications

• www.laweekly.com/film/ - has the reviews as they appear in the paper, but they appear to have sold out their listings section to movielink

• www.newtimesla.com - managed to design a site where you can't link right to the film section. Good job, guys.
  There are listings at newtimesla.com/listings/bigscreen that somehow seem even worse than the paper ones. Brilliant job, guys.

• The LA Times used to have a good site that listed all of the special screenings etc. that were going on; they've webdatabase-ized the site and ruined it for casual browsing:

  "With the launch of Calendar Live all of our listings have been added to a searchable database for your convenience. You can no simply go to Calendar Live's movies page."

  Well, gosh, how can I look up something special that I don't know is playing? Sigh. You can sort of still find such info, but it's a bit more of a pain:
  calendarlive.com/LA_Times/Arts_and_Entertainment/Movies

Misc.

• Santa Clarita Valley Movies at www.scvmovies.com

Paper Sources

There are a variety of paper sources for movietimes:

LA Times - Calendar section, daily. Ads for most movies with locations and most theater chains, as well as an indie theater ad/listing. I would presume the Daily News (Valley paper) and maybe the Outlook (Santa Monica) have listings, but why bother? If you're going to spend the quarter, get the Times as I know it lists everybody. The Sunday Times Calendar usually has ads for every film opening the following Friday -- good to plan ahead, and also good to help check and see if the film you want to see is days away from leaving the theater you want to see it at.

LA Weekly - free every Thursday, the Weekly includes ads for most movies, some ads for theater chains and a relatively good screening times guide. Available in many record, book and video stores, and they also have free vendor machines in quite a few locations - mostly in front of Starbucks locations, Denny's and Norm's, and bagel places. The Thursday release (usually by 2pm at most locations) gives you a day's notice on stuff that's closing - just don't use it to try and find a movie that night.

New Times - free every Thursday, most of the same places as the Weekly. This replacement for the Los Angeles Reader and the Los Angeles View sucks all around and I personally hope they flunk out of the market. On the movie front, they took the really great Revival listings the View had and made them close to worthless. They took the one reviewer in town who's good - Andy Klein - and started giving him third rate assignments. They're so unattractive to advertisers that frequently you can't even find an opening weekend ad for certain big hot films. It started the first issue with "Very Brady Sequel" and it happens still -- I remember in October if you went looking for an ad for "Long Kiss Goodnight" you'd have been convinced the film hadn't opened. I used to use the Reader and the View all the time over the Weekly; now, the New Times almost isn't worth slowing down to pick up.

By Phone

By phone, you've got, well... MovieFone:
323-777-FILM (3456) or
310-777-FILM (3456) or
626-444-FILM (3456)

Mann Theaters used to have their own number, now there's a MovieFone co-brand:
310-248-MANN (6266)

For all of those numbers, you can use the express codes, which are listed in the movie theater guide.

Check there also for individual theater phone numbers.

I can remember a time when where we went to the movies was just as important as the movies we went to see .... From the moment moviegoers arrived to buy their tickets, there was a sense of something special, a feeling that to step inside was to enter another time and place. - Gene Kelly