Black Swan, Blackened Chicken...My Dine-In Movie Experience

I wiped a tear from my eye, and then some ketchup off my lip. My husband and I toasted as we shifted our oversized leather LaZBoys into the full recline position, legs stretched all the way out. A waiter discretely whisked by to give us some caramel corn. An experience to remember. I was at the new AMC Theater Fork & Screen in Edison, NJ.

I will remember it and hopefully for a long time, because I'm not sure I will return. All of the above I can do at home with a tasty meal I make myself and eat on the couch. This is what I do at home, I like to go out for a different experience.

I will say this upfront - the food was not good. But probably not everyone is as picky as I am. And I only tried one item - a cheeseburger. I thought it was a safe bet. I knew better than to fall for the lobster ravioli pictured on the poster, suggesting I might be at an upscale Italian eatery or on the coast of Maine. I was still in Menlo Park Mall. Needless to say, I do not recommend the burger.

The concept is interesting - for $25 per person you get a movie with a reserved comfortable seat. They apply $10 to the film and $15 of it goes towards food & beverage. If you spend $20 you owe $5.  All in all, including a tip it was $65 for the 2 of us, not bad for dinner & a movie. That's what AMC is betting on with their new line of Dine-in Movie Theaters. Plus it solves the problem of how to do dinner & a movie - erasing the debate of whether to eat dinner at 6pm or 10pm from inter-spousal banter.

Sometimes you don't want to eat while watching a movie. Really, who wants to chow down on a burger & fries while watching a rail thin gorgeous ballerina? And on the flip side, there was a lot of blood and puking, not to mention a lot of feathers and crotch grabbing. Not exactly appetizing on a visual level.

It was gimmicky, but really I just want to spend $10 on a movie and have option of getting additional munchies or a soda. Think of all those obnoxious people that fill the seats at the movies. Now add alcohol. They don't even have to get up to order more drinks. And then AMC is putting these people back into the mall, or worse, the parking lots and roads. Of course I'm suggesting none of these obnoxious people will be you. Or me.

Give me a good seat and a bucket of popcorn any day. I'd rather spend the $15 on a good piece of cheesecake after the movie. But if you are curious, I recommend you go ahead and try it out, it was a fun thing to do once.