Movie Theater Experiences

[therewillbeblus]

To the surprise of no one, my trip to Barbie had the worst offenders of any screening I've been to in some time. A group of six 30something women clearly in touch with their 9-year-old selves were in my row, talking across multiple seats to their friends at either end at full volume, talking at the movie ([Satirical deadpan narration] "Barbie fixed all women's problems in society" [Girl to my left] "Yeah, RIGHT!" - Wow, such a keen observation nobody else got was a joke!) Though it was a bit of a rough situation to do anything about - this is not exactly a movie where a cis man can give any kind of unsolicited feedback (no matter how passively nonverbal) to a female audience member to adjust their behavior, no matter how outlandish it is. So I just sat there and was thankful that Gerwig made her movie loud enough to drown out a lot of the specifics they were screaming throughout. They took probably between 50-100 selfies with the flash on during the movie playing too though, so that was fun.

Talking about it after, my girlfriend playing devil's advocate said, "But this is their movie" - which is something I flat-out reject, and Gerwig seems to as well. Her movie makes it pretty clear: We've constructed a world in which we are not all the same, but we all have the same rights and should try to form a community as much as we can. Being a member of a certain gender attending a feminist movie does not give you the right to break the cinema's rules and engage in poor behavior that detracts from others' experiences. Disrespect is universally immoral.

[Mr Sausage]

Imagine telling some woman whose screening of Oppenheimer was ruined by a group of loud film bros that "It's their movie after all".

[brundlefly]

At least yours wasn't the screening in Brazil where a fight broke out because a mother let her child watch YouTube on her phone through the whole movie? (The first commenter on the tweet notes that their child cannot go through a movie without doing this, either (but they try to make sure they only attend drive-in (?!) or "sensory screenings" so they don't bother other patrons.) If this and what Justine Bateman revealed about Netflix' notes that entertainment must now be "second screen" friendly are a window into the next generation in moviegoing, I am now Team Global Warming Apocalypse.

[therewillbeblus]

Man, that's not where I'm trying to set my bar(bie)

This was the first movie screening where I sat and actively contemplated -with a fair amount of distance from my emotional response- that it may no longer be worth attending movies in theatres, at least the non-arthouse chains showing blockbusters. Obviously that's the result of a cumulative surrender following a trend, but still depressing

[Rayon Vert]

If you'd brought along a bunch of Barbie dolls with you, I think you would have been in your rights, cis or not, to throw 'em at them!

[hanshotfirst1138]

I drove three hours yesterday to see Nolan’s new movie in 15/70. The projector broke about twenty minutes in, the refunded my money, but the seven hours of my life are gone forever.

[ianthemovie]

Man, that's not where I'm trying to set my bar(bie)

This was the first movie screening where I sat and actively contemplated -with a fair amount of distance from my emotional response- that it may no longer be worth attending movies in theatres, at least the non-arthouse chains showing blockbusters. Obviously that's the result of a cumulative surrender following a trend, but still depressing

You should've been at last night's screening at the Coolidge. It spite of it being a packed house on a Saturday night, with ages of viewers ranging from teenagers to seniors, it was like a platonic ideal of a movie audience. Lots of appreciative laughter at the right moments and not a single instance of unruly or disrespectful behavior that I was able to observe. No talking, no cell phones, no disruptions. During the "serious" moments (like America Ferrera's big speech) the auditorium was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

[therewillbeblus]

Sounds wonderful. Love the Coolidge. I’m glad they’re bringing in wider releases for revenue, especially since that means I can excise attendance at those filthy chains almost exclusively

[flyonthewall2983]

The experience heading into see Oppenheimer today was a little confounding going back to this mainstream multiplex, for the first time in almost a decade I figured out. I got more cozy with one that actually closed last year. Nobody manning the ticket booths, the automated thing not taking credit cards and having to get tickets from kids pouring drinks and doling out merch. Most of the lights were out too which I’m guessing is normal since it was the earliest time to be there but it felt unusual for certain. And oddly appropriate given the movie we were about to see and its implications to society now but that’s maybe for another topic.

[yoloswegmaster]

The sad thing is that this is just a regular occurrence at any screening I go to and at this point, I genuinely have lost all interest in going to the cinemas anymore. I'm probably only going to go for special occasions like 35mm or 70mm screenings and will just wait for any new release to be released online (god bless the shortening of the theatrical-to-streaming timeline.)

I have no idea why I thought that going to these types of screenings would be any better. During my 70mm screening of Oppenheimer, there was a couple sitting directly to my left that kept whispering loudly to each other throughout the film and a dad/son duo on my right who not only would talk to each other, but the dad ended up pulling on his phone out towards the last hour of the screening and kept showing his kid something on it. The whispering was actually manageable, as I found that leaning my seat back would somehow eliminate that sound, but the phone usage was outright infuriating, especially when the phone was on full brightness!

However, I had an even worse time at a 35mm screening of Hook this past weekend. There were many families present with children, and I understand that kids are naturally going to be noisy but I assumed that the parents would teach them about how to behave in a theater. However, that wasn't the case as there was a kid behind me who would loudly ask questions about something and the mom for some reason would be even louder in her response (despite me giving her multiple death glares). The worst was this kid in the back who not only was talking loudly throughout the entire thing, but spent 5-10 minutes in the middle of the film loudly crying, and the parents just outright ignoring it.

A poor theater experience has also hit the front page of Reddit, as this guy sits in someone else's assigned spot and refuses to get up from it.

[black&huge]

I have gone to the theater more times this year than in the past 3 years combined due to lockdown. I read in this thread and have heard elsewhere from people I talk to regularly in my own life as well as experiencing this a couple times now but is there now a trend to take selfies during a movie? what is actually the point of doing this? because all I can think of is that it is like showing someone that you are out of the house and seeing A movie... who the hell would actually care? I've experienced this at a fathom event screening of Coraline just a couplr of days ago, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning and Talk to Me. It's just so random and weird

[therewillbeblus]

I think I saw selfies taken at both Oppenheimer and Barbie - definitely the latter, the former may have just been people taking pictures of the screen. Hard to tell.

Hook would be the rare movie where a bunch of noisy kids running around may be more entertaining than the film itself. Maybe the parents were doing community service

[yoloswegmaster]

I've never seen anyone take selfies but I did see a bunch of people quickly take out their phone once Oppenheimer ended and start taking pictures of the screen.

Hook would be the rare movie where a bunch of noisy kids running around may be more entertaining than the film itself. Maybe the parents were doing community service

SpoilerShow

[Roscoe]

At MOMA's screening of Volkoff's CASANOVA, part of their "Eye Candy: The Coming Of Color" series, a woman was sitting in the audience holding up her phone, recording the image off the screen. She did at least respond politely when asked to put that thing away.

At MOMA, no less.

[Drucker]

I am on a personal boycott of Roxy Tribeca because on Instagram, if people record scenes from movies on their phones and tag Roxy, they will share the post, thus encouraging the behavior. Completely unforgivable.

[Drucker]

I am on a personal boycott of Roxy Tribeca because on Instagram, if people record scenes from movies on their phones and tag Roxy, they will share the post, thus encouraging the behavior. Completely unforgivable.

Unforgivable!

[Monterey Jack]

The worst was this kid in the back who not only was talking loudly throughout the entire thing, but spent 5-10 minutes in the middle of the film loudly crying, and the parents just outright ignoring it.

I remember when I saw the Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs sequel, and some poor little girl was just WAILING uncontrollably for what seemed like forty minutes in the middle of the film. Did I hear even a single murmur of comfort from the parents? Did they take the child out of the screening in an attempt to calm her down? Of course not. I get it that kids sometimes get irrationally upset even at movies as benign as Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2, but for goodness' sake, comfort them, instead of just letting them "cry it out". When you're in public, there's nothing more maddening for the people around you than hearing a child crying loudly for ten minutes or longer.

[beamish14]

Earlier this year, I had what is perhaps the most jarring and comical scenario I’ve ever had in a theatre.

Some background: comedian Greg Proops, who is most famous for Whose Line is it Anyway? periodically programs films at the American Cinematheque and records his podcast live on the stage before the screening starts. On this occasion, he had selected Lukas Moodysson’s Together, and his podcast delved into his experiences in Scandinavia.

The lights dim. The film starts and a few people in the crowd begin to murmur. After a few minutes, Proops himself is howling with laughter. The film being projected is not Moodysson’s, but Chen Kaige’s work with the same title.

After the first reel, the theatre shuts off the film and offers refunds. I’m among the few who elects to stay and enjoy a solid print of a good, if extraordinarily melodramatic film. Moodysson’s film has yet to screen at the Cinematheque.

[Roscoe]

BARRY LYNDON at the Angelika East in 35mm.

Or at least it was advertised as being in 35mm. Turned out it was DCP, for whatever reason the 35mm print didn't arrive, they mentioned it as I scanned my ticket -- well, OK, whatever. The screening was very nearly sold out, very good to see folks turning out on a Monday afternoon for a screening like this. The movie started, and there were loud mechanical noises coming from the wall above the screen at irregular intervals, loud enough to prove a major distraction (very probably the motor for the building's elevator, as it turned out). Then the narrator read Sir Charles Lyndon's obituary, and the INTERMISSION title card appeared onscreen, the lights came up, and people got up and left the cinema, and almost immediately the MPAA rating card appeared onscreen, followed by the PART II title card, the lights went down and Barry was being married -- the cinema staff hadn't stopped the DCP for an intermission at all, they just let the program run on without interruption, which meant that the first ten minutes of the second half were interrupted by people returning to the cinema.

I had some hopes for this screening, and for this cinema, despite it being part of the Angelika chain. I might give it another chance, but I won't be going back into their screen number 7.

[beamish14]

That’s unbelievably annoying. I’ve reached a point where I sometimes walk out if a theatre advertises a print but shows a DCP (or even a Blu-Ray on a few occasions). Some of them are very sneaky about that and do not announce the format change beforehand. I get that some prints are not in good shape or don’t arrive in time, but they need to convey this on their websites/via social media

[hearthesilence]

Angelika's never been my favorite theater - in their defense, everything usually goes "fine" but even then their projection typically looked a bit dim. They do draw a lot of famous filmgoers thanks to the location - I remember David Bowie saying he went there a lot (probably because he lived close by) and I sat behind Questlove during Melancholia, back when he still had a comb in his hair so his silhouette was worthy of an album cover.

[hearthesilence]

This could probably go in the New York Repertory thread as well, but for those who frequently attend post-screening discussions here in NYC, has anyone noticed an extremely loud and obnoxious laughter at those events over the past year or two? It's coming from a guy who is very likely to have autism spectrum disorder and it's been particularly awkward because I'm not sure how one should respond to the guy. It's gotten so frequent and disruptive that apparently people in an official capacity HAVE talked to him about, especially when he's attending a professional event - he's been made well-aware that at times it can be inappropriate but he apparently has been dismissive of such criticism.

[Matt]

I’m pretty certain I saw some chatter about and defenses of this guy on Twitter recently but can’t find it now. Something about how he is an enthusiastic aspiring film critic (aren’t we all) who is on the autism spectrum and everyone should just deal with it.

Kind of one of those impossible situations where unless you just pretend to ignore it you are an asshole.

[therewillbeblus]

The spectrum is so wide though, with many misinformed symptoms attached, that we should be careful about pre-diagnosing people as "very likely" to be on it just because of stereotyped observable behavior by non-professionals (it's another, longer conversation, but this has become a problem even in mental health professional settings, where many inpatient clinicians or med prescribers will provide an alternative diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder before meeting the client, if they are reported as having impulsive behavior of any kind - In my experience, most of my clients contending with these rash prognoses are not on the spectrum, but their symptoms are related to ADHD, reactive attachment, OCD, or anxiety as a primary... but this has suddenly become a pervasive 'go-to' over the last few years). Anyways, I never assumed people who are inappropriately disruptive at events have a certain diagnosis, because I don't really care, because it's not my business. If someone is struggling to follow the rules, due to any reason (poor environmental conditioning, biological diagnostics, etc.) and are reminded repeatedly yet remain dismissive of these warnings, consequences occur. Some people are more likely to respond to that feedback by adapting behavior than others (and someone who grew up in a coddling, passive-parenting household can easily have a tougher time acclimating to constructive feedback than someone on the autism spectrum! I'd bet on it), but omitting the consequence out of fear of rocking the boat isn't helping anyone.

To genuinely answer your question: Respond to the person as a person devoid of assumed diagnostics, conditioned background, etc. (and then maybe say the serenity prayer to yourself, or whatever works as a mindfulness technique targeting awareness of our limited locus of control in these frustrating situations). For all I know I've probably "Sh"d people of all sorts of demographics in my lifetime at the movies, and I doubt I'm going to be put on trial for not knowing their medical chart or life history before tapping the sign as a reaction to breaking all-inclusive rules

There's a group of kids/young adults (hard to tell) who frequent the Brattle in Cambridge, MA and collectively guffaw at excruciatingly high volumes during the most inappropriate moments (I forget the last screening I saw them at, but it was a sincere and powerful drama, and they ruined it completely by laughing during very serious line deliveries the entire time as if it were a screening of The Room) so I feel your pain. Next time I spot them before a screening, I'll probably move from the balcony to the lower level

[Aunt Peg]

Both of the only two cinemas I now attend have ads basically telling people to 'shut the *** up'. Well, not quite that exactly but one uses a scenes from The Breakfast Club to tell people to turn their mobile phones off and the other cinema has an add telling the audiences a whole lot of not acceptable behaviour like talking, texting, being on your photo, loud eating, ect.

Thankfully, most of the time people comply most of the time. Actually, one of the cinemas have on their website that they will remove anybody using their mobile phone during a film but it is hidden in the fine print.