AMC Theatre provides classic Valentine’s Day date

Jaycee Hampton Staff Reporter

Valentine’s Day is approaching quickly, and this year you might want to consider spending it at the movies.

Despite the undeniable convenience of streaming services, going to the movie theater is the kind of experience you can’t get in your own home. You get to turn off your phone and transport yourself to a different reality for a few hours. You get to leave behind the stress of school and everyday life to enjoy quality time with a date, a group of friends, or even by yourself.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the movie-going experience has decreased dramatically. The easy access to almost any movie you want is hard to beat, but there is something special about being able to spend time at the movies.

One of AMC Stillwater’s managers, Zander McDaniel, is passionate about attending the movies. Originally from Wisconsin, he attended Oklahoma State University to study environmental sciences and business and has now decided to stay in the Stillwater area.

“It is all about the experience of being able to come to a theater and have surround sound, a big screen and heated seats,” McDaniel said. “We have new gourmet popcorn right now, hot foods, stuff like that and it is all ready to go. We have deals, like $5 Tuesdays if you’re an AMC stubs member. So it’ll be easy for you to get a nice, cheap movie and have a good, fun experience.”

With deals like that, it is fate that Valentine’s day happens to fall on a Tuesday this year. Becoming an AMC Stubs member is easy and can all be done online. There are plenty of special benefits other movie go-ers don’t have access to that you will get to enjoy as a Stubs member.

“[On Valentine’s day] We are going to be showing the 25th Anniversary edition of “Titanic,” it is like a remaster of the movie and it is going to be really cool,” McDaniel said.

“ I am sure we will have some kind of deal for the day. We always have something with our barvarians (a one-and-a-half pound pretzel) which is a great date item.”

Although McDaniel has been working for AMC for about two years, he was never a major movie fanatic. Since working at the movie theater and becoming a manager, he has loved getting to interact with customers in different ways, see the different crowds of people attending movies and he now has a whole apprecia- tion that goes into the movie theater experience. “I was never really big on the movie thing,” he said.

“I didn’t even watch Marvel and everyone has seen Marvel movies. [Working here] It has kind of gotten me into experiencing the magic of movies for the first time. I grew up in Guthrie after I moved down from Wisconsin for some time and they have a drive-in movie theater but they only showed one movie there. Having all these options is new to me, and really cool. I would live across the street if I could.”

Experience a movie the way it was meant to be seen this Valentine’s Day, on a tall silver screen and sound you can feel, locally at your AMC theater.