So I just returned from spending the afternoon at the movies. Saw The Mist and Michael Clayton. Both were excellent and I highly recommend them unless a) you’re very sensitive or easily scared, in which case I do not recommend The Mist, because it’s pretty intense, unhappy, and has one of the bleakest and most disturbing endings I’ve ever seen; or b) you don’t like legal mumbo jumbo, because Michael Clayton is all about it (albeit in a very fascinating and suspenseful way). But thats all another discussion. I’m here today to talk about really annoying people at the movies.
First and foremost, I can’t stand the people who put their hands up and act like they are on a roller coaster during the intro at the Regal theatres. It wasn’t cool or funny when they first started using it like 8 years ago, and it hasn’t gotten any better. And anyone over the age of 11 who does it should especially be taken out back and beaten.
Next up are the people who open up their loud wrappers and make a ton of noise once the movie has started. Open that shit up beforehand and save us the annoyance.
People who ask questions and have to have the whole movie explained to them. You’re whispering annoys and distracts the shit out of me. WE CAN STILL HEAR YOU. If you can’t pay attention, then don’t go see the movie and certainly don’t ruin my experience. You should probably go back to reading Encyclopedia Brown or Goosebumps.
In the past I would have slammed the entire Carmike organization for their shitty prints, but they were the first to make the leap to digital projection and it is much appreciated. I’d actually like to give them a little shout out here.
Now if we could just get a Drafthouse theatre in town, I would be a very happy guy…
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Tagged as: Activities, Charlottesville, Gripes, Idiots
i’m afraid to get drunk in a theater with tim. i might talk.
“the beatings will continue until morale improves!”
What is drafthouse?
We need stadium seating. BIG TIME. Nothing annoys more than arriving early, staking out an aisle seat (likely to have fewer obstructions to the screen), moving (if necessary) as tall people choose to sit in front of me, make it through the previews and the start of the movie, only to have a 7.5 ft. guy haul ass into the theater and plop himself in front of me. When there are PLENTY of seats from which to choose. Grr.
But the talkers take the cake. Shut that the hell up, stat. You are not on your couch at home, watching DVD’s. That is the main reason I can’t justify seeing first run films in the theater, anymore. The cost is astronomical. And if I’m paying to listen to someone else’s conversation, rather than the movie, Id rather just wait a few months and Netflix the damn thing. Exception: films at Vinegar Hill. Love that place. Good movies. People who watch the movies are serious. I think you might actually risk a beating from the audience if you made a nuisance of yourself at a movie at VH.
While I’d love a drafthouse theater, my big purse is all the bar I need (the hubby and I have been known to bring stemware to the movies).
Seriously, you’re annoyed at wrappers?
Chill out, bro.
Talkers, yes, hate them.
Wrapper rustlers, yep, hate them too.
Cell phone with 5000 watt screens opened to check email, death penalty.
But, while I was watching Beowulf 3D, the snot in front of me was text messaging the entire *&^ movie. I wanted to snatch the phone out of his geeky hands and toss it down front, and shove mild duds in his mouth until chocolate ran out his nose.
Carmike was the crappiest of the theaters, not only for the bad prints, bad sound system, but more for the pityful managers. I do like the new projectors.
i just hate the mildew smell in these old theaters!GROSS!!!
Eddie, I empathize. Last Friday night at VH during Into The Wild, some clown a few rows in front of me got bored and started playing games on his phone about 30 minutes in. He had to hold it right in front of his face, and it was the brightest goddamn thing in the theater. If there had been a hard projectile handy (besides my own phone, anyway) I would most definitely have tossed it at him. At least he was quiet.
I saw “No Country For Old Men” and had a couple sitting behind me each explaining their take on what was going on to the other for the whole film. I turned around menacingly a few times and it would stop for a bit, then right back at it. I should have gone Javier Bardem on them. Almost as bad as the time I saw 28 days (the horror movie, not the Sndra Bullock piece of shit) Sitting behind someone with turrets. Not fun. Almost led to bloodshed.
Rustling plastic wrappers (ie plastic bags from DIY candy bins) and gum chewing are rude. I don’t want to hear the high pitched foil sound and I don’t want to hear rhythmic spittle and popping, just distracting. That they don’t annoy some people (Dave) but they can ruin a movie-going experience for others (me) is mind-boggling! Why must I have been born with movie-theater anal-ness?!
Could you all keep it down? Im trying to hear the film.
Tim, I was an Alamo Drafthouse regular in Austin! I even staffed Quentin Tarantino’s “Lovefest” film festival. (Call me out for bragging or name dropping… I made well below a living wage… starving artist lifestyle is scary and I don’t miss it, so the occasional glamor was all I had.) I was around for the Satellite Ballroom’s early incarnation of a drafthouse and was really surprised it didn’t work. But Austin audiences will see and do pretty much anything. My personal favorites: a drinking game around “Point Break” so you had to yell a Bill-and-Ted-inspired “Ehhhh” and chug every time Keanu Reeves bit it in the waves; a Canadian beer flight to “Strange Brew”; a copy of a dubbed “Napoleon Dynamite” from China where all the translations were hilariously awry with discount tater tots; and, BEST EVER, the Austin Air Guitar Championship.
I once had a person take a phone call during a movie and then proceed to tell the person on the other end EVERYTHING THAT WAS HAPPENING as it was happening. She talked for at least 20 minutes.
Jeez Louise. Ushers with nightsticks. That’s my solution.
I’m with lilith. I just don’t go to regular movie theaters anymore because of some of what’s being described here.
The last time I was in a big theater was for a concert simulcast over in Richmond. It was awesome…anything goes at those sorts of events. Literally anything.
Oops…I was agreeing with ThatGrrl. Sorry!
Yupster, a friend of mine from high school was in town with his band a few months ago. As we got to talking about movies, I ended up finding out he was Tim League’s cousin. I kind of geeked out. You ever meet Harry Knowles and his whole crew?
As for air guitar, well, I competed in the DC edition this summer as the Six String General…you can see my work in (among others) the Washington Post, the Military Times, BrightestYoungThings, on the BBC, and everybody’s favorite, YouTube. To the rest of you, check out the DVD for “Air Guitar Nation” to understand the totally awesome world of competitive air guitar.
I once went to the drive-in movie place out near Fork Union and this redneck was nailing a sheep in the back of his pickup throughout the whole double feature (Finding Nemo followed by Debbie Does Dallas II).
Darn sheep bleated the whole time… I mean HELLO… could you choose a QUIET farmyard animal to sodomize for 3 hours so the rest of us can find out if the goddamn cute fish gets home to his parents?! Or give it a Werther’s Original or two in the hope we get a few minutes respite. I tell you, I went home with a terrible fucking migraine.
Imagine how the sheep must’ve felt.
Could you all keep it down? Im trying to hear the film.
HAHAHAHAHHAA
Since joining Netflix in 2001 I have been to a movie theater on only a single occasion when the wife insisted on seeing a movie on the big screen. What a mistake! The non-stop talking was beyond annoying. If the theaters gave a damn about their declining fortunes they would start kicking ass when people misbehave at their movies. And, Netflix has an amazing selection of indie and foreign films. What’s not to like?