I hate going to movies here in Milwaukee. The selection sucks.. SUCKS! Honestly, there are only 2 theatres in town that have captions. Just TWO! Here are your options...

1.) The Ridge- (www.marcustheatres.com) This theatre shows movies that are Open Captioned (OC). This means that the captions are burned onto the screen and you can easily read and see the whole movie at once. Deaf people love this, but the showtimes are terrible, one movie shown three times during the course of a weekend; Friday mid-afternoon, Saturday early morning, and Sunday late at night. That's it. If you miss it, sorry bubba, you have to wait till it comes out on DVD. Also the only movies that get this treatment are the big blockbusters, and family movies. Anything else forget it, no art house stuff or films up for academy awards. This is the only theatre in town that shows them, this sooo sucks.

2.) Mayfair AMC- (www.bigscreen.com) This theater is a better option than the Ridge.. shows films Rear Window Captioned (RWC). RWC is a ton more complicated to expain than OC. What RWC basically is, the words are scrolled/flashed backwards on the back wall of the theater, and you have to ask at the guest services for the plastic black mirror that you put into the cup holder. It takes forever to adjust it to read the words on the back wall, to a point where you can read what is happening and watch the screen at the same time. Lots of pratice and arriving early to get everything adjusted is highly recommeded. However since only you can read what is being captioned, and other viewers are not distracted by the captions, they show the movie on average 4 times a day for an entire week, so you have plenty of time to catch the film. However if the captioner on the back wall is broken, its down for at least two weeks, since the nearest guy who can fix it has to drive all the way up from Chicago, which may mean you miss out on a few good films. However the selection is a bit better, I have seen scary movies and even some smaller movies get captioned, however due to just ONE theatre utilizing this great invention, you are stuck with just that movie for the week. In Washington DC, (Deaf capital of the US) there are at least 10 theatres who have this, with various movies playing.. which gives you a better spread of films to see. I really wish there were more options here in Milwaukee for this technology.

 Then there is foreign films. I miss MIFF big time. Honestly to go see a foregin film with a bunch of hearing friends is so much fun since you can understand what is happening on the screen. The problem here in Milwaukee is not too many foreign films are shown here since the MIFF went bankrupt. The last movie I managed to catch was Pan's Labrynth, such a great film! I recall volunteering for the MIFF as a Theatre Manager on the last night of it back in 2006, and telling everyone to go watch the movie, Wristcutters, explaining I couldn't because its in English! (I managed to catch it just this past summer on DVD) I wish there was a listing for foregin film when they come into town, rather than depending on word of mouth when there is one.