Alamo Drafthouse and also politics of talking during the movies thread

I watched The Virgin Suicides at home with friends last night and I said “Jesus Christ” a lot

giggling at Isabella Rossellini incredibly traumatized and nude at a young man's doorstep is a little bit much

I haven't watched TVS for a very long time because I walked into my living room to witness a particularly half-assed suicide attempt going on, with my copy of that movie in the dvd player as a grand dramatic gesture, a lifetime ago

A date disapproved strongly when I cracked up at Hannibal removing the top of Ray Liotta’s head. The relationship did not go far.

that's a hard one because it's completely ridiculous and somehow over the top in staging even for that movie series

I can't rewatch that scene because it makes me incredibly nauseated, probably *because* it's so jarring and a departure. can completely understand laughing at it

on that Lynch tip, the first time I saw Fire Walk With Me was at a revival about 5 years ago. packed theater, part of a revival series that had no genre or tonal theme but always seemed to attract the worst MST3K style college crowd, and it was a disaster. laughing at Cooper running back and forth staring at himself in the security camera monitors is one thing, but cackling at the BOB/Leland scene? Oh my god. I wasn't familiar with Twin Peaks then, but my girlfriend was appalled by the crowd and we almost left. it was insane. luckily I got to see the movie in a theater again last summer as The Return was airing, and while it was a smaller crowd in a bigger theater, everyone was completely reverent, and only then did I understand how terrifying and dark it is.

FWWM was probably the most amusing audience interruption for me because a little old lady came into the IFC theater in NY a couple minutes late, politely asked the person at the end of the aisle if it had just started (it had) and then accidentally tripped over something without injury but went "whoop!" before taking her seat and making no more fuss

and the kid behind me explaining to his friend the plot as he understood it (he was 100%) except for a couple bits, resulting in the question: "should I have watched the series?"

:D

once i got too drunk before a showing of Withnail and got loudly told to shut up by a lady cos i kept reciting all the funny lines :/ it’s Withnail it’s like Python everyone does it dammit

Lynch films might be the only thing I'd forgive an audience for laughing at inappropriately. He treads such a fine tonal line and practically challenges the viewer to not laugh when, say, something absurd yet horrifying is taking place onscreen.

TIL that Trayce is a monster :/

The biggest Rep cinema in London does a lot of quote-along / sing-along / some The Room thing that sounds like he’ll on earth.

lol i deserved that

I saw the Beastie Boys’ mid-00s concert movie and a woman snuck in partway through to ask me and everyone in the audience individually for money. There were only 5 of us though so it didn’t take long.

I don't mind ppl eating during movies, usually it's not much of a noise issue, but if we're gonna go True Cinephile they're also definitley cheating themselves out of a good experience because their attention's gonna be divided. As illustrated by that Michael Jackson gif - popcorn one of the few foods where you keep your attention on the screen and if it drops it's no biggie.

I watched Mulholland Drive in a big tent at a festival and the smell of marihuana was everywhere and the whole crowd was just majorly confused. Then during the sexscene, all of a sudden there was the blink of a camera flash, and everyone started laughing and taking pictures and got really into the second part of the film.

Another good one was going to Wim Wenders Kings of the Road at the Cinemateque, and there were these three old ladies behind me who had a really good talk going before the film, and then when the lights dimmed, and then while the credits rolled, and then one said 'oh, we better be quiet now', and then they were quiet for a beat, and then another went 'wait, I don't remember this being in black and white?' You probably have to have seen Kings of the Road to fully get how hilarious it was for me to sit in front of them and think that they were watching all three hours of this after going to the wrong film. But in the end they seemed pretty appreciative of the experience. Old ladies are by far the most underrated movie audience.

The biggest Rep cinema in London does a lot of quote-along / sing-along / some The Room thing that sounds like he’ll on earth.

― Andrew Farrell, 3. maj 2018 08:37 (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know, I snuck into a Sound of Music sing-along for a bit, and it seemed pretty awesome.

The woman w/ aspergers who got thrown out of a BFI screening of "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" for laughing too loudly at comedic moments was a real bummer tho, fuck the narcs in that case.

― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, May 2, 2018 5:32 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just catching up so apols if this has already been said. I'll have a skim of this thread later.

At the BFI (and this goes right back to NFT days) there is a culture of silent respect given to a film - like this was the only way ever to engage with something coming out of the screen, which then goes into certain ways to act when you are at a cinema - and onto ways of policing behaviour and to exercise control over another person's actions. Certainly a lot of the older crowd come over aggressive if you are eating or using a mobile before a film. There is this weird cranky impatience that has never been challenged because its too low-level - but by not challenging it is enabled - and then it spills over. That's the background to that story. And what happens in a perhaps dying artform.

As someone who has gone to almost every damn cinema in this town I would say its specific to the BFI though.

Daniel otm it’s insane to me to be strict about distractions & pretend a film has your undivided attention when you’re eating a full meal with a knife & fork, using this checkpad system to order more stuff (how much food do these people need over the course of a film btw?) etc. Just seems like the worst of both worlds to me, as an experience. I’m happy to keep these two activities separate as god intended

i don't even like eating at home if i'm trying to watch a movie tbh

"it’s Withnail it’s like Python everyone does it dammit"

no, this is why watching Python with people is painful

The biggest problem with this tendency is that people think they're more entertaining than what's happening on the screen and they're almost always wrong.

https://m.imgur.com/nLSLnYf

i think you can strike the almost there OL

altho whichever ILX thread contains the story about the guy letting off an airhorn when the first kill happened in Rambo still makes me lol

Flix generally encourages people to get there early and I've finished my food by the time the trailers are over 90% of the time

the only thing I've ordered mid-movie is more beer. because beer.

altho whichever ILX thread contains the story about the guy letting off an airhorn when the first kill happened in Rambo still makes me lol

― hepatitis groan (Noodle Vague), Thursday, May 3, 2018 8:54 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh man, I've gotta find this

i'm going to go against my own firmly-held beliefs here and say that it's actually fine to make noise in the cinema if the noise you're making is an airhorn synced to an onscreen murder

you know what would be cool to have? an air horn.

-- s1ocki, Sunday, February 10, 2008 2:57 AM

when i went to see rambo the other day some dude let off an air horn at the first kill. he was promptly escorted out. it was fucking awesome.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 10 February 2008 15:17 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

lol

One of my friends does this thing where he laughs to let you know that he appreciates the non-funny but, y'know, smart choices the film-makers made throughout the movie. It is not enjoyable.

smug knowing chuckles make me want to strangle

Who are all these voluntary laughers

I saw a festival screening of Bela Tarr's The Turin House where someone kept knowingly chuckling at all the grueling aesthetic choices. Others kept murmuring in discomfort until some guy blurted out "you don't have to stay, guys" toward the end.

Uncomfortable laughter is fine. Self-congratulatory laughter is not, which is why I will not see any more Sirk melodramas (or Johnny Guitar) with a NYC theater audience.

There's a guy I've heard in theaters lately -- he was at Rudolph's Breakfast of Champions the other night -- who generally laughs at the right stuff but it's the most annoying HAW HAW sound.

if im in a good mood & it feels appropriate in the air ill loudly WHOOP! whenever a character says the title of the movie. I’ve done this >6 times total so I don’t feel like a punisher.

I am generally totally silent during movies, with two recent exceptions. When I saw A Quiet Place, I did chuckle the 15th or whatever time somebody put their finger to their mouth and made a shush face. And then when I saw Avengers, my daughter and I were killing time outside the theater, and I told her it would be really funny to just walk around pretending to have an animated conversation and giving out out fake spoilers, like about the time one of the heroes turns into a giant spider, so that if anybody heard me they'd go into the movie waiting for someone to turn into a spider and then it would never happen. And then, to our surprise, one of the characters does turn into a spider! I wasn't really paying attention, but she looked at me wide-eyed and said, how did you know, and I started laughing. And I may have yelled Spider!, out of sheer joy, the way Roger Ebert would yell fruit cart! every time somebody crashed into a fruit cart during a chase. And yes, I can tell you with first-hand experience he often really did do that.

9,000 is greater than six

this thread is really great in that it's letting me realize how much i hate going to the theater and since it's a voluntary leisure activity, i don't actually have to ever do it again

But surely they are the only places you can eat food, drink alcohol or check text messages. In the dark.

Daniel otm it’s insane to me to be strict about distractions & pretend a film has your undivided attention when you’re eating a full meal with a knife & fork, using this checkpad system to order more stuff (how much food do these people need over the course of a film btw?) etc. Just seems like the worst of both worlds to me, as an experience. I’m happy to keep these two activities separate as god intended

so you just totally made up an imaginary version of what going to one of these theaters is like or

and yes i need more than one makers on the rocks to sit through something exhausting like infinity wars

I'm cool with filling up a Sprite bottle with vodka and eating popcorn off the floor

But surely they are the only places you can eat food, drink alcohol or check text messages. In the dark.

― President Keyes, Thursday, May 3, 2018 11:39 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a.k.a. life

I've been going there for years and I don't think I've ever had a negative audience experience w/ the repertory fare at the AFI Silver in Silver Spring, MD. No one laughed inappropriately during Women in Love the other day, which I'd think would be a pretty big test.

AFI Silver is one of the things I miss about not living in the DC area anymore.

There's a guy I've heard in theaters lately -- he was at Rudolph's Breakfast of Champions the other night -- who generally laughs at the right stuff but it's the most annoying HAW HAW sound.

― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Thursday, May 3, 2018 12:20 PM (forty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is it this guy?

http://media.chick.com/tractimages67491/1010/1010_13.gif

americans never eat with a knife and fork, c'mon

so you just totally made up an imaginary version of what going to one of these theaters is like or

wins posts ITT, in a nutshell

xp

True, pretty much every Alamo visit for me involves wings, pizza, or a sandwich.

Amber’s insistence that the food at Alamo is bad sends me into paryoxsms of self-doubt

puppy.jpg