I wish I had a breakthrough to report—that Sony glimpsed its ghastly reflection in the black mirror of critical backlash, recoiled at the sight, and resolved to never again subject their community to “dark screen” technological experiments. That hasn’t happened.

Alamo’s social media manager carries on like nothing is wrong, even as posts to the Alamo Facebook page get ratio’d by a devastatingly persistent comment section. On LinkedIn, where industry posturing often unfolds, Alamo is busy promoting “Raccoon City Cinema,” a horror mini-fest with a Resident Evil promotional tie-in.

The irony is thick enough to kill a Tyrant. Only Capcom execs could possibly enjoy this, and they do, while the rest of us wait with bated breath for Alamo to address the zombie elephant in the room. In the Capcom cinematic universe, Sony is the Umbrella Corporation, and this “Dark Screen” tech—of mysterious origins and untested capabilities—is their T-Virus.

Remember the declarative press release announcing Alamo's move to mobile ordering? It hyped a custom-built “Dark Screen Technology” that Sony allegedly "created." This innovation was supposed to make device use safe and socially acceptable during a screening. It solved for everything! It changed the world.

I shudder to think how much Sony’s stock price depended upon this revolutionary tech, because their “Dark Screen Technology” is… [dramatic pause] … a browser-based shopping cart with a sorta-darkish color scheme.

The silver lining? The mobile ordering experience isn’t fully operational just yet. There is still time. Mobile ordering isn’t slated for “Quiet Zone” (after the pre-show) action until February, and I’m told that in unionized locations, that rollout won’t hit until March. Meanwhile, field reports frequently suggest that sometimes the web-app fails to work entirely.

Did Kustermann blow Alamo’s R&D budget on overhyped tech? Did he rush this launch only to gain a cynical bargaining chip against organized labor? Was this abominable “dark screen technology” an internal creation, or did he conspire with consultants to destroy the cinema experience as we know it? So many questions.

All we know is that Wired Magazine once hailed Alamo as “the coolest theater in the world,” and that title has officially expired. Alamo once redefined the cinema experience by curating and communicating with savvy and soul. Now, the brand peddles in (please permit me the scientific term) “marketing bullshit.”

The brand damage incurred staggers the mind. They’ll study this crash-and-burn in business and film schools for decades. It’s a doozy. Mobile ordering is inherently and obviously antithetical to Alamo's brand, and its rollout feels wholly unnatural—like it was birthed in an underground lab intently separated from Alamo’s award-winning cinema experience pipeline.

From the cringeworthy press release to Aziz Ansari literally phoning in an awkward, unfunny briefing on how to order food with your phone—promptly followed by a generic “Quiet Zone” warning not to use that same phone—the lack of foresight is stunning. It makes you wonder what’s actually going on at corporate.

A Shout Out To the r/AlamoDrafthouse Subreddit

We get lots of appreciated support from Redditors, but a handful of paranoid (and vocal) users believe my campaign updates are “Ai-generated slop.” I can assure you, these updates are wholly organic. I milk actual human thought from the teats of my human fingers in a grotesque and laborious process some call “writing.”

These detractors bizarrely slammed me for “arrogance” and “hostility to cinema workers” because I returned my Top Brass pin to a concierge desk in protest. I suppose they live in a world where playfully interacting with folks you see several days each week is a "hostile act" against labor itself. Weird value system, but I don’t judge.

Also, to my fellow Redditors: I acknowledge the cover photo for this petition was created with Ai, and I know you hate that. Let's do better. I invite you to submit something superior. Send me large imagery (1600 x 900 pixels) that will translate into a center-cropped thumbnail. Deploy Dark Screen Technology™ for the win, and I’ll handle the bullshit press release.

We will win, eventually. It’s the First Law of Cultural Dynamics: Everything cool eventually becomes less cool, then not cool at all, until something actually cool replaces it.