MOVIES - Jan. 6, 1988

New York Mayor Ed Koch has turned up the heat on his assault on $7 movie ticket prices in that city. On Monday, Koch showed up outside two Manhattan movie theaters and threatened to use a boycott to force theaters to abandon the $7 ducat. “We will not be abused, we will not be taken advantage of,” trumpeted the mayor in front of the Baronet and Coronet theaters--two among 28 theaters owned by the Canadian exhibitor Cineplex Odeon that raised their prices to $7 at the beginning of the holiday season. (Loews Theaters followed suit.) “I believe that the movie operators, if we boycott the $7 movies . . . will get down on their knees and ask us to come back,” Koch said. Cineplex Odeon spokeswoman Denise Battaglia said the company had no comment.