I can't stand theaters.... (1 Viewer)

[Nick Sievers]

Absolutely, we are in planning stages for building a dedicated theatre but I just love going to the cinema too much and I expect i'll be going just as often (and I live 50min from the theatre). To me nothing beats the atmosphere and screen size. I haven't been to a night screening on the weekend in years, so maybe that has some effect because I miss the crowds. The candy bar never gets my money, way too overpriced and when you go to the cinema 2-3 times a week it isn't a healthy diet.

 

[Jim Williams]

I beg to differ. I am a professional photographer and I specifically use fine grain film so the grain cannot be seen. I will sometimes use grain as an effect but I don't want to see it if it is not supposed to be there. I have no problem with Saving Private Ryan because the visible grain is there for artistic and cinematic effect, but I will not put up with some of the bad prints my local movie theaters get where the visible grain is not supposed to be there at all.

 

[RobertR]

That's why I used the phrase any movie theater. You may enjoy the PQ on your HT better than the movie theater you normally go to, but the PQ in a topnotch movie theater blows away ANY HT. PERIOD.

 

[Michael Pakula]

It is true that going to the theaters now a days can be an unforgetable experience in a negative way but I find that when you go to a matinee on a weekday it's usually the best time to go as it is a more relaxed atmosphere. The worst times are Friday night,Saturday all day, Sunday afternoons and Tuesday nights. So you usually have to use your judgment and avoid the weekends at all costs since this is when everyone seems to decide to go to the movies.


Im actually thinking of doing a short film dealing with the issues of watching movies in theaters. Anyone here want to play the part of the cell phone people or the unintelligent parents who bring their kids to an R-Rated movie at a very late showing?.


-Mike

 

[Jim Williams]

And that is why I specified "the theater I would normally go to". I wish there were a top notch theater in my area. Then I would go to the theater more often. There used to be a really great theater near me that had 40-50 seats for each of the four screens. The seats were ultra comfortable and reclined, and the sound system was top notch. It closed down about ten years ago. Going there was a great movie experience and I gladly paid the premium to go there. Sigh!

 

[Jim Williams]

I had no intention for this to become a flame war. I am not a movie print expert either. Perhaps it is just the poor condition of the screens that I am used to seeing. Nearly every movie that I have seen in a theater in the past five years has been soft, grainy, low contrast, dark, and the sound is terrible. I saw LOTR TT first in a theater and I had a hard time sitting through it because I could not understand the dialog at all and the PQ was bad. When the EE version was released on DVD, I set aside three hours+ to watch it and I absolutely loved it. The dialog was clear and the PQ was perfect.

I just wanted to say that based on the theaters that are available to me, my HT in my home is a much better experience.

 

[JeremyLG]

Lew -

I love that theater as well. It has always been top notch for me except in two instances. Both times it was a Friday night viewing, once for "Oceans Eleven" and the other "Bringing Down The House." Some idiot kids thinking it is fun to sit at the back and pelt other audience members with $3.00 Milk Duds or something (hard to tell in the dark). First time was annoying, talked to management got comp tickets for the the group of friends I was with. Second time, my glasses nearly feel off due to how hard whoever was throwing the stuff. Again, comp tickets.

I still go there, still love the theater but NEVER go there any more on Friday or Saturday nights. Only matinees or mid week.

Jeremy G.
Garland/Dallas

 

[LanieParker]

I have loved going to the theater ever since I can remember. There is just something about the whole experience that I could never pass up. Yes, I have had bad experiences at theaters, but nothing so bad that I refuse to stop going.

I also am in the process of making a room in my house into a theater. It's something I have always wanted to do, especially as much as my family watched movies.

I prefer matinees and although I occasionally sneak in snacks, I always buy my popcorn there.

I just don't think anything ( even my soon to be awesome home theater) can compete with the theater experience.

 

[Joe_Pinney]

Threads like this are very helpful to me when it comes to making my list of things to keep in mind when developing my own movie theater.

Face it, guys, when giant megacorporations own the megaplexes and shove everyone into shoebox screening rooms and let teens and kids run wild and don't train their staff well and overcharge you for not only admission but then rape you at the concession stand and let their sound systems and projection and screens operate at a mediocre or bad level and then have the temerity to call the place a "theater", something is severely wrong. So it's up to film lovers like us to make it right. That means make noise: complain to management, protest, write letters to the corporate headquarters, whine to the local BBB and the local news TV station's consumer advocate, support your local independent theaters (those few and far between relics that manage to still hang in there despite the odds), or do what I'm doing - plan to make your OWN movie theater (and I don't mean a home theater, I mean a REAL movie theater).

How much is popcorn REALLY worth? How much are soda and candy REALLY worth? What ticket price is fair and ideal if your film presentation is top notch and the theater is comfortable and not peopled with inconsiderate jerks?

Personally, I believe showmanship is an all-but-lost art, and there needs to be a renaissance of it in film exhibition before too long. I definitely plan on bringing it back at my theater (which is still in the planning stages). If I'm successful at it, I'd love to develop a chain, but I'm much more concerned with quality than quantity.

Going to the movies is supposed to be an EVENT, not an ordeal.

By the way, [begin rant]who actually thought it was a better idea to program staggered screenings of the same film in 3 different auditoriums that seat 500 each? Screening a film in an auditorium that seats 1500 gets you the same dollars, and you save the cost of two prints as well. Remember when some shows wouldn't allow you to be seated after the movie began? Today it's all treated as "no big deal - we'll catch the next showing in a half hour". If the theater owner doesn't care about the movie, why should the audience?[/end rant]

Still, nice to see that some people still care. I think home theater is great but NOTHING beats the theatrical experience when it's done right. Hollywood once countered the TV revolution with major developments in film exhibition (widescreen, 3-D, stereophonic sound). I hope they wake up and realize they need to support public film exhibition again. Screen size and digital stereo sound only go so far. The EXPERIENCE of seeing films in theaters has suffered tremendously in the last quarter century, especially in the last 10 years. With all the newer theater construction made by many of the chains which later went bankrupt, many of their older single-screeners and smaller multiplexes deteriorated and/or met the wrecking ball. Unfortunately much of the newer theater construction was not a return to the lavishness or design creativity of ages past, but simply an expansion of the cookie-cutter mentality of theaters as little more than screening rooms (okay, sure, cup holders, raisable arm rests and stadium seating notwithstanding).

We need to be at the forefront of a return to form for movie theaters. If we don't do it, who will?

 

[Joe_Pinney]

By the way - this is but one example of what a movie theater SHOULD look like (IMHO): http://www.cinematour.com/tour.php?db=us&id=4777

http://www.film-tech.com/pics/eastmaj/eastmaj.html (both have lotsa photos)

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Just bring your business to those theaters that still provide quality showmanship.

The Seattle CINERAMA may not be much to look at from the outside, but once you're inside, it's like a cathedral. And I've never experienced a misbehaving audience in there.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Joe:

You should take a road trip to Suffern, New York, and visit the Lafayette Theatre. I'm there every Saturday morning running my Big Screen Classics film series that gets raves from the local (and not-so-local, I've had people come in from England, Canada, and California) film buffs. All other times the theatre is a superb first-run movie theatre. I also have a 3-Day Science Fiction Festival this September, you should try to come up for that and see how we do it. Showmanship is our middle name and we feel that our presentations are among the finest you'll see, anywhere.



Website HERE

 

[Joe_Pinney]

Oh, no question, Rob, but unfortunately not everyone lives in an area where quality showmanship is easily found.

By the way, when you mentioned the word "cathedral", I was reminded of New York's famed Roxy Theatre, which was nicknamed "The Cathedral of the Motion Picture".



Man, back then they saw their movies in STYLE!

 

[Joe_Pinney]

Peter,

I'm actually familiar with your classic film series from what I've seen on the web, and it is INDEED what is needed (and I think full-time) today! I think what you're doing is simply terrific, and it is a definite influence on the type of showmanship I'm talking about! I find it absolutely amazing that such showmanship is so rarely found in the larger cities, but I hope that that can be changed!

It's quite a drive from Texas to New York, but I do think it would be worth my while to come up there and see your series for myself - mind if I take notes?

Thanks for the invitation!

 

[Rob P S]

How's this for a film festival?
http://www.theoakstheater.com/_wsn/page4.html

Then take a look at this theater:
http://www.mulonetheatres.com/cheswick.htm

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Joe,

You are absolutely right. It's an overstatement to compare the Cinerama interior to a cathedral. It's more of a magnificent modern motion-picture venue.

For true cathedral-like surroundings in Seattle, one has to wait for the Silent Movie Mondays series at the Paramount, with live accompaniment on the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ.

Info on next year's film series

Theater history

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Joe:
You are welcome to come up anytime! The 3-Day event in September would give you a good reason to make the long drive.

Sorry about the "jim,", Joe. :b

 

[Nathan V]

Downtown Seattle's a great place to watch movies. The audiences are uniformly great, almost always showing interest/respect to the films shown; and of course, the Cinerama, best place to see a movie in all of the Northwest US; and the fact that we get all the limited releases. Nothing beats sitting with 1000 people, all stone silent, every mind acutely keyed into the exact same thing. No home theater can beat that.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

I get all goose-pimply just thinking about it.

Have you had a chance to see any of the original 3-strip Cinerama films? The train wreck at the end of HTWWW and the "America the Beautiful" aerial segment of This Is Cinerama are also completely mind-blowing.


BTW, I hope this isn't considered a thread crap, given the thread's title, but I LOVE THEATERS! LOL

 

[Kevin Grey]

I've often thought this is true in theory but my experience has been opposite that.

When HP& the Chamber of Secrets came out I went with a friend of mine in town visiting to a matinee at 2:00 on a weekday (my second viewing). When we arrived there was only one other person in the theater. We got center seats right in the middle. About five minutes after the movie starts a family with three or four young kids comes in. They pass right in front of us and the father actually points to us and tells the kids to wave hi. They then proceed to sit in our row about four seats down from us despite the theater being practically empty. Wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the kids treated the theater like it was Romper Room and the parents did nothing to control them. The commotion got so bad my friend and I had to get up and go sit near the back of the theater.

A similar thing happened when my wife and I went to see Hulk on a Wednesday evening. Theater wasn't full at all with plenty of space between all of the patrons so, in theory, it should have been fine. Then a group of teenagers come in and start running through the aisles laughing and talking up a storm. It got so bad that I went and got management but when the kids saw the management they of course acted like nothing was happening.

Then there was the couple sitting next to us who brought their three year old child to see The Hunted, a very graphically violent movie. This is despite the theater's policy that no child under six be allowed into R-Rated movies at all. The child was restless the entire movie and climbing all over the seats. We complained after the movie and the theater did give us comp passes but it was still incredibly annoying.

I've had tons of horror stories and inconsiderate people at numerous theaters in my area. My wife asked one lady to be quiet during the finale to Out of Time and the lady got irate and they almost got in a fight.

Specialty theaters aren't immune either- I've had some of my worse theater going experiences at the local arthouse theater which is surprising becasue you would think that their patrons would be the more serious type and know better.

I won't stop going to the theater- its the perfect date night for my wife and I and there are always movies that I don't want to wait for on DVD. I will say, though, that since getting an excellent home theater system we go to the movies much less and repeat viewings have gone way down.