Unfortunately, my screening was marred by a common sound problem at Sony/Loews 'plexes: because only Sony's SDDS scheme for digital sound (admittedly the best of the lot) is supported in many of the auditoriums, any movie that's released in Dolby Digital and/or DTS only gets played back in plain old optical stereo on those screens. Now, optical stereo can sound pretty good -- the Lincoln Square does a great job with this sort of soundtrack. But at lesser theaters, the dialogue on non-digital soundtracks can be rendered nearly unintelligible. Kips Bay was so-so in this department, with only a hissing noise intruding on otherwise adequate playback.

What really irked me was that the Dolby Digital trailer had played before the feature, which is bad showmanship at best and false advertising at worst. Alerting a manager earned me the riposte, "I just sell tickets and popcorn." To be fair, I'm sure the poor guy had his hands full -- he's only got minimum wage help, after all. And he did tell me that some of the theaters have Dolby Digital, and suggested that my flick (Being John Malkovich) may have gotten moved at the last minute. But how come Sony/Loews Cineplex won't spring for Dolby Digital and DTS in all of its NYC theaters, anyway, and save us all this hassle? B+.(Frazer)