The chandelier at the Angelika is an example of how the theater puts too much effort into its look and not enough into important elements, such as popcorn or speakers.
The Angelika Film Center & Cafe in the Fairfax, Va., Mosaic District is the latest in the ever-growing legion of boutique movie theater chains. What was once limited to small, independent cinemas scattered around big cities has since gone national.
While I don’t have a problem with this trend in theory, I actively dislike how the rise of the fashionable theater resulted in a need for all of these fancy theater chains to try really, really hard to maintain their cinephile cred.
E Street Cinema and Bethesda Row Cinema do so by trotting out the same hackneyed French movie posters in the lobby and mostly limiting their selection to art-house indie flicks, while the Mosaic goes for modern art museum-chic but ends up being the bigger joke for it.
First, the good: The managers at the Mosaic absolutely nail many tiny details. The automatic water faucet in the bathroom is tuned to the perfect temperature. I appreciate how the fountain drink dispensers are customer-operated and how the Angelika is pretty much the only theater I know of that actually accepts those newfangled iOS Passbook tickets.
The Angelika also, rather surprisingly, enforces reserved seating during such screenings. Strongly consider purchasing tickets beforehand if you want good seats.
Despite the Mosaic’s sharp refinement in certain areas, the theater misfires spectacularly on a much more obvious level — the architecture of the theater tries so hard to impress that it actually hurts the establishment’s usability.
Leaving aside the extraneous chandelier that greets you on the top floor like a middle finger from a homeless man decked out in Armani, the list of terrible designs runs long.
Let’s start with how the screens are on the top floor. There’s space enough between the top level and the lobby for a whole additional floor. Then, there are the escalators placed in a remote corner of the lobby, invisible from both the entrance and the ticket booth.
Next are the two concession stands, one of which sells popcorn while the other does not. In essence, there’s just a massive practicality problem because the designers decided their cold, steel and glass, modern art gallery-inspired veneer trumped all else in importance. Who, outside of a few hillbillies, actually finds that classy?
All of this would be more palatable if the tickets didn’t cost $13 for a non-IMAX screening. That’s something I’d expect of a theater smack dab in the middle of Times Square, not something in the middle of a Virginian suburban development.
I suppose that premium can be considered a dapperness tax, a method through which the theater pretentiously tries to weed out riffraff. In that capacity, the Angelika has attracted a clientele that leans older and possesses enough manners to not use cellphones during a movie.
But despite the theater’s attempts to discourage loud patrons, the aural presentation is still somewhat compromised by underwhelming speaker setups. It’s perhaps a nice contrast to the sonic damage incurred by IMAX adverts, but the speakers’ lack of bass still makes the shipwreck sequence from Life of Pi less impactful.
On the other hand, projection quality is fine, if not amazing. The theater is equipped with suitably sharp 4K projectors that did a good job rendering the color palette but a little bit too dimly for my taste.
Similarly, popcorn is a step up from the crap at AMC, but still slightly dry and flavorless. The pastry selection is quite extensive, but definitely not worth the inflated movie theater prices.
At the end of the day, how much you’ll like the Angelika boils down to how much you value seeing films with a more appreciative crowd. If texting during a movie is an aneurysm-inducing pet peeve for you, maybe you’ll be able to overlook the garish design, unreasonable prices, mind-boggling layout, mediocre sound systems, poor location and motherf—ing chandelier.
