Movie Theater Experiences

A subforum to discuss film culture and criticism.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1001 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Mar 01, 2020 2:35 pm

That legit made me laugh out loud. Last night at a festival screening of On a Magical Night, instead of “sh”ing talkers, the guy next to me explained for about fifteen seconds why the couple talking below us were disturbing him mid-movie, which was rather bizarre. The couple behind us reacted with gasps and detest every time a character did anything, which to be fair definitely would shock many Americans! But noises throughout an entire movie is not ideal.

The wildest movie theatre experience I can think of first hand was when I saw Logan in theatres. There was a guy who must have been around 40-50 years of age talking to someone next to him the whole movie. It was clearly a one-sided conversation with the man talking loudly and the friend not responding for the sake of etiquette. Various audience members “sh”ed this guy to no avail. Eventually, at the very end as the climax was occurring into the sad ending, he received a phone call, which he answered: “Hey what’s up? Where are you? No I can talk. Probably about five minutes left here.” All of a sudden everyone lost their cool. People screamed, “Shut the fuck up!” ; “You’ve been talking during the whole fucking movie” ; “Put your phone away” etc. The guy stayed on the phone and screamed back, “Fuck you” but after a few more heckles he got up and stormed out of the theatre phone in hand, continuing to tell the audience to fuck off in a whining child’s voice (I was seated in the back of the theatre watching this play out). Of course as he left, the credits began to roll, so he ruined the cathartic pathos everything had been building toward (which I didn’t care for personally but felt bad for those who did). The worst part was that the person he was sitting next to the whole time was his son who was no more than 13 or 14 years old, and he proceeded to stand up and turn around and apologize sweetly for his father’s behavior. The audience was very nice to him, but ugh what a gut punch when the child is the mature empathetic one..

User avatar
Lemmy Caution
Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:26 am
Location: East of Shanghai

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1002 Post by Lemmy Caution » Tue Mar 03, 2020 11:10 am

Roger Ryan wrote:
Wed Feb 26, 2020 9:46 am
*Back in 1993, a friend told me about going to a cinema to see Adrian Lyne's Indecent Proposal which was inadvertently screened "open matte" (closer to full frame 1.37:1 than the appropriate 1.85:1 aspect ratio). As a result, he felt the boom microphone should have received supporting actor billing as it was clearly visible shifting around above the heads of the actors for a good 70% of the film!
I had a viewing like that at the Shanghai Int'l Film Festival a few years back. I'd have to check what film it was, but man was that distracting. I nearly got up a dozen times to talk to the management to see if they could fix it, but I would have had to explain the problem in Chinese, likely miss a chunk of the film, and probably no one would have cared. But I really should have, for the benefit of myself and everyone else in the screening. Really a terrible way to view a film. Though if the sound was off, it would have been like being on set and watching the film being made. (the film was just being shown at a local theater as part of SIFF, and not at the main SIFF theater).

User avatar
Roscoe
Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:40 pm
Location: NYC

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1003 Post by Roscoe » Tue Mar 03, 2020 12:58 pm

I remember a screening of ERASERHEAD many years ago which was framed incorrectly -- cables and cords were visible under the table the Baby was resting on, and a finger could be seen manipulating the artificial chicken in the dinner scene.

WmS
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 9:46 pm
Location: Columbus, OH

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1004 Post by WmS » Tue Mar 03, 2020 4:10 pm

Roscoe wrote:
Tue Mar 03, 2020 12:58 pm
a finger could be seen manipulating the artificial chicken in the dinner scene.
Now it's even more disturbing

User avatar
Professor Wagstaff
Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2010 11:27 pm

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1005 Post by Professor Wagstaff » Tue Mar 03, 2020 4:21 pm

I remember something similar happening when I saw Valkyrie when it came out. You could see the booms at the top of the frame throughout the movie and the bottom half of the picture was completely cut off. I made several complaints to no avail. If anyone else in the theater noticed, they didn't say anything. I'm not even sure they were aware at the end when the characters' fates appear on the screen as text, only you couldn't see them at all, just their names above the epitaphs.

User avatar
HitchcockLang
Joined: Tue May 28, 2013 1:43 pm

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1006 Post by HitchcockLang » Tue Mar 03, 2020 10:02 pm

When I saw The Happening, it was framed poorly and boom mics were visible. At first there were none then you caught a glimpse of one and the they gradually became more prominent. I spent most of the movie thinking it was intentional and expecting the Shyamalan twist to be that they were all characters in a sci-fi b-movie.

User avatar
The Elegant Dandy Fop
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 3:25 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1007 Post by The Elegant Dandy Fop » Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:57 am

That’s worse than poor framing. It sounds like the film was projected open matte, revealing all the information on the top and bottom of the 35mm frame. Amateur hour projector issue. Good 35mm projection was a great skill that went to multiplexes and landed in the hands of teenaged amateurs. Digital projection at least simplified the process and left less room for error, but I certainly have seen digital films masked incorrectly as well.

User avatar
Dr Amicus
Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:20 am
Location: Guernsey

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1008 Post by Dr Amicus » Wed Mar 04, 2020 6:14 am

The worst example of that was when I saw Longtime Companion at UKC in the late 80s (at the time, the lecture theatre doubled as a BFI linked arthouse cinema - I don't know if it still does) - shown open matte it was robbed of a lot if its emotional impact because so many scenes had the WHOLE BOOM MIKE taking up much of the screen. This was unusual as normally the projectionist(s) there were very experienced as it the same theatre was used for all Film Studies screenings (2 or 3 films, on 16 or 35mm, a day).

User avatar
Roscoe
Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:40 pm
Location: NYC

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1009 Post by Roscoe » Wed Mar 04, 2020 9:48 am

So when these things happen, does anyone go to the staff and let them know that the projection is off? I know I did with the ERASERHEAD screening. It's hard sometimes with the larger multiplexes, where the nearest employee might be several floors away...

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1010 Post by MichaelB » Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:45 am

The problem is, if you do that you miss a chunk of the film, so the natural tendency is to hope that someone else does.

But sometimes they never do - back in my cinema management days I once received an angry letter about an identical situation, but not one person mentioned it at the time, either during the screening or immediately afterwards. If they had, of course, it would have been fixed.

(A busy rep cinema projectionist won’t be watching the film throughout, or indeed would be able to even if they wanted, as they’d be too busy prepping and breaking down other prints.)

User avatar
Roscoe
Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:40 pm
Location: NYC

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1011 Post by Roscoe » Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:56 am

Sure, it can depend. I went to a screening at Film Forum of Griffith's HEARTS OF THE WORLD that refused to stay properly framed -- the bottom half of the image was on top, and vice versa. It seemed to be a 16mm print that they just couldn't keep set up properly, try as they might. I asked twice for the image to be fixed, and it was fixed both times, and then the third time I just split. I wish I'd asked for a refund.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1012 Post by MichaelB » Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:02 pm

Which reminds me: another problem is 16mm dupes of 35mm prints that were transferred less than carefully. For many years the only print of Eisenstein's Strike in commercial distribution in Britain was just such a dupe, and the problem was that the English subtitles would occasionally be slightly or mostly cropped off at the bottom of the frame because the framing had been messed up when the copy was made.

The problem was that to the viewer it looked like inept projection, which was most unfair on the projectionist, who'd be trying his or her damnedest to make sure that as much of the subtitle was visible as was humanly possible. It only affected the first reel, and only a handful of subtitles on that reel, and we did warn people upfront, explaining that it was either that print or nothing at all (and this was back in the days when it wasn't out on video and there were no alternative viewing sources), but situations like this are why I'm more relaxed about the DCP revolution than are many celluloid purists.

User avatar
Dr Amicus
Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:20 am
Location: Guernsey

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1013 Post by Dr Amicus » Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:15 pm

I've complained several times over mis-aligned images - mostly at multiplexes - and in most cases it was quickly and easily corrected. However, I have a couple of times seen 4:3 prints projected at something like 1.85:1 because the cinema apparently didn't have the necessary lenses to project properly when there was nothing they could do except offer me a refund.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1014 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Mar 06, 2020 1:44 pm

This is all reminding me of Jean-Pierre Leaud in Masculin Feminin running out of the latest Swedish movie to lecture the projectionist on aspect ratios from his rule book!

User avatar
willoneill
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:10 am
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1015 Post by willoneill » Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:53 pm

Here's a new COVID-era example of bad movie theatre behaviour: my neighbourhood theatre seats 325, and with Ontario mandating a maximum of of 50 people per theatre (or any other indoor business), the theatre staff went to trouble of setting up 100 available seats, in pairs or threes, ensuring each grouping was at least 2 metres from any other grouping, and blocking off the rest with caution tape. Well 8 days into their re-opening, I went to see John Carpenter's The Thing on Saturday and right before the movie starts, this guys comes in, looks around and I guess doesn't see any open seats to his liking (despite their being at least 30-40 available), so he rips up some caution tape and sits wherever he wants. Definitely a COVID metaphor there.

User avatar
Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1016 Post by Brian C » Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:06 pm

Haha, now you know what being an American is like these days.

User avatar
Monterey Jack
Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2018 1:27 am

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1017 Post by Monterey Jack » Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:06 am

I'd put up with ANY bad theater behavior at this point just to see a movie in a theater again.

User avatar
Aunt Peg
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:30 am

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1018 Post by Aunt Peg » Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:16 am

Cinemas reopened in my part of the world on 2 July. I've seen a number of films since they opened and have already hit my first 'sort of' bad experience.

Only very limited numbers of people are allowed to attend screenings so everybody is spread out and allocated seats which you must remain in. At a screening of Babyteeth last Thursday there were about 8 people in a small cinema all spread out (people attending together are permitted to sit together). One patron decided he'd move which really wasn't a problem given there were so few people and he didn't move any closer to anybody. About half an hour into the film I noticed he was buried in his mobile phone texting away. This continued for the next hour and then he left the screening.

I didn't find it annoying as he was sitting far enough away from us to be an annoyance but I've got to wonder why he even bothered going to the cinema.

Interesting to note that people are barely attending films. I haven't been to a screening that has had a maximum number of people allowed in the cinema yet and the audiences numbers as small as they are continue to dwindle.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1019 Post by tenia » Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:10 am

Monterey Jack wrote:I'd put up with ANY bad theater behavior at this point just to see a movie in a theater again.
I wouldn't. Quite the opposite actually. Considering the current gloomy state of things for most theaters, this kind of bad behavior should be handled in the strictest fashion by management because these are exactly the kind of reckless behavior that can frighten many people away from coming back.

But it's quite symptomatic of many people thinking they're smarter than the pandemic, but the current re-surging numbers and how the new clusters are formed tend to demonstrate exactly the opposite : we're quite dumb, and probably extremely lucky this is "just" a Coronavirus and not something deadlier.
Aunt Peg wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:16 am
Interesting to note that people are barely attending films. I haven't been to a screening that has had a maximum number of people allowed in the cinema yet and the audiences numbers as small as they are continue to dwindle.
In France, what's interesting is that the current low attendance seems to almost entirely be down to the US big movies having been delayed. The other movies' numbers aren't massively different from the ones from July 2019, and in some cases are actually even better. Except there isn't The Lion King and al to make 10 times what these other movies are doing, so we're basically down to 25% of the usual weekly BO.

User avatar
Aunt Peg
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:30 am

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1020 Post by Aunt Peg » Tue Jul 28, 2020 7:13 am

tenia wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:10 am
Aunt Peg wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:16 am
Interesting to note that people are barely attending films. I haven't been to a screening that has had a maximum number of people allowed in the cinema yet and the audiences numbers as small as they are continue to dwindle.
In France, what's interesting is that the current low attendance seems to almost entirely be down to the US big movies having been delayed. The other movies' numbers aren't massively different from the ones from July 2019, and in some cases are actually even better. Except there isn't The Lion King and al to make 10 times what these other movies are doing, so we're basically down to 25% of the usual weekly BO.
Lack of Hollywood blockbusters is certainly part of the problem overall but I have to admit that most of the previously scheduled Hollywood fare didn't hold any interest for me.

Though in March when the pandemic was starting to gain traction I started our annual French Film Festival which is the biggest collection of French films outside France on 11 March. On 18 March the cinema chain that shows the festival across the country announced that is was shutting its doors due to health and safety reasons so the last screenings took place on that very day. On 23 March the country was placed in level 3 lockdown anyway.

When cinemas re-opened on 2 July the French film festival resumed one week later.

Attendance during that first week of the festival in March was generally very poor. I've been attending the festival for since it started in the late 1980s and I have never encountered such poor attendance - at one session my partner and I plus one other person were the only people in the cinema. A number of the March screenings had no more than 10 people. Even when the festival resumed on 9 July I have not attended a single film that was booked out at the capacity allowed in a cinema (which isn't very much people - 40 to 50 at most with everyone seated away from each other). Understandably people were clearly scared back in March and are still very weary - as they should be with community transmissions of an unknown origin in the state rising by a total 11 over the last 12 days (various clusters that have been traced have risen by about 150 over the last 16 days).

The market for more specialised films is definitely affected and that has been unfolding in Melbourne has also spooked a lot of people.

For anyone interest this is the trailer reel promoting the festival. It was played for a month at everything playing prior to the annual March festival and was naturally resurrected for the return: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsp6Rxvg1ms

I can't see there being much of a 2021 French Film Festival. They will probably be able to cobble together a smaller version but getting back to usual business will depend on unfolding events.

User avatar
willoneill
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:10 am
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1021 Post by willoneill » Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:19 am

Aunt Peg wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:16 am
Interesting to note that people are barely attending films. I haven't been to a screening that has had a maximum number of people allowed in the cinema yet and the audiences numbers as small as they are continue to dwindle.
So far in Ottawa it's just the two independent theatres and the discount second-run-mall theatres that are open, because the 50 person limit is a hard limit, whether you have one screen or 24. Therefore the two major chains (Cineplex and Landmark) have decide dto stay closed for now in Ontario. Cineplex is apparently lobbying Dougie Ford hard to change the limit for movie theatres, at least in time for Tenet next month. Both of the independents here have had multiple "sellouts"; I only just barely got into The Thing as I heard the cashier turning people away while I was in the concession line.

User avatar
FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1022 Post by FrauBlucher » Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:48 pm

How many people have gone into a theater throughout the pandemic? In NY, theaters have not opened and have not been given guidance when they may open. I'm not sure how I feel about going back to a theater. The first theater I will probably venture to is the Film Forum just so I can be supportive and they will probably have something I will want to see. I would say the avg age of their audience is older. I will venture a guess and say many older folks will not rush back to movie theaters. So, maybe I would strongly consider going to an afternoon screening where distancing will be possible

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1023 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Aug 23, 2020 3:29 pm

FrauBlucher wrote:
Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:48 pm
How many people have gone into a theater throughout the pandemic? In NY, theaters have not opened and have not been given guidance when they may open. I'm not sure how I feel about going back to a theater. The first theater I will probably venture to is the Film Forum just so I can be supportive and they will probably have something I will want to see. I would say the avg age of their audience is older. I will venture a guess and say many older folks will not rush back to movie theaters. So, maybe I would strongly consider going to an afternoon screening where distancing will be possible
I still haven't gone back. The last screening I caught was Le petit théâtre de Jean Renoir at MoMA's theater 1 (the big one), and looking at their schedule, it was apparently on Sat., Feb. 29. By then, masks and hand sanitizing were definitely prevalent in Asian communities like in Queens - N95 masks were selling out fast at hardware stores - which was in striking contrast to everyone else. (It's worth noting that when I visited Chinatown on the LES around Valentine's Day, there were very, very few patrons about. Like elsewhere, businesses in Asian communities were hit really hard before COVID-19 really spread.) I think at the time it was believed that COVID-19 hadn't reached NY state yet (test results would later suggest it already had), but even though I wasn't social distancing (at least rigorously) or wearing a mask, I remember using hand sanitizers and washing my hands very thoroughly and frequently. That MoMA theater is also very big, and the modest size of the audience was also expected, so finding a good viewing spot that was a good distance from everyone else wasn't difficult. Again, this was when I thought it was unlikely anyone was sick - under similar conditions, I don't think I'd go again just to be safe. There's still well over a hundred new cases being logged in NYC every day, sometimes a few hundred - it goes up and down a bit, but at least it hasn't gone up to 500, much less spike to an alarming level.

User avatar
Monterey Jack
Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2018 1:27 am

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1024 Post by Monterey Jack » Mon Aug 24, 2020 1:42 pm

I've been back to the AMC in Boston twice over the weekend, for Peninsula (the sequel to Train To Busan, viewed on the IMAX screen) and Cut Throat City. Both were sparsely populated (Peninsula had maybe 15-20 people), but it was edifying to see movies properly again. No concessions on sale at all, so I have no idea how they're gonna make any profit whatsoever, unless studios are magnanimous and allow theaters a bigger cut of the actual ticket sales for a while until they can allow more people in per screening. Everyone present kept their masks on (no reason to take them off sans popcorn and soda, really), and everything seemed neat and well-organized. The National Amusements chain and the art house theater I frequent closer to home in the same town are opening this Friday as well, with no popcorn.
Last edited by Monterey Jack on Mon Aug 24, 2020 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
willoneill
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:10 am
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#1025 Post by willoneill » Mon Aug 24, 2020 3:11 pm

Monterey Jack wrote:
Mon Aug 24, 2020 1:42 pm
No concessions on sale at all, so I have no idea how they're gonna make any profit whatsoever, unless studios are magnanimous and allow theaters a bigger cut of the actual ticket sales for a while until they can allow more people in per screening.
Sadly I've read that the situation may be the opposite, in that WB insisted on getting 67% of the gate for Tenet.

Post Reply