Maybe if theater owners had more than endless retreads to screen, they wouldn't have to bother with all the frou-frou

 

Photo by Retiring Guy

New York Times, 5/31/2023

“There’s an urgency now,” said Mike Polydoros, president of PaperAirplane Media, a cinema marketing agency. 

Theaters are installing heated lounge chairs that fully recline or have built-in trays and buttons to summon waiters. Some seats move in sync with the movie’s action or provide special effects such as a blast of air during a windy scene, tricks that were once typical only at amusement parks. Some auditoriums now have screens on the sides as well as at the front. Menu options have grown ever more sophisticated. Sushi, anyone? You can wash it down with an I.P.A. 

Theaters are offering other thrills. One outside Fort Worth built a gangplank 22 feet above an arcade floor — walk it if you dare. Another in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., has a kitchen and lobby bar with TV screens so a customer can, say, catch the end of a ballgame before the feature starts.

According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of 'froufrou', as in showy or frilly ornamentation, occured in 1870.

Other coinages from the same year include:

• celluloid
• craft union
• curse word
• druthers
• overaccentuate
• Punch-and-Judy show