The big screen experience is doomed.

MattinSTL

MattinSTL

Sound Modulator
When I was a kid we had one TV... it was 27" and I thought we were the rich family on our street. There were 5 channels, each of which came on with a concentrated "clunk" by turning the dial. Sure, there were a few shows I loved back then... Night Stalker being my all time favorite. Still not much choice and only a handful of good options anyway. Movies were under $2 and everybody was glued to the screen appreciating the experience.

Cut to today. Pretty much anybody can have a 50" or larger TV that beats the hell out of anything from even 10 years ago... (actually only 5 years ago)... because 10 years ago a 32" square TV was $1K or more. Now you can buy a 60" screen for that... and on that screen you can see anything you want... in the comfort of your own home... and it's not going to cost you $10+ per viewing of that movie (let alone everything else you watch on a TV... i.e. the movies are more or less "free" once you own the TV).

I just got home from Argo. Congratulations Ben... I'm happy for you. It was good... but the old people behind me didn't have the self-awareness to STFU during the movie. I finally turned around to tell them to quiet down... and to my surprise it was an old couple that looked like it could have been my parents. I stared at them for a second... and they quieted down briefly... but within a few minutes resumed their own clueless, selfish experience of the movie. Earlier this year I bought a pre-paid 10-pack of AMC tickets... I have one ticket left. I'm going to see Skyfall on Sunday because I have a gig tomorrow. After that? It's going to take a new Star Wars or another Bond movie (something 4 stars and universally praised) to get me back in a $10 per seat theater.

Praise to places like the Draft House theater in Austin... I would have been thrilled if somebody came up and told the folks behind me that they had to leave.

Bottom line is... we all have iPhones... Facebook... etc. and we live in a world of instant selfish gratification... and anywhere you go... people are buried into their own life experience... which is great, except when you're in a shared experience environment. If you can't sit there and appreciate the shared experience for what it is... jeez... stay home! At the beginning of the movie they always have the little disclaimers about being quite, etc... then they show a bunch of attractive young people being consumed by the show as they quietly enjoy a Coke... but the reality is... it doesn't matter the age, ethnicity, gender... as soon as the movie starts all you hear is BAGS (why not ONLY have cups/buckets for popcorn?) rustling as people have to maximize THEIR OWN experience of this movie... even if it means talking to the person next to them... or eating... drinking... hell... even texting to talk to the person that isn't even there!

Seeing movies at the theater? Until somebody figures out how to truly convince a whole audience to respect the shared experience... I'd way rather watch a movie on a pretty darn good (and big) screen... in the comfort of my own home... without strangers ruining the experience for me.

Has anybody else noticed the 80" TVs coming down in price? I think once we can all have 80-100" 4K TVs in our living rooms... well... Hollywood better realize that there will be zero point in the big screen experience by then.

Just last week I was working with a cam op and we were talking about how Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull) used to tell his audience to STFU and listen to the music... was he really that far off base?
 
MattinSTL said:
When I was a kid we had one TV... it was 27" and I thought we were the rich family on our street. There were 5 channels, each of which came on with a concentrated "clunk" by turning the dial. Sure, there were a few shows I loved back then... Night Stalker being my all time favorite. Still not much choice and only a handful of good options anyway. Movies were under $2 and everybody was glued to the screen appreciating the experience.
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You must have lived in a big city to have 5 TV channels... when I was a kid... there were only 3 TV channels with in 100 miles... and we could only get one, ABC, because the station, XETV (note the X...) was in Mexico... About 5 miles further out... and there was zero TV reception... I think those people read stories to each other from books...

The problem that I have is I only see 'TV' in hotels while traveling, and it seems that the zillion channels are filled with stuff I have little interest in... well... there frequently are the 'pay' channels... but I'm cheap...

I do have a large disk library however... filled with 'junk' frequently enough... but its junk of my own choosing...


Just last week I was working with a cam op and we were talking about how Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull) used to tell his audience to STFU and listen to the music... was he really that far off base?
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Personally I think anyone who could hear others at a Jethro Tull (or any other rock concert of the era) wasn't doing it right... I stopped going to concerts when they started having section and later assigned seating... for $5 bux I expect to be able to walk up to the front and stick my head in a speaker...

Fortunately, discontinuing going to concerts probably saved my hearing...

But on the STFU issue in theaters... I'm pretty 'mellow' when it comes to that sort of thing. I can usually take a lot of extraneous noises, activities... however, I must say that for most presentations, the theaters have been very 'empty', unless we go on the opening midnight showing of some major tentpole movie of the season...


Here's a poster from the last rock concert I attended... Oct. 18, 1970... it was the last time I saw Debbie Mallet but I digress...
(Oh, yeah... note the price... $2.50 for students... $3.50 at the gate...).

Pink-Floyd-Poster-723203.jpg
 
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Yeah I have a 106 inch screen, 7.1 surround system and two rows of comfortable seats. I only go to the theater for big event films, and half the time I'm thinking the focus is off, the blacks are washed out, the seats suck, etc...That said, there is still a magic that happens when the entire audience is enjoying the hell out of a film that can't be replicated at home.
 
it seems a ton of people from different parts of the internet in the US have reported a lot senior citizen's sightings in theaters lately, most of the time they are not paying that much attention to movies, watching movies at midnight and filling screenings, or going to a tent pole movie they would not really enjoy. do senior citizens get some kind of deal, maybe homes or establishments offer theater tickets or special deals on tickets?
 
I understand what you're saying, and you make very good points, but I choose to reject it, admittedly on mostly emotional grounds. I firmly believe that if the theater dies, so too will the quality of films. Without the cultural significance, epic feeling, and shared experience of a movie theater, movies will lose a lot of their magic. Movie theaters are one of the few communal areas left in our world, and I think we need to fight very hard to keep them alive. The modern life experience is too disconnected already.
 
I think that despite the money saved in the long run by having a great home theater, there will still be nothing like being able to go out and see a show for $10 that cost a hundred million to put on.

Plus, not everyone has the room in their homes for a large TV like that. I have a small apartment and a 26" screen. Any bigger would be too big.

I agree with what you're saying about people disrespecting others' experience though.
 
For me, going to the cinema still has the advantage over the home ( just ), as there are so many distractions at home. I rarely get to watch a film from start to finish without some interruption. But I don't often have that special experience anymore.

One thing I feel that the industry and theatres could do, is put the feature back into feature film. Make more of an experience for people than just being herded in, charged a fortune for dubious sound and soggy popcorn and then herded out. How about a few little supporting films and then an intermission before the feature, when they could sell over priced snacks? Surely this could be good exposure for new talent and also maybe make the cinema a bit more unique than home viewing a film.

People talking in the cinema has always sucked.
 
Cinema is alive and well where I live. Clean comfortable theatres with 4K and top end surround sound knocks the spots off the cinema experience from when I was a kid. The issue I have is the majority of movies they select to show are aimed at brain dead teens. I'm hoping digital distribution will allow for a more diverse playlist in the near future.

I don't understand why people want huge screens in their own home. Do they really want to watch Fox news on an 8ft screen? Anyway, my wife tells me size doesn't matter.
 
Previous to Argo... the last two movies I saw (at this same theater, which quality-wise, is excellent and USED to be a place where you could count on upscale clientele... "Chesterfield AMC 14"... in the expensive part of town)... each had teens talking and texting behind me... both times I turned around and said something that would be out of taste here, but akin to "If you're going to talk through the whole movie we're going to have a problem"... This worked REALLY well in both cases... and I planned to do it last night until I saw these old folks that looked like somebody's regular, clean-cut parents. Fortunately for the viewing public, my own parents would never go to a movie, but if they did... that would be them... totally clueless and not self-aware. So I just turned around and tried to shrug it off. I don't give anyone near or under my age that same respect in that situation.

Do the right thing. Tell people who are ruining a movie to STFU.

To paraphrase Spock... Why are we letting the carelessness of the few ruin the experience of the many?
 
One of the many reasons I carry a 200 lumen surefire flashlight.

You want to jabber on your phone after the 3rd time I've told you to STFU?

Enjoy the next 20 minutes of seeing nothing but spots.
 
I am a frequent Alamo Drafthouse attendee and I love that I live in their area. I always have a good experience, but like has been expressed here, I'm still hard pressed to go see anything but a big budget "blow you out of your seats extravaganza". I don't have an overly large TV, but I have Blu-ray, and a great surround sound setup, and it suits me just fine for a lot of films.
 
mcgeedigital said:
One of the many reasons I carry a 200 lumen surefire flashlight.

You want to jabber on your phone after the 3rd time I've told you to STFU?

Enjoy the next 20 minutes of seeing nothing but spots.
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Hehehe - good clean fun.

Gotta get me one of those.
 
I have to disagree with the author, I don't think the cinema experience is going anywhere.
 
Went to see a matinee of Bond a few days ago. There weren't many people there, but every other little group of people was talking during the movie.

I actually said out loud "if you want to talk like you're watching this at home, watch it at home."

It did shut them up. Someone with a Scottish accent said "sorry."

One of the things that's disappeared is public shaming, or at least dealing with that kind of discourtesy. If there's no cost to boorish behavior, it won't go away.
 
David Jimerson said:
One of the things that's disappeared is public shaming, or at least dealing with that kind of discourtesy. If there's no cost to boorish behavior, it won't go away.
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Very true.
Years ago when my wife and I had just started dating we went to go see 'Scream 2' in the theater (or was it Scream 3, I can't remember, doesn't matter).

As the movie started, the group of teenagers behind us continued to talk amongst themselves. She looked at me for a moment, and it was clear she was annoyed by the talking, and I immediately thought "I guess I need to say something. She's looking at me like she wants me to take care of this problem. Hm, how should I deal with this?"

While I was having my own internal dialogue for about 2 seconds, she stood up, turned around and leaned over the seat so that she was about a foot away from this group of kids and said, in a very calm voice, "Are you planning on talking during the entire movie? I just want to know now so we can get this out of the way.
Because if you're planning on talking you should probably just go home."

That was the day I realized my wife could easily take care of herself, and that you shouldn't mince words with people who are ruining an experience for everyone.


(and no, the kids didn't say another word during the movie)
 
On the flip side you have the couple who sat next to me at 'The Village' years ago... who, when I asked the woman very politely to please stop talking, turned to me and said in all sincerity,
"If you didn't want to be around people maybe you shouldn't have gone out tonight."

(of course 'The Village' was ruined for reasons beyond anyone other than M. Night Shyamalan's control... but still.)

Shaming only works if people have some level of shame to begin with.
 
Easily the worst experience ever was in a theater, but not a typical movie theater, was last year. The Johnson Space Center in Houston is now primarily a space-themed Chuck-E-Cheese, but they had a very nice theatrical presentation of the Houston Symphony's performance of Holst's The Planets set to real images of their musical counterparts. It was a fantastic presentation and I greatly enjoyed it for the most part. However, the audience was a bunch of troglodyte mouth-breathers. The girl running the theater came up and told people exactly what they were about to see, and no one left, but as soon as it started almost everyone there (except for me and my girlfriend) got bored and started talking...loudly. I shushed people constantly and then there was such a movement of people leaving...it was terrible.

I have never hated the general human populace more in my life than at that moment.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
On the flip side you have the couple who sat next to me at 'The Village' years ago... who, when I asked the woman very politely to please stop talking, turned to me and said in all sincerity,
"If you didn't want to be around people maybe you shouldn't have gone out tonight."
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While I think there is something to the idea that being able to do everything at home that you used to go out for -- shopping, etc., even yes, going to movies -- has made people less tolerant of other people than they used to be, I also worry that this lady's attitude is becoming the norm. Perhaps people aren't quiet in theaters because it's becoming less and less the actual etiquette. (Also perhaps, fueled by the people who stay home because they want the quiet experience, and only the "noisy" types go out.)
 
+1 on the JSC experience. When I moved back to Houston in the 70's, you could walk through at your own pace, examine the space capsules, it was great. Now, just another package where everyone rushes to get their headsets own to find out what they are about to see. I experienced this at the Monet exhibition in New Orleans, back in the 90's. They had headsets, many bad photographs of Giverny, lots of hype, and at last, a few Monet wall-size paintings. The crap could not drown out Monet. I felt the earth move beneath me when viewing his forest paintings.
 
Just came home from Skyfall - actually only half of the movie cause I got thrown out of the cinema by the staff.

There was this group of wannabe gangsta kids that talked loud, making loud phone calls(!), kicking with their feet at the seats in front of them andwhatnot - the whole nine yards.
When they started throwing popcorn at us, I blew a fuse, took the kids soft drink and popcorn away and emptied both over his head. (actually got some applause in the audience for that).
Then two security guys came and throw me out.

Oh well... the projection was a blurry soft crap anyway.
 
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