The way the showtimes are set up nowadays, it's hard to find one movie playing at the right time of day, much less fit two of them together. It was so much simpler for me when there was an early show, a late show and a weekend matinee that were always within half an hour of 2pm, 7pm and 9pm. You could just decide to catch a movie, and the only real question was which one you wanted to see. The time was fairly consistent, and planning an evening around it, with a meal and some other entertainment, was fairly easy. Or you could pretty much guarantee that if you caught the early showing of one movie, you could get to the late showing of something else, whether it was in the same building or across town.
True. Those were the days! As you say, the times made it made it easy. Had to be at least 6-7 theatres within 'do-able' distance - and lots of eating places too. All gone.
We took in a lot of first-run films back then. And there was always The Bloor for older flicks.
I'm probably one of a very small minority who misses the days when the audience standing for the playing of Oh Canada before a movie started. Not sure why I do. Maybe it just made the whole thing seem like more of an event. Or maybe it just seems like such a strange and excessive bit of formality in hindsight that I think it's cool.
And let us not forget standing for "The Star Spangled Banner." When my father was still in the military, I use to be able to get into the movie theater on the military base, and they always played the American national anthem before the film started.
The last time I remember a civilian movie theater doing this was a drive-in theater near Tacoma, Washington, and that was over thirty years ago. And you can excuse me for not standing at attention.
As for how many movies I've seen . . .
On TV, it's four. And I use to keep a list of all the times I saw three or more films on TV in one day. But, that's been along time ago.
In the theater, the maximum number is two on a double feature, but there again, it's been along time since I saw a double feature in a theater.
