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

[Josh Simpson]

Lew, I also love the Inwood and Magnolia theaters. I just saw "I'm not scared" the other day and it was great. There wasn't a big crowd, but they were quiet and it was a refreshing change. Maybe it's more indy movies for me...

 

[Lew Crippen]

Add the Angelika (NW corner of Mockingbird and Central Expressway) to your list Josh. It has a nice little bistro-type restaurant in the lobby of the ground floor, with good light meals, sandwiches, deserts and so forth. They also serve beer, wine and coffee (they have an espresso machine). I often wait there for my wife and have an espresso and pastry. For those who care, there is more traditional movie fare upstairs.

I love Paris Vendome across from the Magnolia and we often eat there before a movie (and the wine bar next to it). Plus the Magnolia has a full bar upstairs—I’ve talked with the barman about Kurosawa.

And of course the Inwood has plenty of quality restaurants right on Lovers, so all-in-all, any of these places make for a great afternoon or evening out.

RE the barman, I find that these three theaters are mostly staffed by people who really like films. I’ve been asked more than once when leaving (by a person who was ready to pick up any left-over trash) how I liked the movie. And I’ve had lots of conservations about films in the lobby with other patrons and staff.

Jeremy, one of my experiments at the Legacy/Central complex is to watch the same film back-to-back—once on digital projection and once on film. For a complex of this type they really seem to care about both the picture quality and sound. I will acknowledge that one of the most badly scratched prints I’ve seen with the ROTK at that location. But otherwise I have little to criticize and much to praise.

 

[Tim_Stack]

Recent evidence suggests that more and more people are showing their antipathy for the theater experience. Last year the home video market was larger than the theater market. I still love the theater experience - but I am forced to limit where and when I go. An example - just a few months ago I saw the Mamet flick "Spartan". Now if there ever was a filmmaker that I can count on to deliever an intelligent adult audience to the theater, it would be Mamet. But of course I get a half-retarted couple sitting behind me who spent the first ten minutes asking each other what was going on and what other movies the actors had been in - and doing it LOUDLY too. Luckily there were plenty of empty seats that I moved to (the movie bombed.) Loved the flick though, definately will buy it.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

That's due to the increase in DVD sales, not a drop in theater revenues, which continue to grow each year. Even taking inflation (higher ticket prices) into account, doesn't attendance still grow by a few percentage points each year?

 

[Malcolm R]

Nope. It's mostly higher ticket prices that keep raising overall grosses.

From cnn.money:

The average number of people attending films in the United States actually has declined in three of the last five years, with the 2003 attendance up only 4 percent from 1999 levels.

 

[Mike Graham]

I think attendence in theaters is way, way down compared to that of the 50's and 60's.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

So attendance fluctuates from one year to the next, but CNN Money says attendance from 1999-2003 is up 4%.

According to NATO (Nat. Assn. of Theater Owners), attendance grew 19% between 1990-2002.

My point was that despite year-to-year fluctuations, the general trend (during the home video era) is slightly upwards.

I understand the 30s-40s were the absolute peak. The decline started in the 50s as folks moved to the suburbs (away from the downtown theaters) and had more leisure time to take up barbecuing, tennis, and tourism. Not to mention TV taking a big bite out of theater revenues. In fact, the decline had already begun when WIDESCREEN & surround sound were rolled out in 52-53.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

My girlfriend and I have made Monday and Tuesday evenings our movie nights. The AMC 30 in our area is a nice theater, but unfortunately the area is populated with spoiled teenagers galore. Luckily weeknights aren't too bad. The theater generally doesn't have technical issues, but the showing of the Harry Potter I went to last night looked out of focus to me.

The most recent horrendous theater experience I had was the midnight opening of LOTR: The Two Towers at this theater. You'd think they gave every frickin' obnoxious teenager in the county a free ticket to this showing. Luckily the midnight viewing of ROTK was much better. However, after Star Wars: Episode 3, my days of midnight screenings will likely be over.

As far as the HT vs. cineplex debate, I am definitely going to the movies less now that I have a 16:9 set with 5.1 sound. Basically I only go to the movies now for the "big" movies that are great to see on a big screen, or the dramas I can't wait to see. Other than that, I'm content to wait for the DVD in most cases. Tickets in our area are $8-$9 a person, and some don't offer matinees (not that I'd be caught dead in a movie theater on a weekend afternoon-not a "kid" person). So considering I'm paying ~$18 for tickets for two, I'd rather spend that same money on a DVD I now own rather than a one time showing.

Also, I don't think it's the customer's responsibility to ask another customer to be courteous-that's the theater's job.

At least when I do go to movies that don't seem to interest the local youth, it can be fun to have the audience interaction. I went to a showing of A Mighty Wind taht was obviously comprised of people who were Christoper Guest fans, so everyone appreciated the movie.

Although my favorite theater experience in the past year or so was my second viewing of The Two Towers on a Tuesday night-I was the only person in the theater!

 

[Ernest Rister]

All of my greatest experiences at the movies have been in theaters with packed houses, with large audiences reacting to the screen. Good and bad. I think the audience reaction to the opening night of Twister is one of the most seminal nights I've ever had at the movies...thousands of people cracking up at the wretched dialogue, and booing the screenwriting credits at the end. Likewise, the LA Museum of Contemporary Art celebration of wide-screen films and their screening of the CinemaScope print of Lady and the Tramp was a revelation. Disney films were made to be seen by large masses, not alone in your tiny living room on your giant screen tv. I've never had more fun watching that movie than hearing hundereds of people reacting to it, and because Disney does not re-release their classic films, it is an experience I will never have again. That's why I pounce on the opprotunity to see classic films in theaters. That's the way they were meant to be seen. A movie without an audience is like a fire without oxygen.

Every time I watch a great movie at home, by myself, I feel a great melancholy that others have not shared that with me. I wil always seek out the theatrical experience over the sterility and controlled environment of the home. Life is random, a theatrical experience should be alive and random and exciting. Watching movies at home? Boring.

So some kids are crying.

So some guy's cel phone goes off.

So some nerd is talking to himself.

So some drunk guys show up and halfway during the film, they drop a bottle and it rolls from the back of the house all the way down the ramp.

So?

Isn't that a great story? Isn't that an experience? Isn't that why we go to the movies, for the experiences? What random event is going to happen in your home theater? What joy is there in your own solitary laughter during a comedy? What comfort is there in a tragedy or a horror movie when you watch it in solitude, as opposed to the communal bonding and assurance of seeing such films with a large audience?

I *hate* the fact that I've never been given the chance to see Grave of the Fireflies with a large audience, an audience not accustomed to anime, an audience not accustomed to serious animation. I understand the title has become a hot seller on DVD in the wake of the Ebert "Great movies" review, but the film deserved so much more in America. Some day, hopefully in a college environment, I wish I could one day experience a large, young audience reacting to Grave of the Fireflies. Watching it at home just isn't the same.

Home theater is an imitation of a real theater. There, I said it.

Unless the audience is invovled, it doesn't matter how much you spent on the seats, the carptes, the upholstery, the screen -- a theater without an audience is like a church without a congregation.

Star Wars at home is nothing like seeing Star Wars with an audience, same as seeing Disney films or Spielberg films or Hitchcock films. That's a large part of the fun. That's the random experience of life. Films should be seen in a living environment, not in the sterile controlled environment of the home. Just my own preference.

 

[Mike-M]

To the original poster...where do you even buy those movie theater-like seats? Thats cool, and how much did they cost?

 

[JonathanG]

also, to the original poster, can you provide a picture of the front of your home theatre. Please... thanks.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

These days, I think it's very possible more directors are creating films with the HT crowd in mind as much as the theater crowd.

 

[Tom J. Davis]

I don't typically speak up and disagree that often, but I can't believe I just read that.

I guess I'm jealous. I wish I could go to the movies and not be bothered by those types of things.

 

[Mike Graham]

For popcorn movies like Star Wars, its basically a requirement to see it in a theater, preferably with a crowd rowdy enough to cheer when the credits come on.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

Thank you, Ernest. Even though this is the "Home Theater Forum", I completely agree that films were meant to be experienced in a huge, packed theater. All of my great experiences with films have been at the cinema, none worth mentioning, have occured in my home theater. A theater packed with 1000+ people to see the re-release of Star Wars: A New Hope at the Ziegfeld Theater; ditto ESB at the Sony Lincoln Square on the IMAX screen (in OAR of course), and ditto ROTJ back at the Ziegfeld a few weeks after that. All seen with a huge group of friends (15 or 20 of us), among thousands of Star Wars fans, some in costumes, braving the freezing NY winter temperatures lining up for hours outside the theater in anticipation. That's an EXPERIENCE.

Seeing T2 opening night in a packed theater; seeing the sneak preview (Thursday night show) of JURASSIC PARK in DTS Digital sound and being completely unprepared for the sonic assault, as were several hundred other audience members who cheered, gasped, groaned, and laughed along with me and my friends.

Seeing ROTJ opening night in 70mm Dolby six track surround at the Ziegfeld theater with my dad.

Oh and how could I forget seeing a re-issued 70mm print of Blade Runner: Director's Cut on a temporarily converted RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL screen with a 58 speaker sound system, the main floor and all mezzanines PACKED (my guess is 2000+ people!) (just before the major renovation) WOW! I never ever appreciated Blade Runner until I saw it up on that huge screen with an entranced film festival audience. Unforgettable!

This is what movies are all about, and the only way they can really be experienced. Watching at home, even in a super expensive dedicated home theater room, just isn't the same. You just can't get the same energy from 10 people that you get from 1000 people. So, while Home Theater is great for screening films in the comfort of your own home, with the best possible audio-visual quality, and a noble pursuit (and why many of us are here at HTF), I would gladly trade it all in if I were given a choice between watching all my films in the most expensive home theater available, or, a crowded urban theater of my choosing.

-Dennis

 

[Rob Gardiner]

STAR TREK is fun with an audience as well.

Starring: Patrick Stewart

(cheers and applause)

Jonathan Frakes

(cheers and applause)

Marina Sirtis

(cheers and applause and wolf whistles)

 

[Ernest Rister]

You want to know one of my favorite moments at the movies?

No?

Well, I'm telling you anyway.

Opening night. I'm at the restored El Capitan Theater. I'm across the street from the Mann's Chinese (the Academy Theater wasn't even a dream).

I go in, I ooh and ahh at the architecture, I take my seat, I listen as Mr. Organ Meister plays classic 30's tunes on the "Mighty Wurlitzer".

Then the movie starts. The theater is PACKED. There is a strange silence that settles over the crowd as the movie starts.

The Opening Credits Begin. Respectful Applause for the Walt Disney name.

The fade out.

The fade in -- with the castle in the distance. The eerie music...the long truck in on the castle...

...the reveal of the Queen.

Everyone went nuts. Cheering and applauding the Queen. Woo-Hoo! Then they fell silent, listening to her.

"Snow White!" she snarled, after hearing bad news from her mirror.

The film dissolved to the first appearance of Snow White.

EVERYBODY BOOED.

Then they started laughing at the fact that they had booed.

I kid you not, Hollywood of 1993 -- decades after 1939 --booed the first appearance of Snow White and cheered the first appearance of the Queen.

Trouble was, no matter how modern, no matter how cynical, they were trapped in a classic Hollywood theater, at the mercy of the hands of Walt Disney. You can cheer the Queen and boo the Princess all you want...but Walt knows you, and knows what works.

What an incredible experience to see Walt Disney's Snow White at work on a large group of modern people. From the roaring laughter at the deer washing plates with their tongues, to the terror of the Queen plotting Snow White's sufocating death...almost sixty years after the premiere of Snow White, the movie still worked it's magic. By the end, people screamed when the Witch appeared in the window, wept when Snow White died, and roared with delight at the end of the film. No one cheered the witch at the end of the film, everyone was now on the side of Snow White, and the audience response to the happy ending was deafening.

People, that's why we go to the movies. Although Disney under Eisner has abandoned re-releasing the classic Disney film, Disney films were meant to be seen with an audience. I'm talking now to the young, who never had a chance to see Disney films in a theater, who grew up with them as surrogate babysitters on DVD and VHS. If you've never seen Snow White with a packed house, you've never seen Snow White.

 

[TheBat]

I remember last year when I saw hulk.. there were talking kids and crying babies.. not just at one theatre either.. all of them. I saw the movie several times, and had a different expereince every time. I would have to say that it has not been that bad since then. I was glad to watch hulk at home so I would watch it in peace and quiet. I should only be hearing hulk when I see the movie, not crying babies and talking kids. I do have a decent home theatre and tv system.

JACOB

 

[Chad R]

Exactly, when I go to a movie I LOVE a packed house. About ten years ago I got to see Casablanca in the theater. I'd watched the movie numerous times at home, but watching it with an audience was so much more fun. They laughed at parts, swooned at others, and just enjoyed it.

Did people talk? Sure. But, that didn't destroy the movie.

Seeing Star Wars in a theater is an electric experience. People cheering, laughing, maybe even talking. It doesn't matter. There's just electricity in the air that can't be replecated at home.

Movies are meant to be seen in theaters.

 

[Ernest Rister]

"A movie without an audience is like a fire without oxygen."

Start making the T-Shirts now.