Your Best Theater Experience. - Page 2

Did she reach for the gun?

Thank you everybody! Good night!

OT: Batman Forever. First date I ever had where I got to 3rd base. Tender age of 13. It was kind of magical.

My cousin and I went to this and midnight. Nothing like seeing something like this at that time. When the title finally appeared the crowd went WILD.

Seeing The Dark Knight at midnight fucking ruled.

For one, it was one of the first that buying the tickets as soon as they were on sale was a BIG deal.

For one, I fought a ton of people trying to take the aisle seats I'd reserved for my friends.

E.T. - either during initial release in 82, or the re-release in 84 or 85, not sure, but it was my first memory of seeing a movie in a theater, so it was probably 82. either way, what can you say, i got introduced by Spielberg and never looked back.

Return Of The Jedi - my introduction to star wars...i was 3 and my dad took me...threw up in my empty popcorn bucket during the speederbike chase, wiped my chin and kept smiling...i was in a nerd heaven. imagine my surprise when the movies actually got better with Empire and A New Hope, which unfortunately i didn't get to see theatrically until the re-releases...Empire's re-release was the LOUDEST fucking movie i've ever heard (just before Ronin and Face-Off), they really destroyed people's eardrums that night.

Total Recall - first R-rated movie i saw in a theater by myself, had to sneak in because i was underage and that made it even more thrilling...over the top bloodfest and i loved it.

Se7en - first hollywood movie i saw in a theater with a bleak, downer, philosophical ending...first time i started to seriously study filmmaking.

Terminator 2 - first movie i can remembering crying in...at the end when John has to say goodbye to the terminator...i was genuinely upset because i was john's age and had been through this insane roller coaster ride of an action masterpiece.

Batman Forever - not the best in the series, but it was the height of my cinema-going as hobby, and i was first in line...crowd ate it up. good fun.

Independence Day - THE event movie of the 90s...i remember driving to the theater hours early to get my ticket for the midnight showing, and buying the re-release to E.T. the William's score and listening to it in my car over and over again until midnight. the crowd was perfect, everyone loved it.

The Matrix - had no idea what this was going to be - going in to a very scattered and bare afternoon showing on opening Friday...it wasn't an event film, just came out of nowhere. i was in a daze walking out...totally mesmerized by what i'd seen. i went the next night to a packed house, as everyone had heard the buzz on Friday. like there was an invisible wire from the screen to everyone's brain...total fucking insanity...i rarely see people so caught up in a movie.

Requiem For A Dream - had just moved to LA...eyeballs fucked. that's a movie that must be experienced in a theater.

I had very few memorable theatrical experiences in the 2000s...i stopped going to the theater as much, mostly because of how poor i was...i saw alot of stuff on dvd.

I saw Part 3 on its original run, and it is still the best 3-D I have seen, outside of the Terminator show at Universal Studios. The opening credits and the objects coming off the screen seemed to literally be just a few feet away!

You say ruined, I say made.

I'll second this. I saw this in high school with some friends in a mostly empty theater on a Sunday afternoon. We went on a whim, knowing virtually nothing about the film. The second Trinity jumped in the air and the camera zoomed around her you could practically hear our brains simultaneously melt.

Speaking of Aliens, I remember seeing the Aliens/The Fly double-feature Fox rolled out around Halloween in 1986 and that audience was ELECTRIC. People jumping up on their seats during the facehugger attack in Aliens, then coming down off the adrenaline rush of the finale of that film to get constantly sucker-punched by The Fly. Awesome night.

We did this double feature as well. It was probably my fifth viewing of 'Aliens' but it was my first viewing of 'the Fly'. I had no real desire to see 'the Fly' at the time but I stuck around for it...holy shit was that fun.

I saw MATRIX with a cadre of movie geeks; we also knew next to nothing. Saw it on the last of the truly huge theater screens in town (long since decommissioned).

During the helicopter rescue sequence - when the bird crashes and explodes against the building, sending coding ripples across the cityscape - I looked over and we all had the same wide-eyed, mouth agape look: "HOLY SHIT!"

Just saw a 10 pm showing of Big Trouble in Little China at the Loft in Tucson. I have the movie on DVD and the film quality wasn't all that great.

One of the best friggin' theater experiences in my life! The theater was packed with fans who didn't hold back on their love of the movie, and were a blast during the trailers. I wish I could take the crowd with me back home. Hands down recommend you take in a feature there if your in Tucson.

Oh shit, really? I was going to go but decided on a viewing of the original Tron with the family. But that's awesome.
Those audiences at the cult classic screenings can be a crapshoot. One night it's the best crowd ever and the next it's insufferable douchebags who laugh at any hint of a film being dated and make me wonder why they even showed up to watch the film. But yeah, when everything clicks, it is so much fun.

The Two Towers at the Embassy Theatre, Wellington, early 2003. I went down for the weekend, remember being absolutely blown away by the great opening scene (one of the best there is) and the phenomenal sound; and then the next day I went to the LOTR exhibit at Te Papa Museum, which had all of Weta's fantastic props like Sauron's armour, Frodo and Gandalf's swords, a model of Barad-dur, Rohan banners, Gimli's axe, a stonking great Elvish spear, rows upon rows of costumes, and a neat little demo of forced perspective filming.

It was great.

Well, Wednesday night I went to the Tampa Theatre in order to watch a TCM presentation of Smokey & The Bandit. It was part of the promotion for TCM's Classic Film Festival. Ten cities across the U.S. showed older films with a star of the film getting interviewed either by Robert Osborne or Ben Mankeweicz for a brief bit before the movie starts. Tampa managed to get the Burt Reynolds classic, but hey, I was fine with it. I ended up standing in line for about 2 hours before people were let in. Tampa Theatre is a huge old place built in the 20's. It's a beautiful ornate building that I hear holds over 1,000 people. As many of the (on the small side) seats were filled... it was a huge line of people for the free screening. Burt got interviewed by Mankeweicz and spoke for a bit and it was odd seeing him in a zip-up sweater, but he IS 75, after all. Unlike his perceived reputation of being an ass, he was on his best behavior here. In fact, at the end there was a bit of dialogue with a father and son and Burt traded his cowboy hat with a straw hat that the young son had. It was a nice moment and all that.

 

As for the movie itself, the crowd wasn't too bad in terms of acting dumb, and it was great hearing hundreds of people laugh along to the many funny moments in a funny film. There were definitely some hardcore fans there. I'm talking about people dressing up as The Bandit and even some ladies wearing wedding veils. LARP'ing!