Worst behaved audience ever

[jethrien]

So, as Chuckro's post notes, we saw Inception over the weekend. Quite enjoyed it, and the long walk home pontificating over implications and possibilities.

My complaint, however, were the people in the theater with us. Holy crap, worst audience I've seen in a really long time.

- There were the guys behind us, who seemed to be keeping up a running commentary. In Spanish. I don't know if one guy didn't speak English and the other guy was explaining it to him - that's what it sounded like. Because why on Earth would you try to do that with a movie like Inception? Poor second guy probably had no clue what was going on. Poor me had to listen to it.
- There was the guy next to us. Who came in and sat down an hour into the movie. What? Again, who does that with a movie like Inception? There's no way he understood what was going on, either. Also, hella disruptive.
- But not as disruptive as the group of pre-teen girls and parents directly in front of us. Who left the theater in bunches of threes or fours at least two or three times each over the course of the movie. And then, they'd all have to stand up to let people on the inside wall get in. Up and down and up and down and up and down.
- Or the girl near the front of the theater, who spent the entire movie texting on a smart phone with a big, bright white screen. Good grief, put the stupid phone away.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Newport mall, amirite?

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I guess we actually went early enough in the film's run that there were people there - usually when we go, there's maybe six people in the theater, so we don't have these problems.

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

The lady and I went to go see the movie on Saturday at a local theater. I never worked in a movie theater so I don't know exactly how it works, but the trailers were clearly out of focus. As in, the subtitles on the left side of the screen were fine and on the right they were fuzzy. After a complaint, they seemed to have reversed, where the right was fine and the left was really out of whack. We got about 5 minutes into the movie before deciding it was just unwatchable and heading out to the lobby for a refund. In theory we got it, but credit card, so I just have to keep an eye out for it I guess.

Apparently the manager was also the projectionist, and assured us that it was fine and not out of focus. I'm all for saying 'it's not so bad, but here's your money back, have a good one' but denial? It was visibly blurry!

So anyway, yes, some times movie theaters and audiences ruin movies. For our part, we went up and watched Up on Netflix instant streaming on my TV through my xbox instead. So uh.. Up was really good.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

We see very few movies overall, at this point. The theater is kind of a pain in the ass. And we often seem to have other things we're more interested in doing at home.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Wait, you hadn't seen Up before?

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

I live almost exactly far enough behind the movie release schedule to see things on instant streaming or readily available netflix DVD.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

I've noticed bad movie audience behavior at theaters everywhere - people on their smartphones, thinking that if they lean a certain way, the people behind them or next to them won't be able to see the OMG SO BRIGHT LIGHT IN THE CORNER OF MY EYE, or texting, or talking, or whatever. I sometimes wish that theaters could create a dead zone or something, but that would interfere with the signals of people outside the theater too, so....oh well. And then, if you ask them to turn it off, they look offended! Sigh...

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Y'know, it occurs to me: My three-year-old smartphone has an easy way to adjust the screen brightness. I normally leave it on "80%" because that's still visible in sunlight but doesn't kill my battery, but if I was sitting in a dark room, it's easily readable on 25% brightness, and doesn't act like a flashlight in that case. Do iPhones lack this feature?

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

They have it. People are just rude.

[cubby-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Or clueless. Never assume malice when stupidity will do.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Thoughtless rudeness is still rude. Even if you don't know that you can dim your iPhone, it's still rude to pull it out in a movie theater.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I agree. Honestly, even if the iPhone is dimmed, you shouldn't be using it in a movie theater. If it's an emergency, step outside. If your attention span is just too short to sit through a movie without other entertainment, take some Ritalin or stop going to the damn movies.

[fairylane.livejournal.com]

It's even worse in (non-movie) theatres, where there are actual people performing and the sound isn't jacked up to bone-rattling. Oh my god are those screens irritating. Especially when it's an iPad. Not the size of an iPhone, no, the size of an entire COMPUTER SCREEN glowing in your face. Not that I had paid to see the show (Hair), but a lot of people had paid quite a bit of money, and really it ruins everyone's experience. And the actors were coming into the audience, too, and that still didn't stop her! I should have hit her with a rolled-up program. I wanted to so, so badly.