The Clay Theater

Parking is certainly not one of this venue's strong points :) Luckily I didn't have to deal with it -- and instead I was assigned to brave the scary line around the building for seating -- but I thought HollyG would never make it back. She did, and as it turns out, the line had more bark than bite as well. We had no problems finding seats. And what was better was that even for this sold out show, and us not showing up more than 20 minutes before curtains, we got great service from the box office staff who happily refunded the cash that Nina and Sasank paid for our tickets in exchange for my need-to-use-before-Dec 15 discount passes.
On to the theater, it was a typically strong offering from the landmark line. With the seasons changing outside, it was pleasantly warm on the inside. The lobby even offered free water and tea (which I think is also typical of landmark theaters now that I think about it). There were plenty of other promotional movie items to pick up, so naturally I did.
Despite my usual skepticism of non-megaplex venues, it was an exceptionally comfortable viewing experience. The seats were really new and had cupholders with these little lips. The screen was small and the theater was long, but even sitting 5 rows from the back, I had no problem getting lost in the movie. The tall guy in front of me had a knack for blocking the subtitles, though. One other touch I noted was that they decorated the interior of the theater with framed movie posters. It was a little cheesy over the curtains, but what was worse was that the plastic covers reflected glare from the movie image.
All in all it was a perfectly comfortable city theater. A great addition to a small but growing collection of city theaters that I know about and how to navigate.

Mill Valley Film Festival (Throckmorton)

Receiving a tip from the Balboa Theater weekly newsletter, I decided to check out the ongoing Mill Valley Film Festival. I'd heard of it before, and had the vague impression that it was something big, so I wanted to see what it was all about. The lineup from the website looked impressive, however the experience was a little disappointing. The website turned out to be a big liar and we missed the movie about basketball that I was really excited to watch. HollyG got me an apple/pumpkin to salve the wound, and we caught the next film at the Throckmorton theater in Mill Valley. Not a true movie theater, the venue was more of a live theater type of thing, with a digital projector and an art gallery in the pre-seating area. The original venue (which actually was a movie theater) was the one whose roof fell in, so I'm a little more forgiving for the scheduling inconsistencies and the venue mis-listings, given the circumstances for the festival.

One cool note about the theater was that there were no permanent seats in the building. I found this pretty strange given that the room was a full time stage theater. But it seemed to work and I found myself more disturbed by the implausibility of the plot developing on the screen than the lack of cushiness on my butt.