Newsday from New York, New York • 71

61 mao, customers can even reserve their concession purchases when they reserve their tickets on the phone. When they pay for their tickets, they get vouchers for the food. Everything moves faster that way, Busch says. Whether or not improvements like these ever come to New York, theater executives here know audiences always will be tough to please. New Yorkers are the most selective movie audience in the world," Millman said.

You have a lot of film buffs out there. If theres a scratch on the print, youll hear about it. If the pictures slightly out of focus, youll hear about it. If even one of the twelve speakers doesnt work, youll hear about it." The theater dearest to finicky Manhattan film buffs may be the Angelika Film Center (Houston and Mercer Streets), which shows art and foreign films in six immaculate theaters. Much attention has been paid to customer-pleasing details.

The box office dispenses 4-by-6-inch tickets so they dont get lost in patrons pockets, unlike the smaller tickets dispensed by other theaters. A large computer screen adjacent to the box office displays ticket availability. No questions have to be shouted through plate-glass box-office windows. All mqjor credit cards are accepted. Lines are minimal in the 7, 000-square-foot lobby.

Cafe tables dot the lobby, where patrons can indulge in quiche, focaccio, ice cream, muffins, soups, salads and espresso from the theaters gourmet concession bar. (The concession stand also is open to the public, patrons do not need to buy a film ticket in order to eat.) Unlike the cookie-cutter planners at the large chains, Angelika president Joseph Saleh says he has fine-tuned his theater to its specific audience. This is a theater designed for a new moviegoing audience, he says. But when I was in real estate, I noticed that people who live downtown are mostly between eighteen and forty. Theyre mature and sophisticated and usually single.

Thats why I designed it as a meeting place. II Connie Passalacqua is a free-lance writer. PART II NY NEW YORK NEWSDAY, FH'DAY, FEBRUARY 8. 1991 Dial a Show Time HEN THEY got the idea two years ago to start MovieFone, Charles Jarecki and Adam Slutsky, both 26-year-old employees of a Wall Street venture-capital firm, say their mindset was just that of the average frustrated New York movie- We were trying to go to the movies one night, and we called the local theater, and we called and we called and we called. All we got is a busy signal for ten minutes, says Jarecki.

And by the time we got through it was too late to go. And we looked at each other, and we said theres got to be a better way. And since we knew computers. Slutsky and Jarecki began building up a huge data base. They coupled it with the new technology of interactive phone lines, got the backing of their firm (plus the partnership of three equally young Los Angeles entrepreneurs who, coincidentally, had set up a similiar service there) and created MovieFone.

According to Jarecki, 105,000 New York moviegoers a week now are calling 777-FILM for a taped directory of films, theaters and show times. The cost is one message unit. MovieFones data base also has the ability to customize, by recommending the closest theater to the caller (callers must have a touchtone phone). Dial in your ZIP Code, and the service parrots back the theater playing the movie you want thats closest to you, followed by remaining show times. Passalacqua I.