Putting on the Ritz

Ratphooey told me that Philadelphia doesn’t have a “movies for mommies” program like the very successful program run by Canada’s independent cinemas. Strangely enough, Philadephia has an independent chain of cinemas called the Ritz. This is how their mission statement reads:

• The Ritz Theatres aim to play films which will appeal to a discriminating audience — movies which portray people and experience in ways that bear a reasonable relationship to the way life is lived, or which possess elements of artistic merit or provide an entertainment based on adult wit.

Unfortunately, The Ritz doesn’t see the business case behind lowering the sound and offering mothers with babies a matinee or two a week to see something that isn’t animated or starring an animal actor. I guess more mothers need to contact them and tell them how new mothers need the opportunity to beat boredom. With movie theatres everywhere supposedly strugglingfrom competition with DVD players and illegal downloading, it’s hard to understand why any cinema would turn away such a potentially lucrative market.