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Societal unrest?

Major props to AMC Theaters in Great Falls, Montana for not only showing Marshall late but in the wrong aspect ratio. The bats in the past were somehow understandable but projecting a film in the wrong aspect ratio? Unforgivable.

My local AMC actually has screens that change size. The only time I've ever seen them mask is when I saw a DCP of Ben-Hur and a 70mm version of The Hateful Eight because they were in Ultra 70. Otherwise, it seems they literally change the size of screen, though they do mask trailers sometimes.

When you say “screens that change size” you’re just talking about automated masking, right?

And when you’re talking about masking trailers, you mean that they’re letter- or windowboxed, right?

Big Ben wrote:Major props to AMC Theaters in Great Falls, Montana for not only showing Marshall late but in the wrong aspect ratio. The bats in the past were somehow understandable but projecting a film in the wrong aspect ratio? Unforgivable.

My birthplace is starting to piss me off =D

When I saw The Last Jedi at the largest multiplex in my city, the house lights were left on - at full maximum brightness - during the trailers, and then remained on as the opening crawl began. Someone left the auditorium to alert a theater employee and the lights went off, only to flicker back on a moment later before turning off for good.

This was in the largest multiplex in my city, which was recently bought out and renovated by Marcus Theatres. I've seen that happen once before at that theater, but the other time it was an afternoon showing of On the Waterfront populated only by me and a group of chatty senior citizens, who would never have complained. This was a sold-out screening of Star Wars, for crying out loud.

The instant the closing credits began, the lights came on, again, at maximum brightness. It seems absurd that dimmer lights would be one of the casualties of modern theater design. Is this common?

I almost hate to complain on top of that that the screen wasn't masked properly, but apparently it's not only AMC that has that particular failing.

The Pachyderminator wrote:When I saw The Last Jedi at the largest multiplex in my city, the house lights were left on - at full maximum brightness - during the trailers, and then remained on as the opening crawl began. Someone left the auditorium to alert a theater employee and the lights went off, only to flicker back on a moment later before turning off for good.

When I went to the AMC Best Picture Showcase a couple years ago, they left the house lights on during the entirety of Brooklyn. It was infuriating.

Two odd experiences in a row for me:

Last night I went to a bougie semi-art house theater (owned by Regal) in Charlotte to see Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri which I expected would be fairly empty since it's been out for a while but the theater ended up being nearly packed (aside from the front row). My wife and I had arrived 30 minutes early (as is our custom) so that we could choose prime seats and then a couple of pushy, rude women strongarmed us into moving off-center so they could sit in our row (even though the front row was completely empty). I get it, the front row is not fun, but if you want to be picky about your seats, you don't show up half way through the trailers and start making demands. Then these women, sitting directly beside me proceeded to chat with each other, check their phones, and then produce a ghastly hacking cough every 20 seconds or so. I got up, looked the woman in the face and said, "You win," and my wife and I went and sat in the front row. A weird screen angle and slight neck pain for infinitely preferable to that. But I must say, it annoyed me more than a little.

Today, I went to catch an early Sunday matinee of The Greatest Showman and experienced something I have only ever heard legend of in the past. I was turned away because it was sold out. I've spent my entire life in rural-suburban areas in South Carolina and have never seen a movie sell out (not even event movies like Star Wars or Harry Potter, and not even on opening nights), so I was pretty surprised to find that a movie receiving mixed critical reviews (though all the word-of-mouth I've heard has been exceedingly positive) and that has been out for a while sold out for a 2:40 showing on Sunday afternoon.

The Pachyderminator wrote:When I saw The Last Jedi at the largest multiplex in my city, the house lights were left on - at full maximum brightness - during the trailers, and then remained on as the opening crawl began. Someone left the auditorium to alert a theater employee and the lights went off, only to flicker back on a moment later before turning off for good.

I went to my brand new local IMAX theater for this film and experienced much the same thing. Not quite full house lights during the opening crawl but very bright targeted spotlights through the first five minutes of the film. (They are doing the “food service at your seat” thing. The spotlights were probably to guide the servers.) The lights eventually went fully off for the film, but the moment the final credits started the full house lights were switched on. It was jarring, disruptive, and unpleasant to say the least.

A screening of CALL ME BY YOUR NAME was ruined by lots of sniggering, laughing and comments from a mostly senior-citizen crowd, which has led me to the conclusion that the biggest problem with gay movies is straight audiences. A similar experience at the same cinema with CAROL, where any hint of physicality between the two women got remarks like "sluts!" and "bad girls" has led me to avoid this cinema for LGBT-themed films in future.

The next day a screening of THE LAST JEDI was just exactly out of focus enough to be noticeable -- three requests for adjustment were ignored. I lodged a complaint at customer services and was told that the general manager had checked the screen and hadn't noticed a problem -- they don't have a projectionist. This at the UA Kaufman Astoria Studios cinema. They also botched a screening of MAD MAX: FURY ROAD -- they're off my list for good.

And then, the next night, a gorgeous projection of the new restoration of A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH at Film Forum functioned as a reminder of how great a movie can look when projected properly by an institution that gives a holy goddamn.

Roscoe wrote:A screening of CALL ME BY YOUR NAME was ruined by lots of sniggering, laughing and comments from a mostly senior-citizen crowd, which has led me to the conclusion that the biggest problem with gay movies is straight audiences. A similar experience at the same cinema with CAROL, where any hint of physicality between the two women got remarks like "sluts!" and "bad girls" has led me to avoid this cinema for LGBT-themed films in future.

Conversely, this is one reason I always try to see LGBT-themed movies early in their runs here in Portland, because they will attract exactly the demographic that will be excited about them. My experience with both of these movies was thankfully enriched by audience response—the packed crowd I first saw CAROL with was particularly vocal about their enthusiasm. Of course, all it takes is one bad seed to pollute the room, which did happen to me at a later-run matinee screening of BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR.

Speaking of bad seeds, I had a weird experience my second time seeing THE LAST JEDI, as I ended up a few seats away from a couple of bros who had clearly already seen the movie and seemed to have come a second time just to publicly hate-watch it. They openly mocked every single display of human emotion in the movie, and most infuriatingly

Spoiler

applauded both times Rose was near death.

I understand this movie has been very divisive and obviously anyone who thoroughly dislikes it is entitled to their subjective experience, but there's no excuse for such completely disruptive behavior.

HitchcockLang wrote:...Today, I went to catch an early Sunday matinee of The Greatest Showman and experienced something I have only ever heard legend of in the past. I was turned away because it was sold out. I've spent my entire life in rural-suburban areas in South Carolina and have never seen a movie sell out (not even event movies like Star Wars or Harry Potter, and not even on opening nights), so I was pretty surprised to find that a movie receiving mixed critical reviews (though all the word-of-mouth I've heard has been exceedingly positive) and that has been out for a while sold out for a 2:40 showing on Sunday afternoon.

The Greatest Showman was the only film sold out at a multiplex in suburban Detroit this past Saturday afternoon when I was there to see All The Money In The World. Evidently, the P.T. Barnum pic is a "must-see" for the hordes, although I don't see the appeal.

The same thing was going on with Murder on the Orient Express in my area a month or two ago. It's weird what movies catch on with, in my case, the upper-crust liberal suburbanite class.

mfunk9786 wrote:The same thing was going on with Murder on the Orient Express in my area a month or two ago. It's weird what movies catch on with, in my case, the upper-crust liberal suburbanite class.

I know so many people who went to see this and my response was always "why" ? I suppose it is because so few major Hollywood movies are aimed at a middle aged audience.

As somebody who eagerly went to see both, I think they were both straight-down-the-middle four-quadrant commercial appeals that managed to surpass their expectations. There's something very satisfying, in my mind, about films that are so brazenly safe and "for everyone!" particularly with this awards season where really divisive movies are breaking through as the big players. Both being Fox titles, it'll be really interesting if the Post can pull off the same with its debut this weekend. Murder... outgrossed Fox's Kingsman sequel!

Notably, the Greatest Showman has the best second-weekend drop of all time, actually going up 73% weekend-over-weekend from its debut (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle also performed really well and had the fourth best second-weekend drop too (also going up)). Aside from a slow start to Call Me By Your Name it can still make up, it's probably the healthiest the box office has been in awards season for almost all the prestige players that I can remember (Disaster Artist might have moderately underperformed, I suppose).

Lost Highway wrote:

mfunk9786 wrote:The same thing was going on with Murder on the Orient Express in my area a month or two ago. It's weird what movies catch on with, in my case, the upper-crust liberal suburbanite class.

I know so many people who went to see this and my response was always "why" ? I suppose it is because so few major Hollywood movies are aimed at a middle aged audience.

"I wanted a break from comic book movies" is the one I've heard.

The ultimate movie theater experience: Man Dies After Head Trapped In Deluxe Theater Seat

What's a "fully licensed car" in a movie theater?

Means bar, I expect.

No doubt we've all had disruptive folks at our theater but it can become difficult sometimes to differentiate between someone with a genuine issue and someone who is simply disruptive and I say that as someone on the spectrum (High functioning) myself. I don't agree with what the BFI did here and it should I hope lead to perspective and training on how to deal with individuals whose perception exists sometimes entirely outside our own. You can't see the disability and it becomes harder to make an assessment because of that. This is not something I would ever get steamed about but I think it should be made into a teachable moment.

I'd get steamed about it, as I'm especially sensitive and easy to trigger into anger over things like this.

The noticeable increase of disruptive and inconsiderate behaviour in cinemas is one reason I rarely go to them now. I fear it can only worsen if people are encouraged to excuse their bad behaviour by blaming it on certain disputed illnesses, such as "autism" or "Asperger syndrome", which, conveniently for those who want to use those labels, are vaguely defined and attempt to medicalize anti-social manners.

I hope all would agree that a disruptive person should be treated politely, even though, by definition, he or she is not being polite in the first place. It seems reasonable to me that a venue's management should have the option of asking someone, nicely, to desist from behaviour that the manager considers disruptive, especially if a patron has complained. But if the alleged disrupter refuses to desist, what should the venue do? Refund all the complainers? That would hardly be fair to those whose enjoyment may have been ruined, but who don't like to make a fuss about it.

The facts of this case are not entirely clear, but if the claim is true that the allegedly disruptive young woman was "dragged out" then it's very sad that the matter was not resolved by gentle persuasion. Also, much of the reported impoliteness was on the part of other audience members not minding their own business.

That said, I think society rightly places the onus on a patron/guest to be well behaved and listen to reason if the establishment/host challenges certain conduct.

A public space often calls for tolerance on the part of people who share it, but I can't help feeling that users who wish to claim behavioural privileges for having a disputed medical condition are seeking to evade some of the responsibilities which we all have towards one another. Of course, I'm not talking here about the genuinely disabled, with indisputable physical or mental handicaps, who do indeed merit special privileges.

I’ve once experienced someone getting dragged out of a cinema. It was during a secret screening of Vertigo in 1980 at the Munich Filmmuseum at a time when it had been out of distribution since the 60s. For that audience it was the only opportunity to see the film, a sort of holy grail of cinema back then. There was a woman who laughed loud and hysterically at just about anything in the movie. After verbal persuasion didn’t do the trick, only leading to more noisy interruption, a couple of patrons took it on themselves to physically remove her from the theatre to the applause from the rest of the audience.

Colpeper wrote:... certain disputed illnesses, such as "autism" or "Asperger syndrome", which, conveniently for those who want to use those labels, are vaguely defined.... I can't help feeling that users who wish to claim behavioural privileges for having a disputed medical condition are seeking to evade some of the responsibilities which we all have towards one another. Of course, I'm not talking here about the genuinely disabled, with indisputable physical or mental handicaps, who do indeed merit special privileges.

I dare say that all medical conditions have been "disputed" by someone at some time, but the fact is that autism, including the part of the autistic spectrum known as Asperger syndrome, is a recognised and protected characteristic under UK law, the Equality Act (2010).

Asperger syndrome is far from "vaguely defined"; to be diagnosed formally, the person must exhibit strong evidence of profound lifelong difficulties across a triad of impairments. Being grossly impaired in one area but with normal functioning in another rules out such a diagnosis. It's also very difficult in most regions of the UK even to receive an assessment on the NHS due to underfunding; in my case, it took over a decade of persistence to be referred to a specialist, despite the fact my GP knew I'd become unable to work, socialise or sleep naturally, and I'd gone up to twelve years without one night away from home.

If that isn't evidence of a "genuine" disability, I don't know what would be. No other diagnosis or effective treatment has ever been offered to me by the medical profession. Those of us with a formal diagnosis of autism or Asperger syndrome do not see either as a "convenient" label. The condition causes most of us to live with lifelong inconvenience, though some are better at finding coping strategies than others, especially when (thanks to increasing recognition of autism) they are diagnosed early enough and reasonable adjustments are made for them. Whether "behavioural privileges" should be claimed as a result of a diagnosis is another matter and I'm not arguing the rights or wrongs of the BFI cinema incident.