Your most uncomfortable times at the cinema. - Page 6

we ate some itallian food for dinner. there was 10 minutes left in the Dark Knight, and I had the worst gas. Theater was full, and I let one go. lasted about 15 seconds, and came out like a jet stream. I could hear people coughing due to the vile smell.

Anytime I sat next to my parents during a sex scene.

Because it was how you were created?

I dunno, I enjoy making light out of things in movies my parents are uptight about, especially my mom. I was home one weekend and my dad was channel surfing and my he stopped at ANIMAL HOUSE. As soon as he stopped on it, my mom groaned, "oh, this is one of those movies with boobs." Sure enough, the first thing that popped up when the channel came on was Fawn Lebowitz's tits in the back of Fred Dorfman's car. My dad and I burst out laughing.

I also enjoyed showing her the Hit Girl red band trailer on Christmas Eve by prefacing it with "Hey Mom! Want to see what the director of Stardust is doing next?". I love my mom.

When I was molested during THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Didn't even send me flowers.

Saw Watchmen with my brothers and a friend of mine when it hit theaters. I was the only one who had read the graphic novel so the ending came as a big surprise to the other three. It went over really well with my brothers, though not so much with my friend.

Cut to us walking out of the theatre. My brothers make the mistake of discussing Rorschach's death within earshot of a Watchmen fanboy. Out of nowhere he just goes into this full blown monologue about how what happened to this character simply had to happen because, and I quote, "there's no room for black and white when the world's made up of shades of gray."

We tried to laugh it off, that uncomfortable kind of "Yeeeeeeeeaaah....", as we made for the escalator to the parking garage. But he wasn't done. He followed us through the theatre, down the escalator, and through the garage so he could give us his thesis on why Watchmen was truly a movie that spoke to our planet's current state of affairs. I was honestly worried he'd try to get in our car with us but luckily he ran into some of his friends before we reached our ride.

I haven't watched the movie since, but every time it gets brought up I can't help but flashback to that night and that creepy dude who just wouldn't shut up.

Saw Trainspotting with my mom at the Age of 12

My then-girlfriend at the time and I watched Unfaithful. She cheated on me about a year prior. A friend of her's was with us, and asked why were so quiet afterwards, and my ex said that it was a sore subject. My ex's friend was confused, and paused for a moment before going "owwwwwwww.....".

I'd never felt so humiliated and small.

Should of just looked at her and said "ask this cheating whore".

Gems from my mom during Kick-Ass!

"Ugh, I'm so glad you always had more sense than that!" -- Kick-Ass is flexin' in the mirror

"Finally, someone who knows how to do this!" -- during Hit Girl's first fight

"Hahaha, she's just a kid!" -- Hit Girl capping those dudes in the lobby NEAR THE END OF THE MOVIE

"Oh yeah, he was gonna save himself for [Hit Girl]!" -- that one geeky friend is shown to still be dateless, reading comics while the other two guys are making out with chicks at the end

Not technically a cinema story but I'm not starting a new thread just for this.

A few years ago I went to the National Comic Awards ceremony with a mate of mine who is a huge comic book nut. Anyway we sit down at a spare table and a bunch of older guys come over and ask if they can sit with us, my mate immediately says yeah and offers to buy everyone drinks. So I’m sat there making conversation and ask everyone who they are and what they do, this one guy laughs and says his name was Des Skinn, naturally I follow this with so what is it you do, after a few minutes silence he tells me he used to run Marvel UK. This was of course as my friend returned with a horrified look on his face.

But it gets better;

Before the awards they started showing the Roger Corman Fantastic Four (which I had never seen) and during the first intermission they asked us if we wanted to see more of it, guess who was the only one to call out "yes" in an enthusiastic voice.

hahahahaha

I went to see The Two Towers late one night long after its opening, and found myself amped for my second round of Helm's Deep when a mother dragged her three itty-bitty kids into the theater. A little taken aback at the idea that anyone would pay eleven bucks and change to see the last 45 minutes or so of any movie, I shrugged until her kids started crying during the moment where the Uruks roar as the camera zooms in on their hideous faces.

Well, that rankled me, but then the mom topped the moment by informing them that she'd give them something to really cry over if they didn't shut up. Something along those lines. She was way more colorful than that. I was just about the only other person in the theater. I felt almost obligated to say something but of course I kept my mouth shut because I was a pussy.

I also had the pleasure of sitting two rows in front of a pretty gnarly teenage couple who insisted on making out during the most intense and graphic scenes of The Hurt Locker. You haven't experienced the body bomb scene if you haven't watched it with an accompanying soundtrack of tongues and saliva colliding with one another with all the subtlety of a NASCAR driver.

Saving Private Ryan opening weekend. Packed house. Sitting behind me and my friends are two older couples. One of the ladies is the type who speaks out loud every thought that runs through her head. She narrates what is plainly obvious to everyone else. I'm sure it's involuntary buy why should I have to listen to that shit? She's spoiling plot points out loud.

Anyway, I'm forced to listen to comments like, "That dead soldier is Ryan's brother." and "There's Germans behind that wall.", etc. I tried several times to ask her to stop and she either ignored me or didn't hear me. So we get to faux Ryan and two seconds before the revel she blurts out "That's not really Private Ryan." I lost it and yelled out loud enough for the whole theater, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I waited a very long tense moment while I simmered and waited to see if I had started something. Dead silence from the row behind me for the rest of the movie. I was finally able to enjoy the movie.

Movie's over and the second the credits start to roll I hear, obnoxiously, "Do we have permission to talk now?" Her husband is in defend-her-honor mode. Without missing a beat I stare at the credits as they roll by (I always stay for the credits) and say, "Of course you can talk NOW. The movie is over."

He's intent on picking a fight. I keep my ass in the seat and slightly turn my head to address him over my shoulder without really looking at him. We go back and forth for a bit and he says, "Stand up." I didn't want to spend the afternoon filling our police reports so I stayed in my seat and said, "Why, so you can hit me? No, I won't do that." When he realized I wasn't going to give him the chance they left. I'm surprised he didn't come down in front of me to yell at me face to face.

I learned several things from that experience:

1.) I have a tendancy to over-react to annoyances.
2.) I am not afraid of confrontation, but...
3.) Not facing the man was smart but it felt cowardly.
4.) I felt I exposed one of my shortcomings in front of friends who I respect.
5.) I am burdened with the role of being the guy who has to "say the unpleasant thing no one else will" because I won't put up with shit like that.

Of all the movies to have a confrontation in, it shouldn't have been Saving Private Ryan, which was supposed to be a vehicle for Americans to share a common cultural experience. What I really learned is some of my fellow Americans are rude assholes (which I already knew). And I'm sure that's the impression they had of me.

Epilogue:

I always figured that man didn't punch me beacuse secretly he hates his wife's yapping as much as I did but he can't tell her to shut the fuck up like I did. Likewise, I envisioned that couple having a fight on the ride home: "You just couldn't shut your mouth again, could you?"

There have been other instances where I've taken the risk and "said the thing no one else will" and gotten thank yous from others who didn't have the guts to say it. Always when the event is over or as the credits are rolling and the danger of confrontation has passed. I label these people The Silent Cowards, but maybe that's too harsh. Why am I stuck with the heavy lifting?

To this day I still don't know if what I did was right. I feel like I failed some kind of test on my character.

You asked her to stop and she didn't. You, um, "clarified" your point and she did. You avoided confrontational violence. All in all, I'd say job well done.

Might not want to do that again. You could get stabbed with a meat thermometer.

Well this was in Texas so I was more concerned with someone carrying a handgun. Texas heat makes people crazy but not meat thermometer crazy:

"Are we allowed to talk now?"

"Yeah, fucker!" <Stabs man in neck with meat thermometer.> "This movie is done!"

I guess generally speaking it's when a theater is not even 1/4 full, and someone comes in and sits damn near right behind me. I get this picture in my head of Leslie Vernon just stabbing me in the head or something.

Sometimes it's best to remember, it's just a movie, and people matter more than movies.

The hell?

I think he means, don't stab people in the neck with meat thermometers.

Not if it's some annoying douche that I'm never going to see again. I'd much rather be a little aggressive towards rude manners (at first by giving the annoying party the evil eye, and then if that doesn't work, by politely telling them to "shut up") than be pissed off throughout a movie due to fucktard's desire to flap their mouths.

I had to watch a movie for a history class, so the girl I'd been messing around with and I go to one of the showings the prof had scheduled in the college library's screening room. A few other people from our class are there, including one guy we're both friends with. He sits on the other side of the girl, and I'm forced to watch them get handsy with each other. This was my first warning that this girl was... on the market, I guess. (In a lot of ways, I walked into it and should have seen it coming, but that's a story for another day)

The movie? Triumph of the Will

Hey man, German propaganda makes all the ladies hot.

Here's one I'll never forget from when I saw The Cell in theaters; it couldn't have been more than 20 or so minutes in (rough estimate; this was ten years ago now), when some lady way down in front of us collapsed to the floor and had a seizure. The movie was stopped, and paramedics quickly arrived to get her out of the theater and presumably to a hospital. After a great deal of commotion, people settle down and the movie was resumed.

But that's not all: another 40/45 minutes in (again, rough estimate) an old guy, also several rows down in front, collapses from a fucking heart attack. I'm not joking. Movie was stopped and paramedics had to be sent in yet again. And again, after an even bigger amount of commotion, the movie was eventually resumed and finished (though I think a lot of people had left by that point). All in all, it must've taken around 3 or 4 hours just to get through one screening of that 90/100 some-odd minute film.

I have two that stand out in my brain like a thorn:

1) sitting with my parents during the "Male Rape" scene in Disclosure.

"You wanna get fucked? Is that what you want???"

2) Sitting BETWEEN my mother and aunt for opening night of The Big Lebowski. I was 13 and trying really hard not to laugh my ass off. I really failed.

My mother never cared what we saw- just that we were in a movie.

The Cell can have that effect on people...

The last 20 minutes of STAR TREK. Had to really take a shit but I was stubborn enough to sit all the way through to the end of the flick. Luckily I didn't shit myself, but fuck it was a pain in the ass and watching that turd of a film wasn't helping.

I went and saw the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo during Christmas with my sister. There was one guy in the audience who must have had something mentally wrong with him, because he could not seem to separate fact and fiction. During the and after the rape scene he would just talk aloud, saying stuff like 'Why would anyone rape someone? That's fucking sick.' Or 'I'd never stand by and let someone get raped.' And then there was more general talking to the screen, like yelling out 'Get her number!' when Lisbeth says goodbye to the girl she had a fling with. I heard a lady behind me politely ask him to be quiet, and he responded with "Sorry, it's a long story," which I thought was pretty funny as I imagined him having some kind of comic-book like origin story that compelled him to talk during movies. So he stops talking after that, but then he starts clapping. Not applause, but just intermediate claps. Luckily this doesn't last very long, as the movie theatre manager came and told him to leave. And he did. and the rest of us where able to enjoy the movie (well, as much as you can 'enjoy' Girl with a Dragon Tattoo').  

When I went to see The Mummy Returns (which I now realize was about ten years ago, good god do I feel old), there was this teenage girl (probably closer to thirteen than eighteen) sitting behind us who became quite obnoxiously loud around the point where the little pygmy mummies start picking off nameless generic henchman in the forest. My dad asked her to be quiet, which, of course, she responded to with insults and further obnoxious talking. When she had come in earlier, before the movie started, she could be heard telling her friends (who were as silent as the grave during the whole movie, strangely) that she'd already seen "this shit". Apparently, once she's seen a movie previously, that removes any sense of decorum she will exhibit upon further viewings, regardless of them being in public.

 

I was quite surprised when we weren't accosted by this girl as we left the theater, and chalked up the lack of such as the result of her not having any support from her friends, or whoever her/their ride home was. We were probably lucky that she wasn't a little older and had a big, aggressive boyfriend with a general policy of "punch first, ask questions later". My dad wouldn't have backed down from a fight, and somebody definitely would've needed to call the cops.

 

Some years ago, we used to have "family movie night" every Friday or Saturday, which was generally good, except for the various times in which we (sometimes) inadvertently selected a film that wasn't exactly appropriate. The ones that stick out most in my mind are the first two American Pie movies, and I don't think I need to explain why it might feel awkward to watch those flicks at the age of around 15 with one's parents and three brothers, who are all at least two years younger. I still can't wrap my head around exactly how that happened. I mean, being exposed to the wondrous rack of a 25 year-old Shannon Elizabeth (who, closing in on 40 now, still looks pretty good) is NOT something that an adolescent male should have to share with his parents and younger brothers. They weren't the first titties I'd ever seen, but god damn it were they among the nicest, and having to work so hard to suppress my resulting boner was uncomfortable to say the least. Especially sitting there knowing that my brothers are in the same room doing the exact same thing.

 

The sequel wasn't any better, despite my being 17 and my brothers being proportionately older, thanks much to the scene where the two hot lesbians tease Stifler, Jim, and Finch. Again, not something to be shared by the whole family.

 

There's plenty more where that came from too, that I'll post when I feel up to it.

Hold on...you were blindsided by the fact that American Pie was a sex comedy (even though I am pretty sure it was marketed exactly like that - wasn't the pie fucking in the trailer)? And then you were shocked to find out that the sequel was, too? That's weird.

My folks took me to see "Rising Sun" in the theater when I was about 13. I'd read the book beforehand, but they hadn't. Not sure if they were prepared to see bush on the big screen with their pervy, mouth-breathing son seated between them. For me, going with them was a necessary evil. No way was I going to get into that movie without them.

 

That's why I added the "sometimes" in parentheses there. American Pie were pretty obviously inappropriate, and yet, my parents held no objections. It was actually my dad's idea that we watch it for family movie night. I suppose he figured it made a difference if I and my brothers were exposed to such things with his supervision. This is the same man who thought it would be a good idea for he and his four sons to watch porn together, as if that would somehow automatically prevent us from becoming deviants or something. Without going into detail, I wouldn't exactly call him successful in that.

 

Most examples I can think of right now of us being truly surprised by a film's content are rather small, like in the original The Fast and the Furious, where Ja Rule feels a girl up and you see two chicks very briefly make out, or in Sin City, with it's small but unanticipated amount of nudity (none of us had read the graphic novels).

 

If there's any movie I'm most thankful never came onto my parents' radar back in the day, it's the first Scary Movie. I practically danced a fucking jig when I first saw that (with friends), realizing just how much of a bullet I'd dodged. Bad as American Pie 1 & 2 may have been, they couldn't remotely touch Anna Faris being vaulted into the ceiling by hundreds of gallons of baby batter.

Ever take a date to see Blue Velvet?

 

 

 

...yeah, don't do that.

Trying to get my mother to take me to any movie when i was younger was a fucking nightmare. She's the type of woman who is brilliant at anything unless you present her with a choice and then she flounders to the point where she just sits herself in front of the tv, act all passive aggressive and says "I don't really want to go anywhere." Then me and my dad throw up our hands, scream fuck it to the heavens and just go do our thing on our own.

 

However when we do bring my mother to a movie, she usually ends up loving it.

 

That said my mom is absolute hell to sit with when watching a movie at home. First to get her to sit down with a movie that isn't a troll 2 quality direct to video romance movie is the first problem. She has this tendency to ask the most stupid and obvious questions in the middle of the movie (ex: so, what's with the cars? Is that a bullet? Is that the same apartment? in regards to DRIVE). Now the thing is, my mom is smart. Creepy smart and is more than capable of figuring shit out on her own. Yet when you put her in the same room as another person, she thinks its okay to shut off even the most basic reasoning skills, and demand other people walk her through something. It's bloody ridiculous.