Essay contest for movie theater giveaway!

December 17, 2015 9:14 AM

Write yourself a new life via essay contest in a movie theater giveaway Win a two-screen movie theater in Houlton, Maine (right on the cusp of an international border!) in an essay contest. The theater is no white elephant gift; the owner renovated and upgraded in 2014 for digital projection & sound.

This is not a joke, and there is a $100 entry fee. The movie theater owner lost his theater manager and decided to do a giveaway. Imagine the possibilities: become the social center of the town, provide entertainment to a grateful populace, live a simple small town life.

This is no sleepy town. It has big-city amenities, like the Houlton Regional Hospital and Houlton International Airport, not to mention nearby New Brunswick, Canada.

posted by honey badger (11 comments total)

I am not snarking about this in any way at all. I seriously considered this for real minutes of my life, picking up and starting a new life in Maine, where I fantasized that running a movie theater would cover all my living expenses (have no idea if that's true).
posted by honey badger at 9:19 AM on December 17, 2015

My essay will be titled "Why the Good People of Houlton, Maine, Will Never Tire of Die Hard Tuesdays".

The key is to ignore the latter two.
posted by Etrigan at 9:43 AM on December 17, 2015 [6 favorites]

Remember that time we all won Tivos?
posted by palegirl at 10:16 AM on December 17, 2015 [5 favorites]

Dear hello yes please give me a movie theater yes because I like really like movies thank you and yes this is my essay
posted by webmutant at 11:12 AM on December 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Definitely tempting.
posted by JanetLand at 11:25 AM on December 17, 2015

The nice thing about living in Houlton, is you're basically living in Canada! Woodstock, NB is only about a 20 minute drive, which I've only driven through, but seems super nice. Fredericton is only an hour away, and is culturally some kind of weird America/Canadian hybrid of a place that I love. Lots of beautiful country out there.
posted by mayonnaises at 11:47 AM on December 17, 2015

It's worth noting that this is one of a spate of similar deals going on in Maine, because after the Inn Giveaway mentioned in the article, the state AG determined that the contest wasn't a lottery despite being very obviously a lottery. More.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:33 PM on December 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

the state AG determined that the contest wasn't a lottery despite being very obviously a lottery.

I don't think it's a lottery at all -- in the worst possible interpretation of people's complaints, the owners weren't choosing the winning entry out of a hat, but they had already worked out a deal with the eventual winner and were just collecting money from people who didn't stand a chance.
posted by Etrigan at 12:39 PM on December 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

Thanks for the link, Navelgazer. I guess I was so swept away with the idea of the contest that I couldn't deploy my critical-thinking parts of my brain. Obvious in hindsight.
posted by honey badger at 12:58 PM on December 17, 2015

It would be tempting if it wasn't 1000 miles away from me.
posted by octothorpe at 2:05 PM on December 17, 2015

My sister is entering -- if she wins I'll see if I can swing free tix for MeFites.
posted by JanetLand at 12:19 PM on December 29, 2015