October 28, 2015 – Forest Hills, Queens. Exterior shots of facade and entrance as well as interior shots of foyer and hallways at local independent movie theater Cinemart Cinemas. on Metropolitan Avenue in Forest Hills. 10/28/2015 Photographs by Tola Brennan

The appeal of casually going to catch a flick has been decreasing as the whole outing clutches at the purse. A Manhattan movie ticket runs around $15 and WSJ reported the benchmark of $20 in 2010. Then add in popcorn for something like $8 and maybe a drink starting somewhere around $5. And have a look at these quaint prices from 2000 that NYT reported.

So at at time when movie ticket prices have steadily been rising, it’s all the more significant that Cinemart has bucked the trend. Owner Nicolas Nicolaou is not playing that. Not at all.

If you go to a movie at Cinemart, it’s $7. I has been $7 and it will continue to be $7 because by golly gee enough is a enough. Cinemart is not going to be some bridge troll clubbing on your good time.  No. Cinemart will give you free popcorn because you matter to Cinemart, not in a cold-blooded phony advertisement in your mail-slot to let you know kind of way, but in a buttery and crunchy kind of way, a grungy you’re seeing a movie and there’s no long line to deal with kind of way. If you go to Cinemart you will not feel robbed. You will not feeling sucked of all your cheerfulness. You will not feel like it’s some kind of technicolored corporate nightmare. None of those things. Not in the slightest.

You will feel like it’s a theater that opened in 1927 and has been in continuous operation since then. It will feel like high school students get their first job there. It will feel like it has been passed down in the family because it was passed down in the family. It might even feel a little ancient and that would be because parts of the entryway are the 1927 originals. You might even feel the the echoes of the regulars who come to Cinemart on Sundays.