Cinema is better for me because of the size of the screen, the better sound system and fact that I'll be largely distraction free for the entire length. It's why 10 am Tuesday morning screenings are perfect.
Thanks for reading and responding! 100% agree. Tuesday mornings are great because they are $5 or so at AMC--but if I have to work, that's an impossible mission. Also agree that there's nothing like cinema sound: all the home theater setups I've seen / heard are never as good as the real thing.
Pre having kids I'd take a day off 3 or 4 times a year to go on a Tuesday morning. Now I try manage it once a year if I can.
Also loved 10am Sunday morning for any non-kid friendly movies. You also see a lot of random things if only criteria is what starts first thing in the morning.
I dunno, I like gasps and laughter. Or my mom screaming during any jumpscare no matter how obviously telegraphed.
Similar to the first commenter I gravitate towards weekday matinees, but I’d say for me that’s more convenience (and those sweet sweet prices) than cinema agoraphobia. I’d also admit that I have rarely actually experienced the stereotypical bad moviegoers.
I’m still getting used to the assigned seating that started post COVID for non-IMAX movies, but it has made it much easier to time my entry and skip Ms. Menounos. That’s really the main reason I love empty theaters is that I absolutely hate the surcharge for buying tickets on my phone and therefore always prefer buying in person. And there’s always plenty of seats to choose from Tuesday at 10am, ten minutes after the listed showtime and ten minutes before the feature starts.
Thanks for reading and responding! On the whole, I have experienced fewer bad moviegoers than good and I keep going back. I also go to matinees for the same reasons as you: big discounts and greater odds of fewer people. But it would be great if it didn't matter when we chose to go and could have the same chances of a great experience. (That's also funny about telegraphed jumpscares--my wife is the exact same way.)
And then there’s the special horror of movie previews. Want to know why so many film critics became jaded assholes? Well, the sort of individual who wants to become a film critic is a factor, but it’s also due to being shoved into a packed multiplex screen with a herd of dolts who are only there so they can see a movie for free, three days before everyone else does. You want entitled behavior? Watch the parents who got a single pass, interpreted “Admit Two” as “let’s drag every kid in the neighborhood with us” and “This is not a guarantee of admission” as “I’m perfectly within my rights to come in after the previews have started and scream ‘Do you know who I am?’ until we get adjoining seats for all 14 anklesnappers in a completely filled theater’.” With most screenings of this sort, two or three rows are reserved for critics, and Arioch help the poor publicity company interns trying to convince the herd that these seats are empty NOW but will be filled in five minutes. (At one preview, one soccer mom took umbrage at the interns trying to keep her eighteen kids from getting the only adjoining seats remaining, gave up on screaming “You can’t expect kids and parents to sit SEPARATELY!”, moved to a nearly filled row three back, and encouraged her kids to follow her in climbing over seats and their occupants until they got to the critics’ section. She kicked me in the head trying to get over me, leading me to bellow “If the theater won’t call the cops on this woman, I WILL!”) Combine that with local radio deejays as “hosts” who are dumber than the crowd, people responding to contests by screaming the answers even though they sat on the opposite side from where the organizer was pointing, and the attendees who preferred to shit and piss in popcorn buckets rather than have to leave their free movie, and one of the greatest things about no longer being a film critic is never having to go to a preview ever again.
"Anklesnappers" is a great word. You've also made me think of film criticism in general. Anyone with an internet connection can now be a critic (me included)--which is a good thing. The days of studios courting select names is over.
Oh, I absolutely agree. Watching the great gatekeepers and quote whores of old (and “critics” who combined both) as they either hang on in unread senescence or go on to get real jobs because nobody’s paying for their opinions has been GLORIOUS. For every Pauline Kael, Harlan Ellison, or Michael Price were thirty Paul Wunders, Robert Wilonskys, Chris Gores, and Rex Reeds, and we’re all better off.
This was great, thanks. I understand this completely. I hardly go to the cinema these days, Nosferatu being the last time. There's really no point, besides for the big event shows, where you need the best picture and sound, and unfortunately as you point out, no matter how loud a picture is, it will not drown out a screaming baby. :) Furthermore, ever since they started playing commercials (to my memory it was around 2010) it's really made the whole experience unpleasant to sit there before a movie even starts. It's good to know some theaters are tying to make it better, but it's a real problem that needs to be addressed.
Thank you for reading! Yes, the commercials are a killer. The theater chains never understood that there was no need to show them, since we were already there. And this just made me realize, right now, that you never see television ads for movie theaters. I wonder why not?
They don’t, quite honestly, because they don’t want to pay for them. The assumption is that studios run plenty of ads, for which the theaters are passive and necessary recipients of the people wanting to see the film or filmlike extruded product. With the decline of newspapers, which also depended upon film distributors running ads that helpfully included available theaters, the emphasis is in making sure the theater Web site is functional, as there’s much more of a return on investment than on randomly placing “Come to our theater” ads all over existing media. In a way, it’s tied to the “the movie theater is a destination for an event, rather than a destination in its own” attitude that started in the 1950s, and now theater chains are too cheap to think otherwise.
Sometimes a stadium or convention center WILL advertise itself, but that’s almost always because it’s desperate for new business. The closest you’ll see with theaters these days are corporate entreaties to rent out a theater for special events.
And I have to correct my earlier statement: I just received a flyer from Alamo Drafthouse today. The difference is that my local Alamos shut down with their franchise bankruptcy and were bought up and reopened by Sony, Sony is desperate to make Alamo profitable, and the flyer emphasizes food and mixed drinks.
I love the cinema and probably the closest thing to a church for me besides maybe my gym.
I make a strong effort in most cases to see a film well past opening night and at a day/time it’s going to most likely have the least people attending.
Cinema is better for me because of the size of the screen, the better sound system and fact that I'll be largely distraction free for the entire length. It's why 10 am Tuesday morning screenings are perfect.
Thanks for reading and responding! 100% agree. Tuesday mornings are great because they are $5 or so at AMC--but if I have to work, that's an impossible mission. Also agree that there's nothing like cinema sound: all the home theater setups I've seen / heard are never as good as the real thing.
Pre having kids I'd take a day off 3 or 4 times a year to go on a Tuesday morning. Now I try manage it once a year if I can.
Also loved 10am Sunday morning for any non-kid friendly movies. You also see a lot of random things if only criteria is what starts first thing in the morning.
I did the same thing! Excellent.
I dunno, I like gasps and laughter. Or my mom screaming during any jumpscare no matter how obviously telegraphed.
Similar to the first commenter I gravitate towards weekday matinees, but I’d say for me that’s more convenience (and those sweet sweet prices) than cinema agoraphobia. I’d also admit that I have rarely actually experienced the stereotypical bad moviegoers.
I’m still getting used to the assigned seating that started post COVID for non-IMAX movies, but it has made it much easier to time my entry and skip Ms. Menounos. That’s really the main reason I love empty theaters is that I absolutely hate the surcharge for buying tickets on my phone and therefore always prefer buying in person. And there’s always plenty of seats to choose from Tuesday at 10am, ten minutes after the listed showtime and ten minutes before the feature starts.
Thanks for reading and responding! On the whole, I have experienced fewer bad moviegoers than good and I keep going back. I also go to matinees for the same reasons as you: big discounts and greater odds of fewer people. But it would be great if it didn't matter when we chose to go and could have the same chances of a great experience. (That's also funny about telegraphed jumpscares--my wife is the exact same way.)
And then there’s the special horror of movie previews. Want to know why so many film critics became jaded assholes? Well, the sort of individual who wants to become a film critic is a factor, but it’s also due to being shoved into a packed multiplex screen with a herd of dolts who are only there so they can see a movie for free, three days before everyone else does. You want entitled behavior? Watch the parents who got a single pass, interpreted “Admit Two” as “let’s drag every kid in the neighborhood with us” and “This is not a guarantee of admission” as “I’m perfectly within my rights to come in after the previews have started and scream ‘Do you know who I am?’ until we get adjoining seats for all 14 anklesnappers in a completely filled theater’.” With most screenings of this sort, two or three rows are reserved for critics, and Arioch help the poor publicity company interns trying to convince the herd that these seats are empty NOW but will be filled in five minutes. (At one preview, one soccer mom took umbrage at the interns trying to keep her eighteen kids from getting the only adjoining seats remaining, gave up on screaming “You can’t expect kids and parents to sit SEPARATELY!”, moved to a nearly filled row three back, and encouraged her kids to follow her in climbing over seats and their occupants until they got to the critics’ section. She kicked me in the head trying to get over me, leading me to bellow “If the theater won’t call the cops on this woman, I WILL!”) Combine that with local radio deejays as “hosts” who are dumber than the crowd, people responding to contests by screaming the answers even though they sat on the opposite side from where the organizer was pointing, and the attendees who preferred to shit and piss in popcorn buckets rather than have to leave their free movie, and one of the greatest things about no longer being a film critic is never having to go to a preview ever again.
"Anklesnappers" is a great word. You've also made me think of film criticism in general. Anyone with an internet connection can now be a critic (me included)--which is a good thing. The days of studios courting select names is over.
Oh, I absolutely agree. Watching the great gatekeepers and quote whores of old (and “critics” who combined both) as they either hang on in unread senescence or go on to get real jobs because nobody’s paying for their opinions has been GLORIOUS. For every Pauline Kael, Harlan Ellison, or Michael Price were thirty Paul Wunders, Robert Wilonskys, Chris Gores, and Rex Reeds, and we’re all better off.
This was great, thanks. I understand this completely. I hardly go to the cinema these days, Nosferatu being the last time. There's really no point, besides for the big event shows, where you need the best picture and sound, and unfortunately as you point out, no matter how loud a picture is, it will not drown out a screaming baby. :) Furthermore, ever since they started playing commercials (to my memory it was around 2010) it's really made the whole experience unpleasant to sit there before a movie even starts. It's good to know some theaters are tying to make it better, but it's a real problem that needs to be addressed.
Thank you for reading! Yes, the commercials are a killer. The theater chains never understood that there was no need to show them, since we were already there. And this just made me realize, right now, that you never see television ads for movie theaters. I wonder why not?
They don’t, quite honestly, because they don’t want to pay for them. The assumption is that studios run plenty of ads, for which the theaters are passive and necessary recipients of the people wanting to see the film or filmlike extruded product. With the decline of newspapers, which also depended upon film distributors running ads that helpfully included available theaters, the emphasis is in making sure the theater Web site is functional, as there’s much more of a return on investment than on randomly placing “Come to our theater” ads all over existing media. In a way, it’s tied to the “the movie theater is a destination for an event, rather than a destination in its own” attitude that started in the 1950s, and now theater chains are too cheap to think otherwise.
Good point--just as a stadium wouldn't advertise itself.
Sometimes a stadium or convention center WILL advertise itself, but that’s almost always because it’s desperate for new business. The closest you’ll see with theaters these days are corporate entreaties to rent out a theater for special events.
And I have to correct my earlier statement: I just received a flyer from Alamo Drafthouse today. The difference is that my local Alamos shut down with their franchise bankruptcy and were bought up and reopened by Sony, Sony is desperate to make Alamo profitable, and the flyer emphasizes food and mixed drinks.
I am all for AD, but hate the idea of food in a theater, regardless of how quiet people are when they eat it.
That's a good point!
I love the cinema and probably the closest thing to a church for me besides maybe my gym.
I make a strong effort in most cases to see a film well past opening night and at a day/time it’s going to most likely have the least people attending.
That’s when it’s magic.
Agreed.