Rainy-day cinema

I freely admit that I have been spoiled by having spent so much time in state-of-the-art digital-projection theaters with outstanding sound, gel-filled seats that surround you and stadium-seating designs that always give you a clear line of sight. But now I am spending time in a place where getting the picture in focus and the sound up to an audible level are major challenges for the theater staff. I have now visited all three of the island's movie theaters and they could only be considered state-of-the-art if we were living in, maybe 1965?

Not that the Capawock in Vineyard Haven, the Island in Oak Bluffs and the Edgartown 2 (guess where) don't have their charms. Obviously, the Capawock and the Island were built many decades ago, and their slightly ragged but impressive exteriors are classic small-town cinema. The single-screen Capawock is cornbread-yellow, with dark green trim and apple-red highlights. The Island, which is also a single screener, is custard-colored. (Its sister theater, the Strand, which opens Sunday, is chalk-white with cornflower-blue highlights.) Both theaters were built with almost no lobby space whatsoever: When you walk through the doors, you are literally only a couple of steps away from the theater seats. The concession stands are among the tiniest I've ever seen, although they seem to serve the patrons well enough.

The Edgartown 2, which has a distinctly '70s feel to it, is located inside a mall, and has been tucked away on the second floor. You walk up a flight of stairs to get to it, passing beneath a jumbo-sized poster from a 1966 Frank Sinatra/Verna Lisi heist thriller called "Assault on a Queen." The Edgartown has a larger lobby and concession counter than its sister cinemas, although a good usher could easily sweep up the area in five minutes.

Each Edgartown theater seems to have approximately 200 seats; the Capawock holds slightly more than that; the Island looks like it could accommodate somewhere around 350. None of the theaters has an overwhelmingly large screen or a sound system that envelopes you in crystal-clear digital stereo. The Capawock and the Island have a two-projector system: They split the feature into two reels, with an easy-to-spot changeover midway through the movie (you can tell because the second half often starts out of frame or out of focus, requiring adjustment). During quiet moments in a film, you can frequently hear distracting rattling and rustling around in the projection booth, or, in the case of the Island, which must have paper-thin doors, chatty concessionists. The conditions are slightly better at Edgartown, which at least seems to have some sound-proofing (or maybe a window that separates the booth from the cinema).

Anyhow, the theaters show movies but they don't exactly showcase them. Dismayed by a sudden burst of heavy rain that came out of nowhere as I was in the vicinity of Edgartown, I parked the car and fled to Edgartown 2 to see what was playing. I had my choice of "Up" (which I had already seen) or "Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs." I liked the first two "Ice" movies well enough, so I opted for "Dinosaurs." It's playing in many theaters in digital 3D; the Edgartown 2 is not one of those theaters, however. The presentation was passable, with decent sound and a reasonably sharp picture.

The movie itself was enjoyable enough, although the series is getting to the point of "what else can we do with this concept?" and there's a faint air of desperation floating through the storyline and the animation had a slightly sloppy look to it, which was surprising since the film has been in the works for quite some time. "Dinosaurs" also incorporates one of the most irritating trends in animated films: using moth-eaten 1970s or 1980s hits for cheap laughs. In this case, Was Not Was' "Walk the Dinosaur" gets dusted off, and Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again Naturally" (which is sure to be playing regularly on Hell's Muzak system) gets a quick rewrite for a joke that did not get so much as a giggle from the sold-out audience I was sitting in. (Expect the trend to continue, since two of the trailers that were shown before "Dinosaurs" -- "Aliens in the Attic" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel" -- also prominently featured moldy oldies.)

The now-familiar characters are back, including Manny the Mammoth (voice provided by Ray Romano), Diego the Sabre-Toothed Tiger (Denis Leary), Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) and Manny's mate, Ellie (Queen Latifah), who is now pregnant. Ellie and Manny's dreams of domesticity inspire jealousy in Sid, who steals three eggs from an icy cavern and announces he is starting a family of his own. Unfortunately, he has robbed the nest of a maternal T.Rex, part of a colony of prehistoric predators that has taken shelter in a subterranean jungle that Jules Verne might have dreamt up. When the mad mother shows up to collect her babies and take them back down below, she nabs Sid as well, and his friends must venture into the depths of the earth to rescue him.

The plot of "Dawn" is interrupted every 15 minutes by visits from the acorn-obsessed squirrel Scrat, who must now contend with a scheming female counterpart who alternately flirts with him and beats him to a pulp. These frantic interludes are actually welcome diversions from a story that takes its time getting started. Bringing in Simon Pegg as a gung-ho Jungle Jim-type named Buck is also a welcome addition.

By the time "Ice Age" got out, the storm had passed and I headed to Oak Bluffs to meet my co-worker Zach at the first show of director Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" at the Island. The film is the latest telling of the now-75-year-old story of how federal agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) pursued celebrity bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) across the Midwest. "Enemies" spends far more time detailing Dillinger and his world than it does on Purvis, however, which makes you wonder whose side Mann and the screenwriters are really on. Do they see Dillinger's downfall as a tragedy? Perhaps the balance shifted to Dillinger when Depp signed on to play the role; the actor is so effortlessly charismatic and magnetic that Bale can't hope to compete. The two only share the screen briefly, but when they do Depp completely overwhelms Bale (who, admittedly, has a somewhat thankless, one-note role). The criminal is far more compelling than the crimefighter and, even though "Enemies" is well over two hours long, we leave knowing much more about Dillinger's personality than we do about Purvis'.

Still, there are many admirable aspects of the film, including a first-rate performance by Marion Cotillard (the 2007 Oscar winner for "La Vie en Rose") as Dillinger's faithful and feisty lover, Billie, a coat-check girl who cast aside her law-abiding life to become part of the underworld. Billy Crudup is also right on the money as J. Edgar Hoover, whom the film presents as a self-promoting puppet master who seems to be sitting on some seamy secrets of his own.

Mann stages several superb sequences, including a fascinating, funny episode in which a barely disguised Dillinger casually strolls through the Chicago Police Department and no one gives him a second look. The finale, set inside and outside Chicago's famous Biograph Theatre, is also a powerhouse piece, as Dillinger sits spellbound at a showing of "Manhattan Melodrama" (Mann does a great job of contrasting the looks of "Manhattan" star Myrna Loy with Cotillard, which helps explain why Dillinger can't take his eyes off the screen), while Purvis and his men set their trap around the cinema exits.

Perhaps fittingly for a movie set during the Depression, there were some depressing moments for the Island audience. The sound during the pre-show program was painfully garbled and the focus was fuzzy. Things improved slightly when the feature started, although it seemed like the sound head of the projector was a bit dirty or dusty: The music was clear enough, but some of the dialogue sounded as if the actors had peanut butter in their mouths. It didn't help that the theater staff started jabbering loudly almost as soon as the film began and, thanks to the flimsy doors, their conversations were sometimes easier to hear than anything Dillinger or Purvis said. It's a rare night when audience members are telling the ushers to shut up!

After about half an hour, Zach got up and left, never to return; he lately sent me a text message that the sound problems were driving him nuts and he got his money back. Of course, almost as soon as he left, the projectionist seemed to figure out what was wrong and the audio suddenly improved dramatically.

It's also interesting to see that the Island apparently ignores the rating system altogether. "Enemies" is rated R, but the cashier didn't bat an eye about selling tickets to unaccompanied kids who were clearly several years away from 17. "Probably because you never know who might be the child of a celebrity who'll pitch a fit," I remarked to Zach. Given their hit-and-miss presentation, I'm sure the Island gets enough complaints without having to hear from the fussy famous.