ArcLight bets on the cocktail as a draw

Here’s the choice: You can rush across town to the megaplex, wait in separate lines for $5 parking, $14 tickets and $6 popcorn, only for the pleasure of a loudmouth talking over all the best dialogue. Or, you can slide the latest DVD from Netflix into your 12-speaker, high-definition home theater system, order a pizza and become one with your La-Z-Boy and fantasies of being as funny as Vince Vaughn.

Face it. With the sorry dreck that passes for movie entertainment these days, you need a really good reason to leave the comforts of home. Would a cocktail do it?

The managers at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood figure that a fancy martini or a glass of draft suds will wash away the stress involved in going out. On select weekend nights, the movie house offers “21+ Screenings,” which is essentially the bar moved into the auditorium. The screenings are announced in the newspaper listings and on the cinema’s website.

The ArcLight is one of those upscale theaters that offers reserved seating, a members-only club, art exhibitions, a restaurant and, on both levels, a bar. Unlike at other movie theaters, it’s legal to take your Sierra Nevada into the auditorium. Tickets for the 21-plus screenings are the same $14 each, but you will be carded.

At the entrance -- handily adjacent to the balcony bar -- a uniformed usher wraps your wrist in a blue band, certifying your access to the bar. You can have a meal or an appetizer to go with your drinks. The waitress conveniently knows that the kitchen can present the nacho chips and the sweet corn tamale in less than 10 minutes. While you wait, scan the list of martinis named for movies and try to connect the ingredients to the plot. (I’m guessing that the Godfather’s combination of dry vermouth and Grand Marnier is lethal.)

You can drink your $9 Midnight Express martini in a proper glass in the bar, or have the bartender dispense it into a paper cup for toting into the auditorium, where the combination of low lights, alcohol and steep stairs spells potential for broken glassware. No matter where you drink it, the potent mix of vodka, Frangelico, Baileys Irish Cream and espresso in the Midnight Express promises to make even the lamest dialogue hilarious. That helps when you’re watching Paris Hilton in her horror movie debut, “House of Wax,” or trying to not to feel the violence in “Sin City.”

Yet as fun as it sounds to have a cocktail inside the movie theater, something is missing in the experience. It’s the illicitness.

If you never have tried slipping a bit of hooch into the Pepsi in your paper cup, then you may miss the essential purpose of drinking at the movies. The thrill is in the fear of getting caught.

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‘21+ Screenings’

Where: ArcLight Cinemas, 6360 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood

When: Show times vary.

Price: Cocktails $7-9, beer $5-$6, wine by the glass $7-$9. Movie tickets $14.

Info: (323) 464-4226, www.arclightcinemas.com