Black Bear Cinemas — Local services in Orono

We arrived 40 minutes early to get the seat we wanted and settled in to the theatre before the movie, "IT," started. The seats quickly filled up and the movie started without issue. Just as we are meeting Pennywise, the villain, for the first time and the music builds up and Pennywise is about to do his first evil act, the movie stops. Lights thrown on and a theatre worker comes in and says "If you have an open seat next to you, you need to move over." The entire room shuffled around to open up more than just single seats for patrons who either arrived 10 minutes late or who asked for the cinema's help in find seats. So unacceptable. I have never had such an unprofessional experience in a cinema. The movie started again and 20 seconds after the movie played, the lights STILL on, we saw Pennywise's first terrible act and the motivation for the ENTIRE movie. Completely took you out of the experience and ruined the immersion for a while afterwards.

On top of that, there were two smudges on the screen itself visible throughout the movie whenever a scene would show any light colors.

The whole audience should not be punished for the carelessness of a handful of patrons who either showed up late or refused to break up their groups. I have seen cinema workers quietly move with a flashlight to help those who need it, but never have I seen or heard of the theatre stopping a movie right at the first huge reveal, turn on every light, have EVERYONE move, and then leave the lights on through the first major development...

I would absolutely recommend this theater to anyone. Five dollar Tuesdays is amazing for anyone that enjoys theater movies regularly. The popcorn is freshly popped, not yesterday's corn that's been sitting in a garbage bag overnight. The concessions are competitively priced for the area which is refreshing as concessions at a theater is really the only way they make any money. The seats may not recline like a lazy-boy but that just means you're not blinded by that feature to the overall cleanliness and professionalism this business needs to be recognized for. While some of the seats may be showing the signs of their age I promise you that even brand new theater seats will have seen some unspeakably dirty rear ends after just a few shows. The floors aren't sticky/greasy and, as a former theater employee in my youth, the lack of sticky/greasy floors is one of the biggest indicators of a well run theater. Our show tonight had some issues that the manager fixed right away. They had to stop the movie and restart the projector. Once the projector was fixed the movie was restarted and every person in the theater was issued a free readmission ticket for a later date. Finding a theater that is dedicated to providing a positive experience to customers is rare these days. Thanks Black...

Going to Black Bear Cinemas is a real treat! The murals in the hallway, posters, and overall atmosphere just gets better and better each time I go. They regularly do special limited screenings of popular series like Harry Potter, lord of the rings etc and sometimes give away fun prizes to people in the theatre at the end. I went to see all five of the Twilight movies and ended up with a mug! Tickets and snacks are extremely reasonably priced compared to big corporate theatres and students get in for free on Wednesdays! It feels so good to support a local business over a mega corporation. I can’t recommend it enough, and I always love bringing my friends! I hope y’all do the...