This is one of the reasons why I’ve all but sworn-off theaters. It used to mean a lot more to me to see something in the theater but I’ve traded that for subtitles, pausing, multi-day-viewing, picture quality, manageable volume, whatever food and snacks I want, and -surprisingly high up on the list - talking through the movie with my wife.
I guess I’ve gotten old (and also own my own house and can buy whatever equipment I want)
For the most part this is me. The only reason I go to a theater is if the movie demands it (Dune in IMAX was heavily touted, so I made the trek for that), or the Drive-in. There's a Drive-in movie theater that still runs about 45 minutes from my house. 2 movie double feature for 11 bucks a person. When the weather's nice, I'll drive there with my friends, put lawn chairs in front of my car, pull out the boombox, and make a night of it. I can manage the volume and we can talk to each other without disturbing anyone.
I live in an small (by American standards) apartment and I have a reclining sofa and 65" TV. You don't need to own a house to have a decent viewing experience.
All the other stuff I completely agree with. Movie theaters are obsolete, as far as I'm concerned.
At least in some areas, it's common for rental suites to forbid guests. So if you want to see a movie together with friends, a movie theater is often the best way.
I've never, ever heard of a rental home or apartment or even hotel room that forbids guests. I'm not saying your assertion is false, but can you provide any evidence that it's true?
I think at one time there were women-only boarding houses that forbade male guests, at least there were in old movies, but that's about it.
>I think at one time there were women-only boarding houses that forbade male guests, at least there were in old movies, but that's about it.
These still exist in Japan: there's women-only apartment buildings where men are not allowed in at all (except maybe contractors). I think even delivery people aren't allowed in: they have to meet the resident outside. Women can be evicted if they bring a male guest or relative inside.
These are of course entirely voluntary; any woman who doesn't like this is free to just rent a normal apartment like anyone else, and there's plenty of those. I don't know if there's any price advantage to renting a women-only apartment.
It's common for rental suites. If you rent a whole home, you can usually invite whoever you want. But if you live in a rented room, a sharehouse, a rented basement suite, etc, then no-guest provisions are very common. These rental suites are common in expensive cities.
I saw a movie in a theater for the first time in forever last weekend. At one point I was distracted by lines in the screen where the sky was projected - it was the actual screen, not part of the projection. This was an iPic, so not cheap tickets
If streaming services could handle busy times without artifacts my LG 4K 77in would always be a better experience for all content
As a recent example, we went to an animated film and could see lots of artifacts on the image. It wasn’t the theater’s fault. But also, picture quality isn’t just a matter of source. I can change the output of my TV to whatever I want. The theater gives me the combination of whatever the staff set up plus the file from the studio.
I’ll never understand people who don’t like going to the theater. I absolutely love going to the theater, but for the most part, I go to locally owned, independent theaters. Prices are good, including for the snacks. Yes, yes, your home theater setup is awesome or whatever, but that doesn’t replicate the theater experience. All of my most enjoyable movie experiences have been at the theater. Even something as dumb as Talledega Nights was transformed by being in a packed theater. And even for more cerebral movies, the experience is just worth it. Coming back from the theater and talking about it, seeing the reactions on people’s faces, hearing others on the way out, etc. There’s also nothing else to do at the movie theater except watch.
I’m glad my independent theaters made it through COVID. I haven’t been as much as I did prior to COVID, mainly because of COVID and moving further away, but I just really love seeing a good movie at the theater. I miss being bored on a Friday night and hopping down to the local theater to see a movie. My movie theaters have really good popcorn and ice cream as well.
> I’ll never understand people who don’t like going to the theater.
Maybe you're just talking hyperbolically, but that sentence really screams not having grasped that, with so many millions of humans around us, in any topic there will be many who have completely different preferences/views than you.
That said, I'm a hypocrite because I'll never understand people who don't like ice cream!
Of course I understand that people have their own perspectives, and so yea, it's a bit hyperbolic. I do of course watch movies at home too and have a decent TV and speakers in my living room (no insane setup for sure though).
I'm just providing some other perspective when it seems so many have vitriol towards theaters. The person I responded to said "I’ve all but sworn-off theaters", and someone else said "Movie theaters are obsolete, as far as I'm concerned". I think for the most part, they probably go to the wrong theaters. Also, I do realize I am lucky in that my local theaters are in old buildings that were either actual theaters or are just old movie theaters from back in the day, so they have a lot of character. But they have actually upgraded the theaters to be nice and show a lot of unique stuff and events. I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey and a few other movies in 70mm at my local theater. You're not going to get that experience at home.
> there will be many who have completely different preferences/views than you.
I don't understand your point, "I'll never understand people who X" contains an acknowledgement that those people exist. He just wanted to lay out his perspective...
I can’t stand talking, phones, mastication sounds, etc. Ruins the movie for me. My home system is inferior to all theaters but it’s easier for me to get lost in entertainment.
I see a lot of people in these comments wondering why they should favor the theater experience today. While it's true that the gap between video and audio quality at home is shrinking I think the single biggest factor for me to go to the theater is the feeling of focus and immersion that I experience.
I love forgetting about everything else for 2-3 hours and becoming absorbed in the experience. One of my favorite feelings is at the end of the film when I walk out of the theater with a mind that is empty and still after having focused for so long. I get to observe the feeling of my thoughts creeping back in along with the noise of the world. In this way it's akin to a meditative experience for me.
Of course, this can also happen at home with enough willpower, but the temptation to break focus is ever-present.
I was you for a period of about 30 years. As soon as I could afford to go to movies I went to about 100 every year. I adored the experience and dragged all my girlfriends and, later, my wife and family to the movies. They knew me at all the Edwards theaters in southern Orange County, California. The shared audience experience could be electric. We even liked waiting in line for a select movies, such as new movies in the first Star Wars trilogy, Batman sequels, Indiana Jones, Terminator, Alien, or back to the future. I cheerfully paid inflated prices for snacks because the overall experience was a delight.
Around the time Edwards was sold to Regal a few years ago the experience in all theaters was declining. As the good script writers turned to TV shows, the spectacle remained in movies but the stories stopped being compelling. Even the good theaters started showing crappy non-movie commercials before they ran trailers. Even the expensive movie theaters were unable to supply good fresh popcorn. Apparently operating the popcorn machine is just too much trouble. Much better to get trash bags full of stale popcorn from some central location.
Even at high-end theaters, customers started using their phones for social media while the movie was running. Phone screens are pretty bright these days.
Theaters were able to stem the decline a little bit by introducing even more expensive theaters that had comfortable assigned seating and passable restaurant service. The passable restaurant service quickly declined, right along with the movies. We could still sort of enjoy movies like Iron Man, Deadpool, or Pirates of the Caribbean. It was over $20 a person to see a movie, so about the price of a DVD.
By the time Covid hit, I was the only one in my family going to movies. My adult kids didn’t even want to go on my nickel. My wife wasn’t having any of it. She simply could not stand the poor quality of movies or the theater experience itself. I did go to see the new top gun movie, and it was about $25. At that point, with the degraded experience, I see no reason to do anything but stream or purchase the movie months after the hype has died down.
So now it’s me in my family room, alone, watching streaming services on a big screen and wondering what the fuck happened.
Some streaming services added a feature called "watch it together" during covid. Essentially you stream a movie with someone simultaneously. I think plex, Netflix, and Amazon prime have this feature. For many years there have also been online "watch parties" similar to book clubs but done online. It's usually slightly older movies but these groups do exist.
I can very much relate to your experience of theaters becoming corrupted by crummy programming and non-film advertisements as well as the audience being poorly "moderated" by the ushers. I have a very strong aversion to all of these things.
If the option is available to you, I'd like to recommend a medium-sized chain of theaters in the US called The Alamo Drafthouse. They're slowly expanding across the US and I find their approach refreshing:
Firstly, their business and programming exudes a real love for film and cinema that you only see in a superficial way at Regal Theaters or an equivalent. It's a good mix of big-studio releases, indie films (which they often make efforts to highlight and platform) and old films that are beloved or noteworthy. It's a very well-mixed bag. Quite often they host specially-themed showings or events that expand the traditional experience.
I'd say their big blind-spot is in not programming what I'd call "film school" films: Films that are extremely niche or academically interesting or avant-garde. I imagine it's hard to consistently pack a theater for a Pasolini retrospective or something from the Lumiére Brothers. That said my local branch (Los Angeles) features a replica video rental shop in the lobby that is EXTREMELY well-curated with DVDs that you can rent for free.
A quality that I find endearing from this franchise is that they play unique pre-roll footage while you wait for the lights to go down that is specifically curated for the movie that you're there to view. For thirty minutes prior to showtime they play everything and anything that is thematically related to the movie you're about to watch: Does the movie star Bryan Cranston? They'll play an old aspirin commercial that he acted in in the 90s. Are you seeing a Spiderman Movie? They'll play footage from the 1980s Turkish Spiderman movie where Spiderman wields a pistol and stabs people. It's all very good-natured and fun and infinitely more enjoyable than watching trashy word-scramble puzzles, or advertisements for a local dealership.
Finally, their biggest innovation is that the theaters have integrated the serving of food and drink (entire meals and alcohol) into the experience. Every audience member's reclining seat has a desk in front of it and a staff-member will quietly come in and take orders that you can write on a card. Now this may be a good thing or a bad thing to you, but what it also means is that each theater is moderated by a crew of 2-3 servers who regulate any disturbances or unwanted behavior. I've definitely pulled out my phone to text at one point and been told I need to do so out in the hall.
Anywho, whether you're able to attend The Drafthouse or not I hope you find a way to reconnect with the experience of seeing movies. It's something I greatly value and love to share with everyone.
Thanks for the kind message and the enticing description of Alamo Drafthouse. Man, I cannot wait until they get to the Seattle area. That sounds like just the experience I was hoping for.
This is why I love going to the movies near a nice promenade. The quiet walk afterwards with my SO (who also easily gets lost in thought) is part of the experience.
We strolled down the Embarcadero after Dune - couldn't tell you what we talked about, but it was peaceful.
For me it's less war scenes like in LOTR and more longwinded action movie scenes, like people fighting or elaborate car chases or what not. One of the many reasons why I'm really not a fan of the superhero genre that seems so pervasive nowadays.
Another reason I dislike the superhero genre these days is because the plot arcs are so predictable. It seems like every movie follows exactly the same beats. At this point they feel more like remixes than fresh content.
I'll give an example of action done the right way: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Every action scene shows us more about the characters or advances the plot, so the action serves as a backdrop for the storytelling.
> If you relieve immediately beforehand and can't hold it for 90 minutes, there is likely a medical issue (e.g. old man, pregnant, etc)
I suffer from what I've dubbed "Movie Bladder".
Being in a situation where it would be inconvenient to have to use the bathroom creates the urge, regardless of actual bladder fullness. As soon as the situation is resolved, the urge vanishes. It's all in my head.
Job interview? I'll hit the bathroom five minutes before it begins. As soon as I enter that Zoom call, the urge returns. As soon as we sign off, the urge goes away.
When I fly, I love the window seat, but have too much social anxiety to ask the people in the middle and aisle seats to let me out to use the bathroom. So naturally, as I get seated, the urge comes and remains the entire flight. As soon as we land, the urge is gone. Even after getting off the plane, I'll walk past the bathrooms, and not even the power of suggestion brings back the feeling of needing to urinate.
The urge isn't completely constant, and it's not overwhelming. After all, my bladder is anything but full, since I make it a habit to relieve myself as late as possible before entering the situation. It's still annoying to deal with though, since I know it's all in my head and is not an actual bladder issue.
> It's still annoying to deal with though, since I know it's all in my head and is not an actual bladder issue.
There might be some fight or flight response that causes you to tense up your muscles, triggered by the psychological association. That could lead to excess pressure on your bladder especially if there's a muscle imbalance.
If I were you I'd go to physical and psychological therapists out of sheer curiosity - probably start with one specializing in pelvic muscle weakness since that is extremely common amongst sedentary professionals.
> If you relieve immediately beforehand and can't hold it for 90 minutes, there is likely a medical issue (e.g. old man, or pregnant).
Avengers Endgame is 3 hours and 1 minute long.
Some of that is credits, and maybe you should be able to hold it for 3 hours anyway, but some people do have medical problems. They should still be allowed to enjoy movies.
> but some people do have medical problems. They should still be allowed to enjoy movies.
I never understand statements like this. You're replying to someone who already mentioned the former statement, and didn't say anything about the latter.
I wonder why the theaters won't incorporate a 5 minute intermission break for movies longer than 2h:20m (140 minutes, on the higher end for typical films).
When I watched Return of the King in a theater they had 10 or 15 min break in the middle, it was the first and last time I've seen such arrangement. It would be nice if Hollywood finally accepted such format and just went with 3-4 hour long movies with a break. Not for all movies of course, but at least for the more complex ones. I mean not making 2:30 long movie and then just pad it with irrelevant, often static scenes for some "Complete Movie Of the Year Directors Super Duper Cut Edition" clocking at 3:00, but having zero new content as compared to theater cut. That's just a dumb trend imho. But instead actually plan the story for 3 or 4 hours, with a proper increase of storytelling, characters and so on. Just for some top AAA movies.
Growing up in India, movies always had an intermission. They even used to cut Hollywood movies at 45 minutes. I always looked forward to the break because it was one of the rare occasions my parents would let me and my sister have soda and pop corn.
>Also still requires you to check your phone during a movie which should be immediate jail time across the board
Not true! The app has cues that you can read ahead of time. Eg:
> Bob says “I didn’t know you were French!”
When you hear Bob say that, there’s your chance to go.
The app will give roughly 3 cues per movie, about 15 to 30 mins apart, so you have multiple chances.
Also, apparently you can set it to go off with a timer, although I haven’t used that feature. On iPhones you can allow specific apps notify even when you’re on Do Not Disturb, which would probably be useful in this case.
Parent is complaining about this will make you have to view your phone during the movie in order to see when it's happening, presumably because you'll disturb others who sit next to you because of the brightness of the phone.
So instead you suggest making it go off with a timer instead? That seems even worse!
Neither of the two methods I described require looking at the phone during the movie.
1. If you’re going to use the cues, you look at them before the movie starts.
2. If you’re going to use the timer, the phone will vibrate in your pocket. Granted, if you have a loud-vibrating phone, that could be disruptive (although not as bad as the screen being on or ringing, and not worse than a person getting up to go to the bathroom).
When the cue/timer happens, you leave the theater. While you’re peeing you can look at the app to find out what’s happening in the movie.
You start the app when the movie starts and it just sends a notification that vibrates at the best time. If you read the cues beforehand it’s a great reminder. Not distracting or disturbing to anyone else in the theater.
Jordan Palmer is also an ex-NFL quarterback. He never started, wasn't that good, didn't last long, and only had 18 career passing attempts, certainly no Carson, but he was still a pro.
It's pretty funny that he probably looks bad in context, but if he showed up to a non-NFL match he'd be hilariously better than everyone there
I think about that a lot when I'm trudging through the muck on forums, especially TeamBlind. There are kids in their 20s getting burned out at Amazon who'd be able to singlehandedly revolutionize the engineering processes at most normal companies in the world.
> There are kids in their 20s getting burned out at Amazon who'd be able to singlehandedly revolutionize the engineering processes at most normal companies in the world.
You'd have to believe that talent and compensation are actually well-correlated and I'm pretty sure it's tenuous at best.
Yeah, the kids coming out of top schools and crushing their LeetCode interviews are probably smarter on average, but it's not like that necessarily translates to the sort of skills or behaviors that can revolutionize business practices.
It would be fun to think about predictive upcoming down/ad time. For example, one of the worst offenders in live sports is the ad break-kickoff-ad break sequence in an NFL game. If you could predict based on how many ad breaks have already happened whether such a thing was about to take place, you could get buzzed right after a touchdown: "hey, you're about to get 6 minutes where nothing happens but a touchback, you can take a bathroom break plus refill your drink."
we really are in the nightmare dystopic vision of being connected to an engagement machine and more or less drooling our way through life... How many apps does the average person have on their phone...having something so hyper specific just seems incredible to me (as someone with nothing installed on it)
I wouldn’t call it a dystopian nightmare, just movies are no longer as engaging as they used to be. Now I can text/send videos pics or voice to any of my friends at any moment I feel. Why should I force myself to watch the boring part of a movie?
this is the kind of thinking that results in app ideas like "new app that uses AI to predict the least offensive time to take a pee break during a work meeting"...
and this is precisely the kind of thing that blunts us into being automatons.
There are big cultural differences in this type of behaviour. In Finland, I would estimate the percentage of peers during a movie in a theater is probably 1-2%. No one really plans around it and it's seen as quite annoying behaviour which is avoided.
In Canada, where I lived for a while, the number was probably 10-20%. It was more of a norm and just a thing that a lot of people did.
A year in the title generally indicates that what is being linked to is as it was in the year specified. Usually, a blog post is static and easy to apply a year to but front pages of ongoing projects may have new information or changes that make it harder to label with a year. If a particular project is finished then applying a year to the title could make sense but most people don't bother to look into what year that should be, and in some cases may be subjective.
When I was in Istanbul in 2013 they had an intermission. Kind of surprising to me. Also it seemed like it was a time based thing because I vaguely recall it was right during an action sequence and bam, movie stops and the lights turn on. My first thought something went wrong with the projector but then everybody around me just started getting up and acting like it was completely normal :)
I don't see why this is necessary or useful. Just press the "pause" button and go to the bathroom when you need to. While you're at it, you can grab a snack or drink from your kitchen before you unpause. Take a few minutes and brew a nice cup of tea perhaps. Then come back to your recliner and cover up with a cozy blanket while watching the movie.
My wife rented it for the plane on a solo trip. She got back, but the Apple TV progress bar in "Watch Now" indicated she'd only watched about 30 minutes of it. "Sucked bad", she said, "but maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it." We paid for it, I like Portman, I like Hemsworth, I liked the previous installments. I decided to watch the trailer to see if I wanted to watch the whole thing.
I just barely made it to the end of the trailer. I can only imagine the steaming pile that was the whole movie.
This makes me sad. Thor: Ragnorak was hysterical and probably my favorite Marvel movie so far. Maybe the old adage about the third movie being better than the second will hold true.
You could also check out reviews. But I think I recall Ragnorak having a very disconnected trailer from the actual movie. Like the MCU uses the same trailer people for each one and they never got that the Thor storyline was supposed to be funny.
I mean, it wasn't a top-5 Marvel film, but it was fine. In the absence of the high points this series has given us, we wouldn't be complaining at all.
Well, I mean, SOME people would, because SOME people get upset whenever a woman gets out of what they see as her lane, but the rest of us wouldn't.
(My top 5, today: Black Panther; Ragnarok; Winter Soldier; Iron Man; Endgame. But the only ones I'd rate below a B are Thor 2, Iron Man 2 & 3, and Eternals.)
It was pretty silly, but then again Morbius took itself very seriously and wasn't entertaining at all.
There are too many superhero movies. I like the format, they can be very enjoyable, but the more the genre expands the more it has to mine parody, bathos, and other comedic techniques. Even Shakespeare wrote some stinkers.
I agree it was over the top and expect international audiences to hate it. It is saturated with Kiwi humor, thanks to Taika. As a Kiwi I got the jokes but found there was too much of it for a Marvel movie.
I’ve been a regular user of the app to know whether there are extra scenes at the end of the movie, and I haven’t noticed a time when they didn’t have new content. There was a time when the app looked outdated but the content was still fresh. And they redid the app’s pricing once, maybe twice now. But yeah, they did a recent reboot of the app and its design etc.
You could just use your great film sense to know when you're in an obligatory scene, or alternatively just skip the horrendously large liquid sugar infusion.
I guess I’ve gotten old (and also own my own house and can buy whatever equipment I want)