The Parkway Theater — Local services in Minneapolis

The recent "special screening" of A Clockwork Orange, on 35mm film, was immaculate. From the audience's unapologetic praise, to the ambiance of the Parkway theater itself. HOWEVER. SCREAM it off the SCREEN, a show I invited my friend to, for the love of low budget / aspiring cinema that we both have, is no better than any other mega-church.

Single-file lines interrupting the experience so that people can grab one piece of overhyped food. A "charismatic" host that revels in undeserved praise. A skewed system of people who allow criticism only so that they can swarm together like angry bees in order to silence you for your opinion on an assortment of objectively stagnant works of creative fiction.

Beyond the church parallels, it's a system that rewards the most unclever and dated humor that one can only find, at it's best, on a modern-day Saturday Night Live episode. Pure parody. Unless this show comes with a disclaimer of it being a mockery of aspiring short-film projects, it is not fair to the public that they get swindled into this wanna-be cult of smug and extremely tasteless people. What was marketed as a completely random, local, short-film showcase (with a seemingly fun audience-involvement gimmick) immediately revealed itself to be an atrocious and obnoxious food lottery / game show / comedy sketch show hosted by the most unlikable character. One that we are forced to play catch-up with for odd some reason? That's just me speaking as a person that attended this crap for the first time.

Speaking of gimmicks, who is this wanna-be Khris Lidahl I am supposed to identify so much with, even though it's my first time coming to this show? It feels like I'm watching the worst infomercial ever while being imprisoned by or at least overshadowed by a paid studio audience. I'm watching someone getting paid by members of the public (along with the uncultured pigs that so happily slurped this complete drivel up) to go viral in a hugbox, focus group or marketing scam, or whatever you want to call it! The sample bias is clear by the transparent pandering to people who have already attended this show. It sucks. It screams of priveledge and a complacency within an audience that resembles that of the Joe Rogan comedy sphere. And of course there are a group of people that will defend that group to high hell. I know it's not a 1 to 1 ratio of equivalence. It's just the undeserved praise for unnuanced and even ignorant perspectives that gets me upset about what I see similar in the two.

Then there's the corperate shilling. For whom you might ask? Who cares. (Benson Ringle) Even if we have to suspend our disbelief in the character portrayed on stage with the comedic "bit" of being rude to the production crew members, or gloating in the success of this contrived program it doesn't justify it's existence overall. It comes off very very unlikeable to an outsider to see this person on stage act like a shill for some company that gives us overall high production value (visual quality), yet extremely low substance student-film-level products to somehow justify it. Are these actually student films? Even if not I would have never attended this event knowing how contrived this whole thing actually was.

We left half-way through it all. Which felt like an eternity. Right when the "Deal or No Deal" parody kicked itself off without warning. Probably only got 5 short films in. The fact that it's been going on for this long baffles me beyond belief but it does make sense knowing how delusional people can be for going to church to find true wisdom instead of bureaucratic platitudes. People get comfortable enough in a lie to the point where they try to perpetuate it to other people. That's what this show tried to do. Disgusting disgusting, disgusting. All it truly does is serve the denigrating influence of cold corporate media at the expense of true authentic expression. Even the best film we saw: "I've fallen and I won't get up" still had a wack, super dated joke as the punchline....

I love coming here. This place is in a great location on 48th & chicago ave near Turtle bread bakery. Which is also a great place to eat. Anyways I came here for a showing of Fear & loathing in Las Vegas, One of my most favourite Movies, I love hunter S. Thompson & Johnny Depp for that matter so I was really excited that I was able to see the movie on a big screen. Me & my boyfriend Always eat at Pepito's Mexican restaurant which is attached to the theater & pretty sure both owned by the same owner. They have a door attaching the two, I would recommend eating here before the movie cuz it really hits the spot. I love the Fajita's & burrito's here, Great & authentic. Anyways The movie theater itself is an older one but it has a great Mexican vintage feel to it from the inside, The ticket prices are very cheap, up to a $3 to $5 :) They offer typical movie theater snacks & popcorn & they even offer beer in bottles or cans! Here's the awesome part, They only have one theater! It's a huge screen & they have regular stadium seating seats, They also have couches to sit on & tray tables for ur snacks & drinks. There bathroom is located on the second floor up the staircase & has a vintage feel to it & over all most of the entire establishment is clean. No other movie theater is like this, Hands down the only one of it's kind that I have come across. The staff are friendly & courteous & the atmosphere...

I've enjoyed the Parkway in the past for comedy events and movies. Tonight was such a bad experience that I likely won't be back. I love that they play older movies as it's nice to see movies from my youth in a movie theater experience. The crowd was usually made of fellow fans or people who were experiencing it for the first time. Tonight I was excited to see the Crow, a favorite movie of mine from back in the day, only to have the experience ruined by people yelling, clapping, and making loud comments. When I was leaving, I asked an employee if it was posted on their website that cheering and comments were encouraged. To paraphrase, they said people were just having fun, they don't encourage it but they can't stop people - they play a lot of cult films and this just happens. I did suggest that they can ask people not too AND they don't have to show a slide beforehand encouraging people to cheer throughout. I was met with indifference.

I would not recommend this theater if you want to just enjoy a movie - they are other theaters that play "cult" movies that don't encourage people to heckle, yell, or add unnecessary commentary. If you enjoy being jolted out of the movie by some immature person who wolf whistles at nudity on the screen, this is the...