Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Are Theaters For Theatrical Releases Decided?
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nobahn
Subscriber
Posts: 5145 |
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Having made the odd trip to Windsor I can categorically state that that it is not the easiest trip to make; there is a two-lane tunnel that is located on the U.S. side very close to the RenCen and a four-lane bridge that is <2 miles away to the South is packed with truck traffic (the only other bridge from Ontario to the Lower Peninsula that can accommodate commercial trucks is ~65 miles to the North -- over an hour's worth of driving). |
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relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I'm curious if anyone else has had the same experience as me trying to get through border patrol, or if I really was just super unlucky both times. Regardless, I still wouldn't risk the trip if I lived in Detroit, personally. |
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invalidname
Contributor
Posts: 2480 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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There's some truth to the stereotype, though. I'm in the extremely un-diverse Grand Rapids metro area, and the dominant theater chain here does great a business running Red State movies like "God's Not Dead", while their rule-of-thumb for anime pretty much starts and ends with Ghibli. Although, to be fair, they're doing two showings of A Silent Voice, which is more than I expected (although that might have been partly from my haranguing them on Twitter about it). There used to be an Alamo Drafthouse an hour south in Kalamazoo, but they have closed up shop. Most of the time, I need to drive two hours each way to the The Maple Theater just outside Detroit, which pretty much gets all of these anime movies, including the four-hour Love Live Sunshine concert movie last month. |
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Alan45
Village Elder
Posts: 10012 Location: Virginia |
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@relyat08
How officious the Border Patrol is probably is based on how recent the last scare was. The last time I was out of the country was before 9/11 which makes a big difference. My wife an I were attending a doll convention in Niagara Falls. One morning we walked over the bridge to the Canadian side for breakfast . (You didn't need a passport then) The restaurant is about fifty feet from the falls. On the way back the BP just waved at us. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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You probably also didn't look very suspicious either. Especially after 9/11, some of my Muslim friends would keep getting caught in security. Someone I've known since we were 6 year old is a Sikh, headgear and all, and he has a LOT of trouble. I remember in my high school, some of these friends would have various faculty people go through their backpacks and such, whereas I was never targeted for a "random inspection" even once even though, as an art student, I carried at least a dozen sharp tools and toxic liquids in my bag. |
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relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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@Alan45 Yeah, I'm amazed when I think back to Family trips to Canada when I lived in Washington State. The ease of getting over and back was insane. It may as well have just been traveling to another state.
My more recent trips, in 2010 and '15, were a much different case. Getting into Canada was easy enough, just like going through a ticket booth, but the way back was something else. We had to exit the car, they brought out dogs, I don't know if it was legal, but they even searched the car. |
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Alan45
Village Elder
Posts: 10012 Location: Virginia |
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@leafy sea dragon
Yeah, a middle aged white couple doesn't attract much attention. I've always felt more or less invisible in crowds, one of those people no one notices. |
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nobahn
Subscriber
Posts: 5145 |
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U.S. Customs is practically a law unto itself. Amtrak, at one point, had a train running from Chicago to Toronto by way of Port Huron, MI; then it was truncated to Port Huron when -- amongst other complications -- Customs started holding the trains for as long as they felt like it.
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nobahn
Subscriber
Posts: 5145 |
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Forgot to respond to this -- and it's been almost a week since my previous post.....
When I was living in the D.C. area, I tried to frequent this restaurant (China Canteen) for it's Chicken Over Vegetable Szechuan Style dish. I would end up leaving the restaurant with both my eyes and nose running, accompanying an endorphin rush. On a white board nailed to a wall there were written what I assumed were Hanzi characters laying out the menu. |
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