Movie audiences....Getting worse?? (1 Viewer)

[todd s]

I just got back from seeing the Hulk. And for the second time in a row. I am finding the audience to be getting worse. This is what happened in this one movie...

-A family with a 3 year old kid sat next to me. Now, having kids of my own, I understand having patience. But, this movie is around 2 1/2 hours and the kid got bored and would start talking. At first the parent did nothing and even would talk with the kid. But, finally he would shush him.

-The same family got a cell call. And instead of answering it quickly or turning it off. The wife waited a few rings, like she was pretending it wasn't hers.

-This guy sits in front of me. And sat up straight the entire movie. So about a quarter of the screen was blocked by this guys head. I know this is not a major deal, but most people settle in their seat.

-This woman comes back from getting food. And after looking for about 3 seconds for her group proceeds to call out their names. And when she finds them(they were 2 rows from where she was). She proceeds to stand up at her seat for a minute yapping until she finally sat down. And it wasn't like she didn't know where they were sitting. She was with them through half the movie.

-People talking. And not just kids, every age.

Maybe, I am oversensitive to all of this. I never really had problems with going to movies. I usually go to one or two a month. But, the last two times have been brutal. All of this makes me enjoy my home theater even more.

 

[Alphonse Brown]

Since the theater I attend has stadium seating, I don't get the "big head sitting straight up" effect, but nearly everything else you mentioned happened to me last night while watching the Hulk. In addition to the cell phones, babies, conversations, I also had the "weak bladder" row.

Dang near everyone in my row had to get up to potty...then come back. I know it was ~2.5 hrs long, but people were getting up 15, 30 minutes into it!! "P before the flick!", I kept thinking to myself. I tend to sit in the middle, so people can chose either side of me to go out on, but everyone decided to cross over and go the long way out.

 

[Ricardo C]

I hate movie audiences with a passion. Anyone who tells me about the "communal experience" can blow it out their rear. I don't pay full ticket price just so I can hear the yoyo next to me yap on about what he's doi ng after the movie.

 

[John Geelan]

Major reason why I don't see movies on a Friday or Saturday night during Opening Weekend.

It's much better at the Matinee during the week or a few weeks after the initial hysteria.

Opening weekend is always begging for trouble ( all those amateur movie-goer types )

 

[Bill J]

I have been really losing my patience with movie audiences lately as well. My main problem is children, which does not necessarily include teenagers. I am more annoyed when parents bring 1 or 2 year old babies with them to the theater and I have to listen to them crying the whole time (I'm sure many others feel the same way). My other concern is that lately I have been noticing parents bringing younger children (6 or 7 years old) to R-rated movies and they never sit still and are constantly whining.

Lately I have been trying to go to the theater early in the afternoon when I have free time so I don't have to put up with the younger audiences. Unfortunately school is over for the summer so this is becoming rather difficult.

 

[ThomasC]

When the X-Files movie came out, my friend and I went to see it in the afternoon on opening weekend and sat in the second to back row. The people in the back row would not shut the **** up during the entire movie. I don't like people talking through the previews like they did with the Mask of Zorro one, but it's definitely more tolerable than having it going on during the movie. I wish I had enough guts to tell them to quiet down.

I'm taking summer classes right now and classes only run through Thursday so I can catch the first showing on Friday. I sat in the back row for the Hulk (as I prefer so no one is talking behind me), and there were only two problems. A cell phone rang a couple times, the guy answered it but walked out of the theater to continue talking. There was a hyper kid sitting in front of me, but he only distracted me a couple times.

I went and saw X2 on the Saturday night of the second week of release, and a couple brought along their kid and they were talking frequently. Thankfully, I couldn't hear them too well, and this I don't get: they walked out during the middle of the movie! With popcorn and all! It wasn't too distracting, since that was my third showing of X2.

So unless I've already seen the movie, I will never, ever, go to a Friday or Saturday night showing if the movie is (pretty) new. I once saw Behind Enemy Lines on a Saturday night in a first run two months after it opened and there were only four other people in the theater with me.

 

[Ricardo C]

Here's one hell of a thread discussing the crap we have to put up with in commerical theaters, and the joys of having an HT. It's probably my favorite HTF thread of all time

ps-- When I was composing this post, I accidentally posted it on THAT thread, upping it after nearly a year :p)

 

[Dan Rudolph]

At Hulk, there was a guy sittign two seats down, just out of puncchign range who kept maikng comments like "that's a sensory deprivation chamber" or "that's gonna leave a mark." Plus some kid kept asking "who's that?" I think someone took a three-year old to this movie.

 

[Steve_Ch]

It is a general reflection on people's lack of manners and consideration for others (I posted in the last thread on this subject). I ONLY go to weekday (non holiday) early matinees now, even at that, people are talking on their cell phones (not just answering). AND, how many of you have come across people talking on their cell with an earpiece, in resturants, shops, public transits, malls,.. worst part is they have no idea how loud they are yelling..

 

[Holadem]

This is probably the most recurrent thread in this forum. Someone starts a thread on this very subject every other month or so.

--
Holadem

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

This is probably the most recurrent thread in this forum. Someone starts a thread on this very subject every other month or so.

And the problems never get better...only worse. The biggest peeve is the child issue with me. Tonight, a couple brought their two children, ages 3-5 approx., to the 10:00 showing of Hulk. Now, anyone who has gone to the Ultrascreen here knows one thing: an action film is damn LOUD. Besides the general fact that these young kids were at a 2 1/2 hour film after 10:00 (do you really expect your kid to stay up until 12:30?)...let's say they do go to sleep. How long before a particularly loud sequence occurs and it wakes them up? That's exactly what happened and the kids were fussing and talking when they woke up. That was across the auditorium but I could hear it well enough. I don't like to be cruel...but christ, how do you intelligently rationalize that? How can you convince yourself it's a good idea? It's stupid and inconsiderate. It's not my fault you had kids and now can't afford a sitter so you can go out to the movies.
Bruce

 

[Brian Dobbs]

Wow. What a coincidence. I just got back from the Hulk and was going to start a thread just like this! There's something about kids these days. What don't they understand about do not talk at the movie theater. Ok, here we go...

I went to see The Hulk at 7:50 and I had the absolute worst movie going experience ever. I sit down with my cousin in the center of the back row of the theater. Little did we know but we parked ourselves right in the middle of pack of 12 year olds, 25 - 30 strong I'd say.

There was nowhere else to sit and we had good seats so we just decided to stick around and hope they would shut up when the movie started. Well the pre-trailer commercials started and they didn’t shut up. The trailers started and they still didn’t get the picture. The Hulk finally started and all throughout the opening title sequence they were getting antsy because they just wanted to get to the Hulk smashing things. So they just kept talking amongst themselves and started saying things aloud like, “This sucks!” or “Booooooring!” or “Down in front!” to anyone who stood up to walk out to go to the bathroom.

They just couldn’t keep their mouths SHUT. It got so bad that they just started throwing things at each other like it was a junior high food fight at the cafeteria. There were 2 groups of kids among the 25-30 total that were really bugging me, 2 little boys to my left and 4 little girls in the row in front of me. The boys kept themselves busy by flirting with the girls in front of me and throwing things to the left down the row we were sitting in.

25 minutes into the movie one of the boys threw something and it apparently hit some other guy. This guy, probably dealing with similar frustrations down on the other end of the back row, just leaned forward and shouted down my way to the 2 boys sitting next to me. He said, “Hey you better cut it out over there! Stop throwing stuff, this is a movie theater! I don’t know who threw it but you know who you are. I can have your asses thrown outta here!”

I used this tremendous verbal attack to my advantage and told myself that I would say something to the kids if another one started bothering me during the movie. Sure enough the boys started talking again and I told them, “Excuse me boys, would you mind being quiet during the movie? That guy down there may not know who you are, but I do, and I can point to you and have you thrown out of here.” They immediately said sorry and sat way back in their seats obviously knowing I’ve put them in their place. A little while later I said to the girls in front of me, “Excuse me girls, are you here to talk or to watch the movie?” They too said sorry and sat back. I felt good that I said something because I could then concentrate on the movie and not their comments and distractions. I’m not sure I would have said anything if that guy didn’t say anything ahead of me. Guy, if you’re out there, THANKS.

Inevitably the kids started talking again towards the very end of the movie, right around the time where the movie started dragging and you weren’t sure if it had an ending or not. I thought, well it’s almost over; I got some peace for the most part. Actually, at one point in time the kids’ actions were almost humorous. I saw this one boy take his cup and smash it repeatedly on his friends head in the row in front of him. Are these kids retarded? My God!

 

[Ray H]

On Friday night, I also went to see Hulk. Horrible audience. I had one family in front of me, your average family. Mom, Dad, and two sons around 6-7 each. In the back, there was a family of Hispanics. Maybe four adults and two kids. The problems from the first family were minimal at first. But right from the beginning, the second family would not shut up! The adults were having conversations all throughout the movie. Adults! Don't they know better? If they want to talk, why not go to a cafe? The kids came in later. No clue what they were talking about. I don't speak Spanish, and I'm not really a direct guy, so I didn't tell them to be quiet. I was able to start ignoring them about 20 minutes in. But there were distractions. Some kid two rows in front of me wouldn't sit down. You know how movie theater seats go up when you're not sitting on them? He leaned on that! What the heck?! He didn't sit down from a few minutes. Kids were talking, crying constantly throughout the movie. Some teen with no regard for the human race kept on barging into the theater and shouting to his friend to come out maybe three times throughout. Luckily, on the third time some lady shouted at him. The audience got a good laugh and we went on. Aside from some child chatter, crying and the Hispanic family talking, there was little more in the showing. Then that's where the family in front of me came in. One of their sons fell asleep and right at the climax of the film, they got up, blocking the screen. By the time they passed, something had happened in the film and at least one character was dead! What the heck? You sit down for 2 hours, what's 5 more minutes?! The audience got up to leave about 30-seconds before the movie finished, their own noise drowning out that of the movie. I had to crane my neck over people to read the subtitles at the end.

I don't go to the movies too often, and when I do, I usually opt to go before 6pm ($5 compared to $9, it's a no brainer!), so this may be considered mild compared to your wild stories, but this was the worst audience I've ever experienced. For the first half hour, listening to that Hispanic family, I just wanted to hulk out myself. In fact, they should hold anger management sessions regularly after movies.

 

[Josh Lowe]

Audiences are getting worse. Mostly due to cellphones. I've been able to classify most types of annoying people in movie audiences, too. I thihk the worst is the Spastic Chick. The geeky girl that goes with her geeky friend and they sit there and yap nonstop right up until the opening credits, sometimes even into them. They'll actually answer out loud to all of the stupid movie trivia questions displayed on the screen before the lights go down and act like idiots all around.

Second on the list would be the Heybros. Those are the fraternity types that show up in groups of 5 or more about 15 minutes after the movie's started. They stand around, mouths slightly open, looking for a block of 5 open seats when there's obviously no chance of that. They mull around and say "heybro" a lot to each other and then either end up splitting up or sitting in the first row.

And then there's the Date Chick. These are the girls who were dragged to the movie and have no actual interest in it, they can often be found in the company of the Heybros. These girls will walk in 10 minutes into the film, sit for 15 minutes, and then get up and leave in groups of 3 or more. Sometimes they don't even come back. Which is merficul, because if they do come back it's only a matter of minutes until they get up and get in everyone's way again.

Oh, and old people. I cut old people a lot of slack in movies because.. well, they're old! They earned it. But it does sometimes annoy you the way they shuffle around and have that permanent grin. I guess I'd be smiling all the time if I made it to 80 years old, too.

 

[MarkHastings]

I agree with everyone on the rudeness of movie audiences, but I thought I'd lighten up the conversation a bit:

When Star Wars IV was re-released to theaters something funny happened. There was a kid (maybe 6 or 7 years old). He kept quiet through he whole movie except for one part. I'll use spoiler tags in case there is some sheltered person out there who has been living under a rock for the past 30 years and is still waiting to see Episode IV

Just as Vader is about to strike down Obi-wan, it got real silent and the kid yells out (to his father) in excitement "Oooo! This is the part where he dies!"

It wasn't annoying, it was actually cute the way he said it and the whole audience giggled. I think we all were reminiscing back to the point when we were kids and saw the movie through this kids eyes.

 

[Ricardo C]

That's a sweet story, Mark. SW movies re just about the only movies in history that can't be spoiled anymore... Or can they??

"Who woulda thought Darth Vader is Luke's father?"
--Homer Simpson, passing in front og a line of VERY angry movie-goers, 1980

 

[BarryR]

I rarely go to movie anymore but I've generally been lucky in recent times, with only minor annoyances. My first visit to a stadium-type auditorium had me changing seats when the person behind me (on the aisle) positioned himself so that his dangling shoe was right next to my head. I was also slightly irritated by the management's montonous replaying of a 2-3 minute musical montage over and over and over again. But overall the movie presentation itself was okay, with no audience horror stories. Yet.

P.S. One of the worst was when I saw JURRASSIC PARK; just seconds before the lights went down, what showed up next to my aisle seat but a baby carriage!!!! And there it stayed parked. Somehow the baby slept the movie away, but still........

 

[Richard Kim]

When I saw Hulk yesterday, I too had the misfortune of having a noisy kid talking throughout the movie. He was mildly annoying, but then someone finally yelled out "Someone shut that kid up!", distracting me and causing me to miss a line of dialogue.

So if you're gonna confront a troublemaker, do it quietly or go to an usher so you don't disturb the audience as well.

 

[JamesHl]

This is why I see movies at the alamo drafthouse whenever possible. Their trailer about being quiet is great. It starts with some loudmouth yakking in the theater, then cuts to a projectionist assembling a complex looking gun in the booth. It cuts back and forth a few times until it shows the annoying guy explode, and then there's a black screen that says 'be quiet during the movie or we'll take your ass out.' They don't let young kids or kids under 18 without an adult in, either. Though that may be because they serve beer.

 

[Bill J]

I also noticed an unusual number of parents removing their children from the X2 screening I attended. Perhaps they thought something was too offensive for a PG-13 rating.