UPDATE: "El Cine" Mayaguez Alerts
As I informed you, Cinevista went belly up, "busted flat in Baton Rouge" (as Joplin/Kristofferson did sing).
What should we call this "cine"? Well, let's call it "El Cine"!
El Cine quickly popped up to keep the Mayaguez Town Center location (a stone's throw from the university) operating. For a Puerto Rican company, they did this marvelously quickly! You can tell by the name how fast things progressed..
Simple. It might even turn out to be brilliant at some point in the future. 
A little reverse branding. We'll see how it works out in time. Watch for a possible name change in the future due to conflicts with web search and website domain names.
I first checked in on El Cine back around November 2008. Their staff looked disorganized. They had no sign with the movie listings/times posted. They had a printout available at the desk to scan. The line up was a bit of a free for all.
However, I just dropped in to re-check "El Cine" again last night, and I can tell you that they have now made significantly no progress. 
I am being a little sarcastic here, but I'll explain, and then I'm going to tell you all why I think you should support and give your thumbs up to "El Cine" who saved the theater after Cinevista's "possible" mismanagement drove that franchise into the ground, leaving Cabo Rojo residents and University of Mayaguez students (i.e. those without cars/scooters) robbed of one of their key weekly entertainment options.
El Cine does appear to be making slow progress. However, if you look around, it seems more or less clear that it's a cash flow issue, at least in my estimation. Certainly, not just everyone has the funds available to invest and maintain operations that quickly, and if we had some behind the scenes input, I'm sure we'll find out it was an 11th hour partnership that required a lot of begging and pleading for the funds needed to dive into bed with the project. They did it. However, we're going to have to deal with cotton sheets instead of silk for a while in this new romance.
During my last visit (January 31st, 2009), I saw their new movie display board still in the box against the wall, awaiting installation. They don't have it up yet, but it's at least there. Staff were giving out tickets by writing in pen on blank tickets. The lineup was more or less created by the customer's own "line up logic" who are (of course) familiar with how that should generally happen. We are all very well trained consumer monkeys you know.
Problem Statement:
- El Cine is not yet operating at a highly professional level yet, likely due to funding.
Solution Options:
- Local movie goers should continue to support El Cine. Choose it when you can over Caribbean Theaters in the Western Plaza, or the Hormigueros theater.
- El Cine must be extra diligent in getting standard systems in place, including the movie board, line up organization, and a ticket printer.
- El Cine might consider entering niche markets like re-runs of old favorites. Coordinate with the university student council to find out what past hits, or focus group specific documentaries, would commit the students to attend.
- Please don't bring back the beer. It's hard enough to keep people quiet during a movie.
El Cine - Please get some rope barriers to help channel your line up correctly.
El Cine Management: We would welcome an official statement from you regarding your progress so far, your plan, and your target time line.
Watch Movies at El Cine, Mayaguez Town Center - Movie Listings
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