When Milk Duds won't do: $29 movie ticket and champagne theaters open

As a bookend to WalletPop's hard-hitting expose on candy smuggling into movie theaters, we bring you the other end of the picture-show universe: a chain so upscale that $49 bottles of champagne, $19 steak sandwiches and a club-like pampering come on top of a $29 ticket.

The recession has faded to black for a niche of upscale movie goers, according to an article in Monday's Los Angeles Times. Australia-based Gold Class Cinemas opened its fourth luxury movie mini-palace in the United States -- this one in Pasadena, Calif., -- and it's doing brisk business.