Does this happen in every cinema

Right Turn Clyde

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I go to the cinema an average 2-3 times a week, I reckon. Multiple different cinemas around the Dublin area.

I haven't encountered anything like this in the guts of a half decade, I reckon.

So no, it is not in every cinema. As a more than regular cinemagoer, I always find myself scratching my head at these kind of reports, considering the law of averages would surely be stacked against me.

I find that the more commercial a film is, the more likely you are to run into this kind of problem. I don't always come across it, but when I do it's usually in places like Cineworld. Also, some people, like me for instance, have quite a low threshold. I don't mind people munching away at popcorn, but speaking while a film is showing is just unacceptable. Perhaps you have a higher threshold? Finally, if your main cinemas are the IFI, Screen or the Lighthouse then you won't come across this type of thing very often, (although I've had very bad experiences in the IFI). Generally speaking, people who are serious about film bring a different attitude with them.

MrWalsh

Right Turn Clyde wrote: »

I find that the more commercial a film is, the more likely you are to run into this kind of problem.

This is true to a degree but I do think not knowing how to behave in a public place is common across cinema/theatre/concert crowds and there is no one venue that is immune to it.

Irish people tend to be "head down dont get involved" about a lot of behaviour that wouldnt be tolerated in other countries or societies.

johnny_ultimate

I actually have a super low threshold too - someone quietly had their phone out for maybe 90 seconds during 70mm Interstellar the other night and I'd consider that maybe the most annoyed I've been at a cinema goer's behaviour in around six months :pac:

While the Lighthouse and IFI are my main cinemas, have to be perfectly honest and say I've never really encountered issues in IMC Dun Laoghaire, Savoy or Dundrum either - and I'd usually be at those cinemas at 'prime time'. I try to avoid Cineworld when I can, but even then I haven't had any issues there in a long time (although a number of years ago - screenings of Hunger and Hellboy 2, if I recall correctly - I did have bad experiences there).

I have had one exceptionally bad / creepy IFI incident, and one drunken idiot during a late night Die Hard screening in the Lighthouse a few years ago. But other than that I tend to find the vast, vast majority of cinema trips and cinemagoers perfectly reasonable and quiet.

e_e

I think in an odd way home viewing is to blame for this behavior. It creates a really passive environment where you're free to check your phone, wander around, talk and go grab something to eat. Now I'm hardly gonna dictate how people behave in their own home as it's of little concern to me but I think it's gradually infected the cinema experience where the line is being blurred.

LiamNeeson

I only attend the cinema if it is a major film release, every few years, they are horrible environments full of irritants.

Even when I was a young fellow aged 10 I got hit on the head with sweets.

Saipanne

The ideal solution.

By the way, surely someone reading this is a cinema talker. Come on, explain yourself!

TheDoc

Saipanne wrote: »

You get a classier, less... braindead presence at independent cinemas like the Lighthouse, etc.

Commercial cinemas are for people who prefer a pub like environment.

Wow, that's some superb snobbish remarks there

MagicMarker

I tend to not like people, so lately I only go to the cinema if A) The film seems worthy of the expense, There's an early show on a Sunday or C) It's a weekday and I have the day off AND there's an early show.

5rtytry56

I'm not a cinema talker and no, none of these talkers will have the guts. They'll snigger at their tablet/ smartphone screens and make some finger shapes at most. Won' t ye?

Banjaxed82

I have no sympathy for anyone who goes to the cinema on a Saturday/Sunday afternoon and expects a peaceful experience every time.

I go to cineworld 99% of the time and I'd be hard pushed to count on one hand how many times in the last few years I had an issue.

happysunnydays

5rtytry56 wrote: »

I'm not a cinema talker and no, none of these talkers will have the guts. They'll snigger at their tablet/ smartphone screens and make some finger shapes at most. Won' t ye?

Haha! No me, At a JLo. romcom once I just keep punching until my fist burst through the back of a talker's head, I popped two eyeballs like water ballons and the flying teeth got sucked into an air ventilation, big rattles! After the film I walk home with a back seat and pearly white skull attached to my arm. That was a cool fun day out with a little of the ultraviolence thrown in!

e_e

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L3eeC2lJZs

Classic.

Technocentral

MagicMarker wrote: »

I tend to not like people, so lately I only go to the cinema if A) The film seems worthy of the expense, There's an early show on a Sunday or C) It's a weekday and I have the day off AND there's an early show.

What about films with people in them, you like those or just ones with animals and robots etc?

SimonTemplar

This is an issue very close to my heart. Around 2006, I really became a movie fan and I make an effort to see as many new releases as I can. That involved going to the cinema about 200 times a year. Obviously, Cineworld was my cinema of choice because their Unlimited card is a no brainer for that volume of cinema visits, although I occasionally visited the IFI and Lighthouse.

There has been a decline in cinema etiquette standards in the last few years. The problem is compounded by the fact that my tolerance level for cinema distractions and irritants is extremely low. I've tried all the tricks such as avoiding weekend, waiting a week or two for the hype to settle for a big release, strategic seating, trying other cinemas, etc. I'd love to be able to go weekday mornings but I have to work 9-6.

Anyway, it just all got too much: the talking, the phone light, people answering calls, the late arrivals, the kicking of the chairs, the shoe (and in some cases sock) removal, the smells from smuggled in fast food, the rustling of paper and plastic, the loud grazing from people behind me, the awful selfish parents taking infants to 15+ movies and the resulting crying. It all took me right out of the film experience and I just couldn't enjoy my passion anymore. I would actually be nervous walking into a screen apprehensive that yet another movie screening will be ruined for me, especially if it was a movie that I was looking forward to.

For example, when I think of Blue Jasmine, my first thought is not Cate Blanchet's brilliant performance, but of the guy sitting behind me who somehow managed to defy the laws of physics by making more noise with a bag of popcorn that is physically possible.

I think the problem is both a decline of basic manners in general society, and the fact that the cinema is shared by two groups - one group who go casually for a couple of hours of entertainment, but another group for whom cinema is a real passion in life who want to experience films and not just watch them. The conflict between the needs of those two groups is a real issue.

Anyway, I have now abandoned the cinema and I wait to watch everything at home and I love it. It was a tough decision and I do occasionally miss the atmosphere when there is a really great crowd in the screen, but I could never go back to regular cinema visits. It is a shame but it is also great knowing I can just be immersed by a movie without any distractions at all.

I think that I have made my thoughts clear on people who talk in the cinema, take their phone out, make noise or kick the back of the seats on a number of occasions and far as I'm concerned there is a special place in hell reserved for them. But being honest and contrary to some of the obnoxious comments in this thread, I have found that the 9 pm Friday night audience have far more respect than that audience at some silent, 3 hour, black & white Hungarian film. For some reason a lot of people who enjoy less mainstream cinema seem to think acceptable to treat the screen like their living room.

I've not been to the cinema a whole lot lately, a handful of kids films and Gone Girl are about it but the Gone Girl audience made more of a nuisance of themselves than the screen full of kids at Penguins of Madagascar.

Saipanne

TheDoc wrote: »

Wow, that's some superb snobbish remarks there

Im happy with that post, just as some people are content with ruining dozens of people's viewing of a movie.

ThisRegard

Adamantium wrote: »

Its not bad here at all, it's beautiful if anything, in the USA it's endemic, ENDEMIC.
It's mixture of annoyance and bewilderment that you have to laugh at it

Was at a film in California, 15 years ago at this stage, and a sudden commotion began at the front.

Full on screaming match, "How about I get the **** up and kick the **** out of your chair". No messing about with politely asking would you mind stopping. I think they got kicked out pretty much straight away and at the end of the film there were ushers handing us all free passes and apologising.

MrWalsh

ThisRegard wrote: »

Was at a film in California, 15 years ago at this stage, and a sudden commotion began at the front.

Full on screaming match, "How about I get the **** up and kick the **** out of your chair". No messing about with politely asking would you mind stopping. I think they got kicked out pretty much straight away and at the end of the film there were ushers handing us all free passes and apologising.

I had a similar experience in Liffey Valley I think it was. During the pre film trailers a group of kids started shouting profanity during quiet moments.

Cue a guy standing up to admonish them, only to be gloriously illuminated at that precise moment by a bright scene onscreen, showing off fully his muscular stature and tattoos followed by "CUT IT OUT OR ILL CUT YOU OUT!" into the silence. Followed immediately by the resounding thunder of theme music, drowning out the cheers of the other cinema goers.

TheDoc

Saipanne wrote: »

Im happy with that post, just as some people are content with ruining dozens of people's viewing of a movie.

That's fair enough, I just think it's a horribly snobbish comment to make, and resembles the film elitism that can take place not just on this forum, but more frequently now in wider cinema going society.

Where I have someone telling me about the plot pacing issues and dip in act 2's story ark, where the character development looked promising but tailed off, after watching John Wick......

Arghus

I try to go to the cinema as often as possible. If there's a film I'm in anyway interested in I will usually pay up to see it, rather than waiting to catch it later on the small screen. Fellow patrons being obnoxiously loud isn't a major problem, out here in Galway. It's rare enough that I don't even think of it when I decide to go to see a movie, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel that gut clenching mixture of apprehensive anger and worry when noise rears it's head from time to time.

I'm usually in a jovial enough frame of mind when settling in waiting for the film to begin, but once I hear a source of noise that threatens persistence, all sort of emotions come bubbling up. Firstly there's typically the sane and reasonable assumption that the noise will die down before things start. If it continues, the longer it goes on the more irrationally seething I become- wishing someone would stop becomes annoyance at them being there, until eventual utter loathing and hatred can be no longer denied. A swift, quiet, death on a choke of a popcorn kernel caused by an abundance of chatter would seem about just.

All this has yet to occur, thankfully. Most people do shut up once the actual film begins and everyone, myself included, forgets all about the awfulness during the trailers, which threatened a evening ruined by some idiots. I do hate those moments when it all threatens to go a different way, when along with anger I feel this anxious fear that those lame brains will continue to yap and that everyone will sit in silence, until somebody has had enough and will have to take a stand. What if it's me...what if it goes terribly wrong.... I presume this anxiety is wildly held as I have yet to hear anyone actually literally tell someone to shut up in the cinema. At most there might be a terse shhhhh or two. For that reason I'm sceptical of online accounts of people heroically putting the ignorant in their place. It's mainly like the experience I had when I went to see Blue Ruin, when some girl had to loudly repeat everything that had just happened on screen, seconds after it happened. In a tiny screen. Everyone just sat there. A random woman on the way out said to me, a total stranger, that she wished someone had punched her “in the ****ing face” during the running commentary. I had to agree, but thought of the negative effects of keeping anger locked up like that.

cloud493

Swords (in relation to the other people who mentioned it) isn't just the people watching the film being rude, its an incredibly badly run cinema in my opinion. Just so happens to be convenient for me, its 10 minutes up the road.

e_e

Arghus wrote: »

I try to go to the cinema as often as possible. If there's a film I'm in anyway interested in I will usually pay up to see it, rather than waiting to catch it later on the small screen. Fellow patrons being obnoxiously loud isn't a major problem, out here in Galway. It's rare enough that I don't even think of it when I decide to go to see a movie, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel that gut clenching mixture of apprehensive anger and worry when noise rears it's head from time to time.

I'm usually in a jovial enough frame of mind when settling in waiting for the film to begin, but once I hear a source of noise that threatens persistence, all sort of emotions come bubbling up. Firstly there's typically the sane and reasonable assumption that the noise will die down before things start. If it continues, the longer it goes on the more irrationally seething I become- wishing someone would stop becomes annoyance at them being there, until eventual utter loathing and hatred can be no longer denied. A swift, quiet, death on a choke of a popcorn kernel caused by an abundance of chatter would seem about just.

Glad I'm not the only one. It's not normally until about 5 minutes into the film that I really settle.

I do really love that "Okay, grand. Everyone here is cool." feeling of relief.

Saipanne

TheDoc wrote: »

That's fair enough, I just think it's a horribly snobbish comment to make, and resembles the film elitism that can take place not just on this forum, but more frequently now in wider cinema going society.

Where I have someone telling me about the plot pacing issues and dip in act 2's story ark, where the character development looked promising but tailed off, after watching John Wick......

I'm not like that at all. I just wish horrible things on people who act the **** in cinemas. If I could get away with assaulting them, I would. Seriously.

All clear?

TheDoc

Saipanne wrote: »

I'm not like that at all. I just wish horrible things on people who act the **** in cinemas. If I could get away with assaulting them, I would. Seriously.

All clear?

Yeah that's fine.

I just didn't appreciate your swipe at people who attend commercial cinemas are somehow less enthusiastic or interested in cinema.

TheDoc

cloud493 wrote: »

Swords (in relation to the other people who mentioned it) isn't just the people watching the film being rude, its an incredibly badly run cinema in my opinion. Just so happens to be convenient for me, its 10 minutes up the road.

Know plenty of people who have worked in there, I actually got turned off quicker when I started hearing the stories from them. Just appears a cinema that got raised quickly to make fast $$$ with no real intention of longterm planning or maintenance.

MrWalsh

Saipanne wrote: »

I'm not like that at all. I just wish horrible things on people who act the **** in cinemas. If I could get away with assaulting them, I would. Seriously.

All clear?

Jeepers - thats a bit worrying! Id rather they just leave.

Virtanen

Saipanne wrote: »

By the way, surely someone reading this is a cinema talker. Come on, explain yourself!

I'll admit to being with people who have been disruptive. Some of them just talk too much or too loud, I can tell to shut up because I know they will

Others just don't give a **** what they do, so I just sit quietly in my seat and hope that, if they do get kicked out, I don't get kicked out with them. There have been times where I've moved seats away from them to further distance myself from them

ButtersSuki

I'm torn on this one.

On one hand I love going to the cinema but I actually go out of my way to avoid people/the general public at the screenings I go to. Thankfully I'm lucky enough to get invited to press/preview screenings, but I pay to see an awful lot of movies too. My favourite times to watch movies in Dublin City Centre are the earliest possible showings on Saturday or Sunday mornings as these are more often than not almost completely empty - especially if the movie is in anyway a non-mainstream/Hollywood blockbuster type.

On the other hand, I've invested very heavily in a home cinema complete with a very high spec surround sound system, a Philips 21:9 aspect ratio TV and other "accouterments" to enhance the home viewing experience. The OH now refuses to go to the cinema and will only watch stuff at home, given the comfort, lack of teenagers/idiots who can't behave themselves etc. My repeat and first time viewings of films I've missed tend to be done here (always on BR or at least DVD, no streaming - what's the point in investing in the machinery to play a stream?).

Ole Rodrigo

In a way you cant completely blame teenagers - the design of the multiplex is partly responsible. The experience is more like an amusement arcade or fairground fueled with sugary snacks than a cinema. I remember going to the Savoy as a child and immediately you knew it was a place where you are supposed to be quiet. The usher was well dressed with an air of authority. The heavy doors closed slowly and silently.

It seems evolution is at stake :pac:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/oliver-burkeman-column/2015/feb/18/put-your-phone-away-be-quiet-theatre-evolution

podgemonster

I remember previously someone poking their foot (socks on) between the seats and rested it on my right arm rest. I was leaning on the opposite armrest but as soon as I noticed I started lightly stroking the foot.

They put it away very quickly.