Movie Theater Experiences

[Perkins Cobb]

Sounds like you might just need to mellow out a bit. "Ruin" is a strong word.

Why would I want to pay $13 to have to endure one or more of the above when I can have complete control over the experience in my home theater? It makes no sense.

Anyway, if there's one thing for a cinephile not to be mellow about, it's a first viewing of any film. I'm very protective of that. If it's ruined (not too strong a word at all) by some kind of major distraction, then no subsequent attempt to get into the movie ever works quite as well, at least not for me.

[TMDaines]

Metropolis looked really good at my student cinema and really enhanced the experience up a notch from the Blu-ray. I think the biggest problem with cinemas now is pricing. There's just no value in it at times. I'm fortunate enough to at least have two good cinemas on my campus, which are really cheap.

Unfortunately a lot of the sort of movies I go to see are done two to three days .

Unfortunately the arts house theater/cinema complex on my university campus seems to be edging more and more mainstream all the time. Whilst they aren't showing Transformers and the like (yet) the number of subtitled films being shown has been greatly reduced from two years or or so. There's a grand total of two (apart from four films being shown once for a "French festival") being shown from now until New Year: Das letzte Schweigen and Miss Bala.

[zitherstrings]

I gave up on everything except repertory or festival programming about five or six years ago when it seemed like a perfect storm was converging to ruin every single theatrical experience, mainstream or art-house: idiots talking, idiots talking on their cel phones, bad projection, bad sound, tiny screens in all the indie venues (I live in New York City), mice (I live in New York City), the gradual shrinkage of my bladder.

I can't imagine how bad it is now that you can add texting and digital projection to the above. Truly, what's the point.

Digital projection is not a bad addition. It's a great one. Solves a lot of the problems e.g. bad projection. My experience is less crap bulb dimming, less out of focus. Obv. no bad switches. Best is late run when print is OK not scratched to hell. Digital is big step up (ass. good projector, e.g. multiplex).

[domino harvey]

Mediocre comedies seem ripe for the theatre audience experience. When I saw the rather lackluster Take Me Home Tonight last spring, there was a large group of college-aged fans a few rows behind us who vocally loved the movie with a fervor that stood somewhere between ironic mockery and forceful sincerity. Their cheering and singing along with any given 80s hit definitely made what could have been a somewhat tedious experience vicariously entertaining-- I definitely wanted to be watching the same film they were and sharing their enthusiasm.

[Gregory]

I definitely see where Perkins is coming from, although I still go to the theater every couple of months. The last five experiences have all been fairly unpleasant:

1) Two digital projections that showed some incredible jerkiness in the panned shots, like what I might expect to see from the most basic entry-level home projector.

2) A screening at a repertory theater with a first-time filmmaker who brought his documentary on a DVD that was so poorly mastered (blurry and full of compression artifacts) that it sometimes looked like a YouTube video projected onto a 40-foot screen. The projector may have been out of focus to boot, judging from the blurry ad for the venue that preceded the DVD. I was sitting in the middle of the front row of a full house and didn't want to get up to try to complain about how bad things looked, and anyway I've never been comfortable being the guy knocking on the door to the projection booth during a screening -- not that there's anything wrong with that, as it's often warranted.

3) A print at a muliplex using one of their remaining film projectors, which are apparently now in such disrepair that there was an extreme degree of strobing in all the light areas of the picture, the image juddering throughout, and focus was poor. This was a second-run matinee on a weekday afternoon, the last place in town that was showing Midnight in Paris, and the ticket was still $8.50.

4) Finally, a second-run screening of Tree of Life at a restored single-screen theater, and this easily looked the better than any of the above. However, I had to put up with people laughing at regular intervals at the slightest thing that happened. There was a guy two rows back who laughed hysterically no matter what was happening on the screen. (Plus the usual people checking their phones, etc.)

The next five times could be just fine, if I avoid the big chain theaters and keep in mind that filmmakers will often show up to a premiere with their film on a dodgy DVD. But yeah, I find the word "ruin" often applies, in my experience.

[Perkins Cobb]

Digital projection is not a bad addition. It's a great one. Solves a lot of the problems e.g. bad projection. My experience is less crap bulb dimming, less out of focus. Obv. no bad switches. Best is late run when print is OK not scratched to hell. Digital is big step up (ass. good projector, e.g. multiplex).

Maybe, maybe not. The thread I linked to above (from the MOC forum) was revealing to me because some of you were detailing examples of lazy digital projection that have become the nouveau equivalent of beaten-up prints and overdimmed bulbs.

My sampling of digital projection has probably more limited than most of yours, and confined to the NY Film Festival and some rep screenings in town ... but it has all ranged from disappointing to adequate, nothing more. I've seen some films (like Kechiche's literally and figuratively dark Black Venus, and Kaneto Shindo's black-and-white Trees Without Leaves) that seemed aesthetically compromised by the overbrightness/oversharpness effect. Smaller halls seem to help -- I saw a DVD projected in a little screening room at the Czech Center, and though it looked about the same as it would on my TV. But of course, the smaller the screen, the more it defeats the point.

For the most part I'll skip it if it's digital, on the theory that if there's a good digital master, it'll eventually trickle down to me on a disc or via the internet and probably look as good or better on my plasma than projected in a cinema.

[Bill Thompson]

Are there any reasons left to ever see a movie in a theater anymore?

I think there are reasons to still see movies in the theater. There's a communal aspect to a theater going experience That I can not get from watching movies at home. There are also some films that simply do not look as amazing when seen on a home theater screen as compared to a movie theater screen. Sure, there are times when a crowd sucks, but there are also crowds that are great or crowds that are barely noticeable. I still get a lot out of going to the theater, it is a rewarding experience, and I do believe it can still exist right along side the home viewing experience with no problems.

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm continually baffled by the experiences people report in the movies- the only time I ever pay north of $10 is when I'm seeing something in NYC, and the only time I ever have any issues with overtalkative crowds (beyond people engaging with the movie in a reasonable way) is at midnight movies, and even then I rarely have people talking on cells. Occasionally people subtle commenting to one another or checking the time, below the sight level.

Am I just phenomenally lucky, or do other people notice this stuff more easily, or is a lot of this people reporting what they hear and not what they actually experience?

[Bill Thompson]

I'm continually baffled by the experiences people report in the movies- the only time I ever pay north of $10 is when I'm seeing something in NYC, and the only time I ever have any issues with overtalkative crowds (beyond people engaging with the movie in a reasonable way) is at midnight movies, and even then I rarely have people talking on cells. Occasionally people subtle commenting to one another or checking the time, below the sight level.

Am I just phenomenally lucky, or do other people notice this stuff more easily, or is a lot of this people reporting what they hear and not what they actually experience?

I can say I've only ever paid $9 for a single ticket, and I live in a Chicago suburb. I've been to a few shows where people were talking or texting on their cell phones, but those experiences are in the minority.

[knives]

The AMC does $10, but the Landmark is $8.50 at worst.

[Brian C]

I'm mostly with matrixschmatrix here. Bad experiences can happen - and I've been unimpressed with the quality of all this newfangled digital projection - but crowds are generally not my biggest issue. For example, not long ago I had a guy next to me who kept taking out his phone. The third or fourth time he did this, I asked him if he could put it away (not so nicely, probably, although I didn't make an effort to be an asshole), and he got up and left altogether, never to return. Problem solved. But even that doesn't happen much, and I go to the cinema at least 2-3 times a week.

[knives]

Lucky you. The last time I asked somebody to be quiet I got threatened by them after the movie.

[Brian C]

Yeah well, to some extent you were just unlucky. There aren't really that many total sociopaths out there, percentage-wise anyway. I worked at various movie theaters for years, including as a manager for awhile, and can tell you that most people are just sincerely clueless, and feel bad when they realize that they're disturbing someone else. It's hard to believe but it's true - they're talking but they think they're quiet enough that no one else can hear them, or they honestly think that the people in the stadium seats behind them can't see their phones, or whatever.

Or, alternatively, at least if they're assholes they don't have the courage to back up their assholery with more than some childish petulance. They'll mutter something under their breath and then sit there and pout. Actual escalation is fairly rare, and even most of these people will turn reasonable once they've gotten the anger out of their system. Over a span of 5 years or so I can only remember a handful of people that were just too belligerent to deal with in any way.

[Perkins Cobb]

That's another reason I surrendered -- I won't tolerate people who talk or use their phones, and yet I don't want to be That Guy who's constantly shushing or yelling at people. Eventually I would've ended up smashing some idiot's cel phone. Who needs it.

[RossyG]

That's another reason I surrendered -- I won't tolerate people who talk or use their phones, and yet I don't want to be That Guy who's constantly shushing or yelling at people. Eventually I would've ended up smashing some idiot's cel phone. Who needs it.

My thoughts entirely. When I spent a large chunk of Sweeney Todd physically ejecting a gang of heckling chavs who'd sneaked in without even paying (*) I knew that home cinema was the future for me.

I've had it all: people chatting to friends; using phones; heckling; kicking seats; slurping; cruching; rattling sweet wrappers even tin foil they brought their food in; films out of rack; out of focus; screens with handprints, holes and Coca Cola stains; staff rattling cleaning trolleys in five minutes before the end, sniggering and whispering while they wait, then launching themselves up the aisle at the very moment the picture fades to black and before the first credit appears, killing that moment of reflection. The latter happened during the third Pirates of the Caribbean film (yeah, I know, but my friend was desperate to see it; nice guy, no taste in films) and at five minutes in from the beginning of that screening, a staff member marched up to me, shone a torch in my face and demanded to see my valid ticket that I'd already had ripped on the way in. When I produced it he shrank away sheepishly.

To hell with it all. I've never been interested in the communal aspect, the smell of popcorn churns my stomach and if you sit close enough to an HD screen it fills your field of vision more than a cinema screen anyway. I hope cinemas continue for traditional reasons and because I know many people really enjoy their visits, but count me out from now on.

(*)First I shouted at them; then I went on a lengthy search for management to complain and when they sent a petite girl of twenty alone to deal with it, a friend and I had to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in. Rather amusingly one of them shouted "I'll trample on yer" as he ran away. But it ruined the rest of the film as my blood was pumping and I was fuming. The cinema was The Vue, Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth (England) for the record.

[Forrest Taft]

I'm continually baffled by the experiences people report in the movies- the only time I ever pay north of $10 is when I'm seeing something in NYC, and the only time I ever have any issues with overtalkative crowds (beyond people engaging with the movie in a reasonable way) is at midnight movies, and even then I rarely have people talking on cells. Occasionally people subtle commenting to one another or checking the time, below the sight level.

Am I just phenomenally lucky, or do other people notice this stuff more easily, or is a lot of this people reporting what they hear and not what they actually experience?

I can say I've only ever paid $9 for a single ticket, and I live in a Chicago suburb. I've been to a few shows where people were talking or texting on their cell phones, but those experiences are in the minority.

The AMC does $10, but the Landmark is $8.50 at worst.

All this tells me is that going to the movies in the US is fairly cheap. Just came back from an afternoon screening of Tintin (I'm in Norway). Paid approx $21 for the ticket. And had buy a pair of 3d glasses separately. The total came to $25.

[aox]

All this tells me is that going to the movies in the US is fairly cheap. Just came back from an afternoon screening of Tintin (I'm in Norway). Paid approx $21 for the ticket. And had buy a pair of 3d glasses separately. The total came to $25.

3D films cost just as much in the states. They are about $20/ticket in NYC.

[swo17]

It only cost me like $11 to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 3D here (during an evening showing). A fraction of the cost for a fraction of the film I suppose--the film was clearly shown in the wrong ratio, as the names of most of the interview subjects were cut off.

[Forrest Taft]

Ok then, but a regular 2d movie costs $18 (or 100 NKR, to be presise). Also, slightly OT, as I saw the 3d version of Tintin, only 3d trailers played before the movie. The first one was for Pina. Playing that one before Tintin seemed a bit odd to me...

[TMDaines]

Ok then, but a regular 2d movie costs $18 (or 100 NKR, to be presise). Also, slightly OT, as I saw the 3d version of Tintin, only 3d trailers played before the movie. The first one was for Pina. Playing that one before Tintin seemed a bit odd to me...

You're kind of glossing over your wages in comparison to elsewhere.

[karmajuice]

Good christ. Louisiana is dirt cheap. The most I've ever paid for a ticket is $14, which is the most expensive place in town (they're also one of those places that serves food, and they insist on keeping a dim light on throughout THE ENTIRE FILM; frustrating). Typically tickets are $7.50 or $8.00. $10.00 if you go on weekends. The one-screen cinema down the road from me only charges $5.50 for a matinee. It's something like $8.00 for a 3D movie.

[swo17]

You don't say.

[PillowRock]

I hate to say it, swo, but I don't trust that web page at all.

It says:

Lower numbers are better for cost of living, but higher numbers are better for economic strength and access to capital.

That would mean that they think that Michigan has the fourth best economic strength of any state, and Texas has the absolute worst economic strength of any state. I don't believe that for a second.

[swo17]

I hate to say it, swo, but I don't trust that web page at all.
It says:

Lower numbers are better for cost of living, but higher numbers are better for economic strength and access to capital.

That would mean that they think that Michigan has the fourth best economic strength of any state, and Texas has the absolute worst economic strength of any state. I don't believe that for a second.

That was just the first link that came up when I did a search for "cost of living." The point is that, not shockingly, things cost different amounts in different parts of the country/world. And yet we all have the same MSRP for a Criterion DVD.

[triodelover]

The point is that, not shockingly, things cost different amounts in different parts of the country/world.

Well, that's true if you buy everything locally at bricks and mortar outlets (and movie theaters certainly qualify) but not so much anymore for consumables because of Sen. Stevens lovely network of tubes.