Movie Theater Experiences

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mfunk9786
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#951 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Dec 17, 2018 5:39 pm

I laughed heartily during that moment (and whole scene) as well, as did the entire film festival audience I was sitting with.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#952 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Dec 17, 2018 5:56 pm

When I saw it, the audience (a full house at MoMA's Theater 1, the bigger theater) mostly gasped. I don't recall any laughter, but I could be wrong (always possible there were a few out there somewhere).

That character was a horrendous person, but smacking her in the face like that isn't something I'd cheer on.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#953 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Dec 17, 2018 6:08 pm

It's a very uncomfortable scene, of course, but there is a release of tension when that slap occurs that typically leads to uncomfortable laughter. It's a very funny scene outside of that, though - certainly would not come as any surprise to Jenkins that it elicits laughter

SomethingWild
Joined: Mon Apr 15, 2013 5:38 pm

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#954 Post by SomethingWild » Mon Dec 17, 2018 6:37 pm

I agree that there are funny moments in that sequence before and after the smack takes place (Indeed, it's a wonderfully acted and directed scene), but I'm not sure that the smack itself is meant to be funny. Interesting to hear that someone else experienced laughter during that moment, though.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#955 Post by FrauBlucher » Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:57 pm

Yesterday, I went to see Cold War. A woman brought her service dog to the theater. She wasn’t blind, or didn’t have a problem walking so not sure what the service dog was accompanying her for. She sat somewhere behind me. A few times I heard the dogs chain rattle, but nothing too distracting.

Any thoughts?

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Big Ben
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#956 Post by Big Ben » Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:18 pm

People have animals for a variety of reasons but there's a possibility that it was simply there as support. What that support is could vary though. The dog could certainly just be there because she wanted emotional support (Credulity is strained here I know.) but it could also be for something far more serious like epilepsy as the dog can be trained to alert anyone within range that their owner is in trouble. Speaking frankly though I think the woman just wanted her dog in the theater. Speaking for myself I don't have an issue with a dog in the theater as long as it's quiet. The dog in my house barks at large animals on the screen and gets very upset when she sees other dogs on the TV but you didn't have that issue though so I imagine you're not too deeply troubled by any of this.

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tenia
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#957 Post by tenia » Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:33 pm

I admit I wouldn't be fond of dogs in a theater except for medical support, but on the other hand, if it keeps quiet, it wouldn't bother me.
This being written, I've never had any screening with a dog, which probably explains why I can find that a bit "exotic" for me.

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bad future
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#958 Post by bad future » Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:32 am

Here’s an experience I’ve now had more than once; wondering if anyone can relate. When a whole family walks in with fresh popcorn and drinks like 20 minutes before the end of the movie, and you know they probably just aren’t conscious of the concept of a popular movie playing on more than one screen of a multiplex, so they just walked in the first one they saw and sat down. And then you’re still watching the movie but also can’t stop thinking about how this family’s experience is being ruined by seeing the end before they see the rest of it, hoping they pick up on “hey, this looks like some climactic 3rd act stuff and the movie wasn’t supposed to start for another 5 minutes, what’s up with that?” but they don’t move and you aren’t sure if it would be insulting to ask if they’re sure they’re in the right room, so they just end up sitting there and watching the whole ending. And then an employee asks them why they’re still there once the credits are over and they’re like “I guess we were early, we’ll wait” and the employees are all “but it’s not showing again in this room for another 45 minutes,” etc.

I assume these must be families who are *really* not particular about what they’re watching, and are mostly just there to get out of the house and eat some popcorn I guess. It’s probably weird of me to even be so conscious of it... I guess I just get really into the whole “spell” cast by a group of strangers all experiencing a story together (maybe also why people talking and scrolling through Facebook takes me out of it — not just the rudeness but knowing that they’re not on the same ride, haha)... so to whatever extent I imagine I’m experiencing a movie through the eyes of the collective, it’s just weird knowing a percentage of that collective hasn’t seen the first hour and a half! Not that I’m complaining about *my* experience; clearly it’s something that happens to the families in question and not to me. Just weird to witness!

britcom68

Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#959 Post by britcom68 » Sun Feb 10, 2019 9:34 am

The Wexner Center here in Columbus is showing a print of Abbott and Stanley Donen's Damn Yankees, upcoming this April. I was planning to actually complain that their program release says "not available on home video in any format" as I had seen the dvd pop up on my Amazon suggestions off and on before repeatedly. Serves me right to never click on those suggested titles, the current price for a new Region 1 dvd on Amazon is $139.00. This is not my favorite musical by a long shot, but at those prices the cost of this ticket is still far cheaper than even trying for a used copy.

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domino harvey
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#960 Post by domino harvey » Sun Feb 10, 2019 10:58 am

Wow, I think I paid $5.99 for my copy on Amazon eight years ago

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TMDaines
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#961 Post by TMDaines » Mon Feb 18, 2019 9:39 am

On the train to work today, young mum taking her child to the cinema for the first time:

"We will be watching the film on our phones there?"

"No, it is like the TV at home but really, really big!"

Loved listening in. Hope she was blown away by the experience.

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Swift
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#962 Post by Swift » Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:06 pm

My son's first theatre experience was to see Cars 2 as he loved the first one. Halfway through, we had to take him for a bathroom break and he wasn't happy when we told him that we couldn't pause it.

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tenia
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#963 Post by tenia » Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:06 pm

In Belgium, turned out (I didn't know prior experiencing it first hand) all kids away have a break about halfway through (for IIRC 10 or 15 minutes). I discovered that when going to see Zootopia.
The issue was that kids were then way too excited to get back to their seats after the break, and it took for some much more than 15 minutes to settle down again.

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whaleallright
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#964 Post by whaleallright » Wed Feb 20, 2019 5:53 pm

FrauBlucher wrote:
Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:57 pm
Yesterday, I went to see Cold War. A woman brought her service dog to the theater. She wasn’t blind, or didn’t have a problem walking so not sure what the service dog was accompanying her for. She sat somewhere behind me. A few times I heard the dogs chain rattle, but nothing too distracting.

Any thoughts?
She has a legal right to bring that dog into the theater. It didn't shit in your popcorn. What, precisely, is your problem?
but also can’t stop thinking about how this family’s experience is being ruined by seeing the end before they see the rest of it
For most of the history of cinema, this sort of thing was pretty standard, at least in the U.S. Hence the term "this is where we came in." Certain films—most notably Psycho—had ad campaigns that specifically warned people not to arrive after the first so-and-so minutes. Such campaigns were necessary precisely because many people made a habit of just going into the theater whenever they happened to arrive. I guess this has something to do with the nature of filmgoing in midcentury. People went to the movies a lot—sometimes several times a week. It was an extremely routine part of people's lives, not typically an event for which they had to save up or make extensive plans (unless you're talking about some sort of fancy roadshow exhibition). So the films themselves were often approached in that same casual spirit—much as we wouldn't think anything today of coming home, turning on the TV and watching the second half of an episode of NCIS.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#965 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed Feb 20, 2019 6:11 pm

whaleallright wrote:
Wed Feb 20, 2019 5:53 pm
FrauBlucher wrote:
Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:57 pm
Yesterday, I went to see Cold War. A woman brought her service dog to the theater. She wasn’t blind, or didn’t have a problem walking so not sure what the service dog was accompanying her for. She sat somewhere behind me. A few times I heard the dogs chain rattle, but nothing too distracting.

Any thoughts?
She has a legal right to bring that dog into the theater. It didn't shit in your popcorn. What, precisely, is your problem?
Whoa there cowboy, I didn't say anything about a problem.

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whaleallright
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#966 Post by whaleallright » Wed Feb 20, 2019 6:37 pm

What's to even ask, then? She obviously has a need for a service animal, she brought it with her, it wasn't disruptive—end of story. What "thoughts" might you have expected us to have?

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Brian C
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#967 Post by Brian C » Wed Feb 20, 2019 6:49 pm

whaleallright wrote:She has a legal right to bring that dog into the theater. It didn't shit in your popcorn. What, precisely, is your problem?
Well, it’s not quite that cut-and-dry.

Obviously if it was a legitimate service animal - which has a specific legal definition - she had a legal right to bring it to the theater. Whether or not the dog fit that definition is not really possible to know, and I would agree that it’s probably best just to mind one’s business if the dog is well-behaved, but still it’s common for people to take their pets just about anywhere these days under the guise of “service animal.”

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#968 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed Feb 20, 2019 7:08 pm

Because I never saw a service dog in a movie theater before. And even though it's a service dog doesn't mean it will be well behaved. In this situation it was fine. I was asking if other folks had an experience with this. And not everyone has a real need to have a service animal. Where I live there are people who get their dogs legally listed as service dogs just so they can sit in cafes with their dogs.

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Brian C
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#969 Post by Brian C » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:25 pm

FrauBlucher wrote:
Wed Feb 20, 2019 7:08 pm
Where I live there are people who get their dogs legally listed as service dogs...
Alright, I'm going to have to stop you right there. I don't blame you for this misconception, but there is no "legal list" of service dogs, since the ADA definitely does not require service animals to be registered in any way. What you're referring to is any number of online "registration" services that sell people official-looking ID cards and vests and whatnot. But they're essentially scams to allow people to make it easy for their pets to pose as service animals when they are not.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#970 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:39 pm

Thanks for that. My mistake. I stand corrected. I kind of knew it is a certification and not a legal classification. Btw... I always think of the woman who tried to get a peacock on an airplane claiming it was a service animal. Imagine that being brought into a movie theater. Haha

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Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
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Movie Theater Experiences

#971 Post by Brian C » Wed Feb 20, 2019 9:05 pm

In my days as a theater manager, we had people bringing in dogs on a fairly regular basis. I would typically ask about them (in the very limited way I’m legally allowed to) about the dogs if the dogs didn’t behave like service animals, like if they seemed excited around people or what have you. And occasionally I would tell people to get the dogs the hell out, like if people were bringing them in carriers or once even in a purse. Once a “service animal” just started barking and they were outta there.

At any rate, if someone told me they were an emotional support animal, id have to inform them that ESAs are not service animals as defined by law and were not allowed. And people would be PISSED about it, but the other side was that the health code simply did not allow animals in the building because we prepared and sold food (except for ADA-defined service animals, of course).

Never saw a peacock.

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whaleallright
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#972 Post by whaleallright » Thu Feb 21, 2019 2:13 pm

I guess I just don't understand why a dog identified as a service animal, who presented no disruption to viewers, is even a cause for speculation or concern? As a teacher, I see service animals brought to classrooms, to offices, etc. every day. It is absolutely routine. There is no reason why movie theaters or other places of recreation should be off limits to those who require service animals—a notion that seems to haunt some of the skeptical reactions here, even if it's not spelled out explicitly or people back away from it when confronted.

What's more, the idea that service animals are there only to help the blind and/or people with problems with ambulation, is a serious misconception (though I assume a sincere one). There are all manner of reasons why someone might require a service animal, many of them "invisible," such as being prone to seizures.

While the various stories of people bringing alligators onto airplanes, etc. are funny, their function in discussions like these is often to implicitly call into question the legitimacy of service animals and their presence in everyday locations. Such incidents are incredibly rare (a fact obscured by their high profile in clickbait media) compared to the thousands of times people bring service dogs to places of work, business, education, and so forth every day, all over the world.

/high horse

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domino harvey
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#973 Post by domino harvey » Thu Feb 21, 2019 2:20 pm

FrauBlucher has already gone out of their way to diffuse this tempest in a popcorn bag, so there’s no need to keep rehashing this— let’s just all move on and return to talking about people talking during movies

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whaleallright
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#974 Post by whaleallright » Thu Feb 21, 2019 2:22 pm

Sssshhh.

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diamonds
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Re: Movie Theater Experiences

#975 Post by diamonds » Sat May 25, 2019 8:38 pm

I'd like to talk about loudness.

For the better part of a decade I have frequented three movie theaters near me for new releases. One is a Landmark, one is an Arclight, one is a Regal. (Please refrain from triangulation). Once in a blue moon I've also been known to attend an AMC. I have noticed a trend among all of these franchises starting at approximately the tail end of 2016: the volume in the theaters has become far, far too loud to comfortably or safely attend.

At first this creep became noticeable when, while sitting in a quiet movie or watching a quiet scene, the bass rumbling from the screening room next-door penetrated into ours. This used to be an anomalous event, but now it happens almost every single time I go out – at least once per movie. I highly doubt it's a problem with inadequate soundproofing; rather, the soundproofing is not meant to shield against the extreme decibels to which theaters now regularly set their volumes. This is also evidence that it isn't just my own sensitivity, it's a concrete issue on the theaters' end.

Onto the films themselves. I recently saw The Souvenir at the Landmark. It's typically a quiet film. Yet even the scenes of normal conversation were too loud: they hurt my ears. If ever someone raised their voice in the film, you could hear distortions in the theater's speakers because of how loud it got. This is not an uncommon viewing experience these days. A 2017 screening of My Neighbor Totoro (Regal) suffered from the same conversational-scenes-are-too-loud symptom, likewise The Meyerowitz Stories (Landmark) – a talkier film which is by no means a loud film – and Ash Is Purest White (Arclight). I only sat comfortably through an IMAX 70mm screening of Dunkirk while wearing the over-ear protection I use with the lawnmower, and boy do I wish I had brought them to help deal with the relentlessly throbbing synths in Blade Runner 2049 (Arclight). These are a few examples I plucked from memory, hopefully varied enough in volume to indicate this is a systemic problem.

I have politely asked theater employees to turn the volume down, with varying degrees of success. Once or twice I have gotten a bullshit hand-waving excuse that goes like, "The studio instructed us to make it that loud." Often times it's a more apathetic "We'll see what we can do," which sometimes works out and sometimes doesn't. For this viewing of The Souvenir, the attendant actually did listen with evident concern when I requested it be turned down (after an obscenely loud trailer for Yesterday blasted me out of my seat), and the volume was quite pleasant for the remainder of the trailers (the similarly bombastic Rocketman and the quieter drama The Tomorrow Man both sounded appropriately dynamic and great). When the film started, it was a few steps quieter than the trailers, still pleasant enough for my ears but probably understandably "too quiet." Needless to say, this lasted for about 5 minutes, at which point a group of elderly woman, no doubt already partially deaf, started talking amongst themselves for the whole theater to hear, "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR IT. I CAN'T HEAR WHAT THEY'RE SAYING." One of them left the theater and upon her return the rest of the film's dialog became little more than rhythmic pounding against my eardrums. I've never been behind the projector, but surely it's possible to adjust the volume somewhere between slightly-too-quiet and earsplitting-conversation + speaker-distorting-loudness? About halfway through the film, during an intimate night-time scene, not only the bass but eventually also a vague melody from the next-door screening reverberated through our theater.

Has anyone else noticed this trend? I've looked into concert earplugs, and if anyone has a particular recommendation I'd appreciate hearing details about it. But the thing is, I've never found earplugs very comfortable, and I'm really not sure if it's even worth it at that point. Between this and disrespectful crowds young and old, the sole reason I find myself still going to theaters is temporal: they get the movies early. Aside from repertoire screenings at museums or another theater not mentioned here (which, it should be said, are much more generally agreeable sound-wise), that's really the only motivating factor. It fills me with sadness to realize that I no longer really enjoy going out to experience something I truly love, but I don't see much recourse at this point.

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