Worst Experiences in a Theater - Page 2

some greatest hits of foodstuffs I've seen people bring to the theater

An entire pizza
2-foot hoagie, with plates
Plate of lasagna (home-made, if that makes any difference)
12 pack of Mountain Dew
bag of marshmallows (I wish I could've tracked down this douche to find out what the plan was for the marshmallows)

Unrelated, but one time while I was cleaning a projector and about to thread I saw one of the ushers cleaning the theater not only eat twizzlers he found ON THE FUCKING GROUND - he looked around first to make sure no one was watching him! He then took a sip out of a soda cup he found, and also pocketed some skittles he found beneath a chair as well. He's either a: insane or b: Mr. Fusion.

- randy

fixed.

Another sign of recession. Tips ain´t what they used to be I guess.

You get a large pussy for yourself at the movie theater? WHERE IS THIS THEATER!?!?

In what is in the running for best experience ever was a damn near painful experience. With Jared Melton and Greg Clark for the all day Oscar marathon we were deep into There Will Be Blood. My first time seeing it, and I am seriously engrossed. The moment the "Brother....from another mother" line is uttered the reel BURNS. I thought for a quick second that this was some genius PTA thing, but it was pretty quickly established this was not the case.

I turned to Jared and I am pretty sure I had the absolute worst possible combination of fear, hate, sadness, and confusion painted on my face. They had it up and running again in about 15 minutes or so, but in that 15 minutes I couldn't stop saying "They better have another fucking reel" repeatedly.

Agreed. Next to the noisy folks, the over-eaters at the movies are the worst offenders.

I know it's not necessarily their fault, but last year I was dead set on seeing Children of Men opening weekend here in Columbus. The opening just happened to fall the day after my brother-in-law took me to a strip club for my birthday (side note: Besides drinking and getting tits rubbed in my face, I spent most of the night correcting the stripper's grammer. They don't like that). I still caught the show even though I had the worst hangover I've ever experienced. I cannot understand how the couple in front of me with the three hotdogs, two mini-pizzas, and overly buttered popcorn didn't get their shoulders covered with a vomit shaw.

Babies and young kids in hard R movies, awesome.

Speakers blown out cause the techs don't know that you don't keep the speakers on maximum cause it gives your patrons headaches and now the expensive sound system is blown out and you can't hear the front audio tracks, awesome.

Projector misaligned so usually the top or bottom half of the movie is chopped off and projected on the heads of the neck breaker sets, awesome.

Floor so sticky your shoe comes off and you get your clean socks all gummy, awesome.

Patrons having a loud conversation on the phone in the middle of important dialogue scenes, awesome.

Patrons texting while blinding those around you with your super duper hipster iphoneish phone, awesome.

Patrons eating their movie snacks like it's their last meal EVER and killing the theater experience, awesome.

Lady picking and sucking at a corn caught in her molar throughout the movie, awesome.

Fire alarm pulled right in the middle of THE scene that wrapped the entire movie up into a nice beautiful bow and then not rewinding the reel because it was a false alarm, awesome.

Motherfuckers running in and out 15 times during the movie, awesome.


And I still love going to the movies!

I would have loved to see that...

Anyway I think the worst offenders are not the eating crowd. Rather the mobile users. These things are fucking beamers by now. People apparently can´t stop texting during the movie or even make screenshots with their shitty handy camera.And I encountered people more than once to take a call in the middle of the movie.

For me, it was an old man sucking on his dentures for about a half an hour. Loudly.

I'm going to end up filling the threads with posts.

Children of Men, I was in Toronto at the time. One theater had a sneak preview, ONE showing. Needless to say Toronto is a huge film town. They have their film geeks. The girlfriend and I head down to the theater (name escapes me, the big spaceship looking one out near Maple) to try and get tickets early.

Yeah, and so did the other 3 million people in the GTA. So we stood in the cold and snow, swapping runs for coffee and hot choclate, for a couple hours hoping to get tickets. They ended up adding a second show for it, and we still didn't get tickets.

When it came out wide I was back in Houston already, and wouldn't see the girlfriend for a few months still. We each went and saw Children of Men alone, and talked about it to death then said "but it would have been so much better with you." Crappy experience.

A few years ago when I relocated from one town to the next here in Upstate SC, billylove was up from Atlanta to lend a helping hand. Anyway, we went to a Sunday matinee of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (which I was shocked to find was playing at the local mall theater) and there was this old redneck seated nearby who kept talking out loud to the lady next to him every once in a while. At one point, a donkey appeared onscreen and he said, "That's a jackass" to which one of us replied "You're a jackass, " but that still didn't shut him up.

Other than that, nothing annoys more than people lighting up half of a dark theater by looking at their cell phones throughout the movie. You shouldn't be there if you can't refrain from looking at the time, texting or listening to voice mails!

You forgot about that time we saw Final Destination 2. The lady doing the play by play for most of the movie.

People within earshot of me:

'Is he going to die? Just tell me if he's going to die. He's going to die isn't he? Oh God, don't go in there, you're gonna die! I can't look...tell me if he dies! Oh God, don't open the box, you'll die!'

Remember when laser pointers first became widely available and almost every movie showing had at least one little shit somewhere in the audience pointing theirs at the screen for the entire duration of the film?

I'm really glad that finally died down.

I was once in a theater when a 40 something man threatened to cut off a teens hands if he didn't cut the laser pointer shit out. The crowd ate it up.

It's been replaced by glaring texting view screens.

Also, being a tech junkie, I see a new trend soon, pico projectors.

The World Is Not Enough (1999)- A middle-aged guy sat in front of me and proceeded to act out the entire movie. He sang the James Bond theme and when a shoot-out came up he would make a little gun with his fingers and just start going "Bang! Bang!" while pointing it at everyone around him.

Gone In 60 Seconds (2000) Horrible movie but the same guy I encountered above showed up this time too. This time it was him driving an imaginary steering wheel and going "Vroom! Vroom!" while shifting his imaginary stick shift (at least I hope it was imaginary). I was annoyed at the time but looking back he's the thing I remember the most about the movie.

Bad Boys 2 (2003) The lone black teenager in a theater full of white people decided to represent the stereotype and yell at the screen the entire time. Every time someone died, and this being Bad Boys 2 then it was every 7 seconds, this a-hole would yell out "OH SHIT!". When Will Smith's Ferrari came on screen he yelled "That car is tight! He should pimp that shit out!" And then when the thespian Martin Lawrence read the line "I had an epiphany" the a-hole yelled out "What the fuck's an 'epiphany'?" It also didn't help that his white friend joined in half the time and forgot he was white.

Cast Away (2000) An old couple decided to explain the movie to each other. "He's trying to open that to get water because he's thirsty." "He lost his ball friend. He's sad." "His tooth hurts."

People suck

Fair enough. Although, I'm not seeing the cel phone/texting view screen problem all the often where I go. I must be lucking out, or something.

I'll take 2, one in large for myself and one in small for my wife. Let me know when you want my credit card number.

I actually think that is awesome. If I would have watched one of those abortions in cinema this guy would have been the highlight.
Any chance one can rent him for Speed Racer? Because that could be the greatest thing since February.

The widow Lincoln wins this thread.

What is it with parents thinking that because they are out in public with their kids, they get a time-out from parenting and it's someone else's turn to deal with it. I'll admit that I haven't had many memorable experiences with this problem at the movies but I worked in a video store for three years and it seemed like almost every day, there were parents who would just tune their kids out and expect me to deal with it. This wasn't like some big store either where the kids can run around and dissapear from Mommy or Daddy so they can get into mischef. We're talking a small local store here.

The parents would just go in and read the video covers while their kids ran around, knocking over stuff, banging into shelves, and sometimes playing catch with the inventory. One time, I had the "friend" in the duo of obnxious 5th grade girls walk past the counter and perform her own stand-up routine while I rang up the movies. After a moment or two, the "daughter" looked over at the Mom and said, "Isn't she hilarious?". The mother seemed to encourage it, which lead to the daughter asking me if I thought it was funny. I just looked at her, said nothing, and kept ringing. "Fuck you, little girl and your stupid friend".

Sorry to switch this into a "Worst Experiences At Work" but since I worked at a video store, I feel it's acceptable.

Have you ever gone to the movies with a new friend you've only known for a short while, and they turn out to be that guy? The one who thinks a movie is a spectator's sport? That fuckwit you always want to level with your eyes?

I dunno. I'd argue the Chicago's Iroquois Theater was pretty fucked, as well.

http://www.inficad.com/~ksup/iroquois.html

Sort of. I had a friend invite one of his buddies to the movies with us. Me and my other friend generally make it a point (when theater attendance allows) to leave a seat between us for both comfort and to cut down any confusion over beverage holders, etc. Apparently to this guy, this behavior was odd. He sits next to my friend. Not such a big deal. My other friend sits next to me. This might not have looked like we were two gay couples if someone had bothered to sit in the middle seat seperating us. This kid wouldn't stop talking to my friend through the whole movie. He also, while not gay, was extremely flamboyant in a way that apparently was the norm in Greece but kind of freaked out my buddy a bit.

Anytime I saw a film in Oakland, CA.

I grew up there...I know what you mean.

I remember seeing Batman '89 at the Grand Lake Theater next to Lake Merritt. Opening day; there was a kid there with his dad who'd already seen an earlier show and proceeded to tell everyone what was about to happen before it happened. Horrifying.

A moment of silence for our ruined movie experiences.

I invited this girl I was interesting in banging to see Disturbia, and we'd been friends for a while, so I thought it'd be cool...

JESUS CHRIST. Not only did she talk TO the characters in the movie the entire time, and comment about everything happening, she did it WAY out loud. I was trying to hide under the seat, hoping no one would yell at us. I eventually started nudging her and plain telling her "hey, keep it down a bit, we're gonna get yelled at".

Needless to say I'm no longer interested in tapping that. She invited me to the movies a second time after that, but I declined citing... ohh, citing WHATEVER. Anything to not go.

The second time I went to see The Descent in the theater with my girlfriend there were two people sitting to her immediate right that kept playing with their new cell phones during the whole movie. They were reading directions, picking out ring-tones, etc. During periods of silence all you could hear was "oh snap check this shit out" BEEP BEEPLITY BLEEP BLEEP. Then they left with a half hour of movie to go.

I already told my stories in an older similar thread, but I have one recent-ish one that pissed me off and slightly amused me at the same time...

Cloverfield, an almost empty theater. Two-thirds through the film, this little old lady walks into the movie and sits down like 5 seats away on my row. About ten minutes go by and she yells over to me.

"What is that thing?!"

I reply with, "Some sort of giant beast."

She doesn't say a thing, and then proceeds walk back out of the theater five minutes later.

Amen, brother. I feel your pain.

Ain´t that the worst kind of dates one can think of? Beside girls calling you her dogs name during sex maybe. But it boosted my creativity into stratosphere to make up lies not to go to cinema with her.

The gay buffer seat? I'm sorry but that's hilarious. I give my friends shit for trying to do this.

I was just shooting from the hip. Feel free to refine and make some money off of it.

In high school we were taken to a performance of Macbeth, and some dickhead from another school was shining a laser pointer in the eyes of the child who portrayed "Fleance". Horrible behaviour, yet also twistedly funny!

Hahahah.

"Out, damn'd spot", indeed.

I went to see The Two Towers with my father here on the south side of Indianapolis...good AMC theather brand new at the time with stadium seating. My dad and I are sitting oh, about middle of the theater, pretty high up. In comes this huge guy, ok im going to call him FUCKING FAT..he sits in about the 3rd row...after some time there was this smell....the smell was BO, the stench from this man fucking attacked us from that distance! Thankfully it was winter so I had my coat over my nose but the smell..of god the smell..other people in the theather moved up to where we were. Some how we stuck it out and left ASAP..till that day I can't describe the smell..

The woman and I went to see Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm at the Aero in Santa Monica. An internet columnist I won't mention by name, we'll call him Beffrey Nells, came in with a woman and couple young kids. They brought in three large shopping bags, the kind you get at a clothing store, full of tupperware containers. What was inside was a cross between a Thanksgiving dinner and an epic picnic. They proceeded to eat several smelly courses and snacks during the movie.

Thanks a lot, Beffrey. At least the kids didn't talk.

These threads always read like 'One time I went to the movies with black people!'

That's a good idea for a thread.

The Two Towers. I arrive with my Mom, we get good seats in the back row, to the extreme right, but good enough. We set throught the previews, no problem. Then, just as the movie starts, this whole family comes in, pushing Grandpa in a wheel chair. They manage to wedge Gramps in the back, then stand around planning their next move. I guess they thought everyone would surrender their seats in the back so the whole fam could set together. Nothing doing. I don't remember exactly where they ended up, but I didn't actually see the first five minutes until the DVD.

The only times I had film problems were Star Trek: TMP (I was just a little tike) and LXG (It was for the best)

I went to see Grindhouse last year- there were probably 12 people in the theater. Among them was this FAT who fell asleep and started snoring around the 3rd act of Planet Terror- He kept it up until Death Proof. I moved my seat and forgot about him.

But around the end of the car chase he just started smoking a cigarette in the middle of the theater. There was a HUGE cloud of smoke and he split before the end- but he sat there a good 15 minutes smoking. Looking back, it was pretty badass.

I'm pretty sure I don't know who that is.


You should totally blog about it.

It looks like fat people are catching up. This thread has quite a few complaints about breathing and eating.

I think one of the friend stereotypes we're forgetting about is the friend who dislikes everything. I invited a friend to see The Mist, which I wasn't all that crazy about in the end. Not only was she twenty minutes late, but she also talked through the entire movie, whispering (loudly) a bunch of, "Oh, my god, this is so bad. That was stupid", etc etc. I kept pretending to agree with her while also shushing her, but I imagine it was annoying for anyone else in the theater. For the next few weeks, she'd continue to talk about "The Mist", which I thought was only okayish, and keep saying, "Remember when we went to see 'The Mist'? Wasn't that really bad?"

I have to say food in a theatre is getting out of control. One of my best experiences was going to see all the Lord of the Rings in one showing. They commissioned prints of the first two in extended editions and were premiering Return of the King after. I had to go to Vancouver to see it at some megaplex. The problem was that the lobby had (if I recall correctly) a mini Burger King, mini Tacobell, and maybe a mini KFC. So before the movies started, everyone brought in a meal, then almost 4 hrs later people brought in a second meal, then another 4 hrs later more food. By the time Return of the King started I was getting overwhelmed with the stink of Burger King and B.O. (I'm sure some of the dirty and heavy costumes many people were wearing didn't help). Totally worth it but it was getting tough to handle.

I brought my roomate with me to Lost in Translation forgetting that she was a talker. I also forgot she had been to Japan, she was kind enough to remind me by shouting and pointing at the screen yelling "I've been there". I almost smacked her the first time and she still did it twice more.

I was on a first date with this girl from my office back when I was a financial planner. We went to see Something's gotta give. Well this jackass starts talking right behind us, I give him the head turn (both half and then full) he keeps gabbing, I ask him politely to be quiet and he stops talking for a couple of minutes. Then he starts up again, so I stand up and turn around ( I'm 6'4 and ...husky, so that usually intimidates people) and loudly say "would you shut up". He replies "fuck you buddy" I realize then that he might be a client of mine (it's dark, I can't see that well) . Startled both by his reply and the fact he may be a client I sit back down. I'm so pissed I have no idea what goes on for the rest of the movie, apparently I didn't miss anything. I never found out if he was my client. There was no second date either.

Yeah, but thankfully Devin has already seen the films we're watching MONTHS before us, so we don't need to worry about him sitting next to us or the 'things' living in his bloatee...