It Doesn't Matter Where You Sit...

Anderton Prime

Anderton Prime

2,760
Okay, I was reading a post in another thread and it gave me the idea that maybe we should talk about one of the biggest social maladies that afflicts us today. If you've ever sat in a movie theatre, chances are you know what I'm talking about. Let me paint the picture for you:

You and a few friends have been waiting months to see a particular movie. On opening night you all pile into the car and head over to the nearest multiplex. You're early of course, and it's a good thing because you get in line a few spaces from the front of the line. And who cares if you have to wait 45 minutes? At least you'll get a good seat, right? So, when the line is finally let in, it's friggin' huge, which makes you even happier that you got there so early. You and your friends speed-walk into the theatre and up the steps to your favourite row (or the nearest one that's empty) and jet right to the middle. Now you've got it: the best seat in the house, or so you think. Because in a matter of minutes you see trouble walking up the stairs. It's one of the following:

A gang of sub-moron punks
A woman with a newborn baby
A dad with about 60,000 kids
A group of yappy film-school geeks
Someone with the stinkiest, most grotesque food you can order at the movies
A young couple who can't keep their hands off each other

And then they start moving up to YOUR row, all the while eyeing the spot directly behind or in front of you. Your brain screams NO, DON'T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT SITTING NEAR ME!! But do they hear your brain? Of course not. And if they are REAR-OFFENDERS (the crying baby, the little kids, the sub-moronic chair-kicking punks, the yappy film school geeks) they invariably sit behind you, and if they're FRONT-OFFENDERS (the smelly food eaters, the dry-humping couple) they sit in front of you.

So there you are, in the seat it took you 45 minutes to guarantee, with someone kicking the back of your chair, talking and laughing out loud to each other throughout the movie, the stench of cheese-and-salsa-laden nacho chips wafting up to your nostrils, and the sound of a shrieking baby crawling up your spine, and you wonder why someone doesn't drop a bomb on the whole world.

Has this ever happened to you? Please share.
 
Actually, no. What happens to me is that I order my tickets online so I never have to wait there... BUT. It seems that no matter how early I think I'm getting to the theatre, and even though I jet past the lines and pick up my will-call tickets, when I walk in to the theatre all the sweet spot seats are already taken.
 
The Weekend of September 28th, 1998. Three of my friends and I go to see Ronin. We get some good seats and the movie is going fine. Until....

A couple brings an INFANT into an action movie! Did I miss something? This thing has gunfights, car chases, explosions and then the action starts....Why on God's green earth would you bring an INFANT to a movie like that.

Long story short. The baby cried throughout the whole movie. We kept telling them to take there baby out of the theatre. The guy kept saying stuff like "It's a baby, they're supposed to cry" Finally the mother took the baby out with like 10 mins left in the movie. After the movie ends, they Father comes back to our row and looks like he's getting ready to throw down. He takes one look at us, looses his attitude and keeps walking. My friends are some BIG guys that would've owned him for free.

So we talk to the manager about it and he gives us free passes to come back for any movie antime we want! So, while Ronin was ruined, my next movie was twice as nice since it was free!:)
 
It happens every time. You can't avoid it - simply unavoidable.

Unless .... you don't see movies on opening weekend. Wait until the middle of the following week and you'll surely have a theator that's nearly half empty and spaces around everyone so no one has to put up with anyone. Or something to that order.

Now then, I've waited until the final week of several movies' showings and had a rather humorous but irritating evening of it as well. My girlfriend and I walked into an empty theator that seats 480 people about five minutes before the house-lights go down. Decided on the perfect seats. Sat and began discussing whether or not we would be joined. The house-lights went down, the previews (commercials) began to run, and another couple came in to our humongous theator and sat directly behind us. I **** you not. Directly behind us. I was stunned. 478 seats to choose from and they took the ones directly behind each of us. Eh, that's ok, just don't touch my sea* WHY THE **** DID YOU JUST KICK MY SEAT! Shut your damn mouth! Stop chomping on that stanky popcorn! If you slurp that outrageously large drink one more time ... screw it, we're moving. So we hopped up and moved a couple rows forward.

I couldn't believe it. They honestly sat directly behind us. I wanted to turn around and punch them both square in the face.
 
I've got one.

There aren't many movies I will see at the theater anymore. My home theater is at the point now where I perfer to wait for the DVD unless its a really hot movie. The only other time is when the wife and I need to "escape" parenthood for a couple of hours and we take in something on Sunday night.

At the theater, I've been pretty lucky; no problems except for one or two occasions. The one that comes to mind is when I went to see "Signs" with my wife.

A couple brings an infant. As soon as they sit down, this kid is just wailing at the top of his little lungs. No one can hear a word the actors are saying (if you've seen "Signs", you'll recall the voices are very subdued). Very soon, a rumble of discontent ripples through the audience.

Finally, the dad takes the kid outside. A minute later, he comes back with the quiet infant. As soon as he sits down ----ANY parent will be familiar with this-- the little tyke begins to ball. Mel Gibson is completely drowned out.

This time, we hear angry voices murmer. Once again, the dad takes the howling baby out. He stops at the door to gesture wildly for the mother to follow. Junior is still wailing. Enough is enough, we finally hear people say "get him out of here" and "SHHHHHhhhhhh!!!"

After what seems like an eternity, the mother angrily sulks out the door. We've now missed the first 8 minutes of the film.

You think this is over? Nope. Momma COMES BACK INTO THE THEATER WITH THE BABY. She stops at the top of the stairs and shouts out at the entire audience: "**** ALL YOU ***** ********!!" I kid you not.

This immediately draws the vocal ire of half the audience, which of course prompts the other half of the audience to say "SSSHHHHHHHHHHhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

This shining example of good citizenry and no doubt a glorious role model for her child to follow then takes her screaming kid back up into the audience and sits back down. I presume dad is too ashamed at the sheer stupidity of his wife/girlfriend/cousin/sister to even show his face again.

Before you know it, the theater has turned into a boxing match. There is lots of shouting. People are standing up. In fact, a crowd springs up from there the mother and kid are and the unmistakable sounds of a physical altercation is heard.

That was the last I saw of it, because I took my wife's hand and we left the theater at a very brisk pace. On their way in were several ushers, the manager and a security guard.

To make a long story short, we get comped some tickets to the next showing. When we return a few hours later, no less than FIVE policemen were milling about the theater.

The movie wasn't even all that good.


M
 
Wow dude, I was just sitting here think about the theator rage and how it's become much like road rage. I wonder what is going to happen next.
 
Theatre Rage, much like Road Rage, is a symptom not a cause.

If someone is willing to get physical over a movie. Then they have much deeper issues then a baby crying. Know what I mean?
 
First, for neon duke, I am never really pissed off about waiting in line; for me that's actually part of the fun of opening night. What I'm pissed off about is the inevitability of sitting near an ignorant, rude, social reject every time I go. Hell, I went to see Gangs of New York three weeks after it opened, at 10:30 at night, and sitting two seats to my left was a child not more than two years old, climbing over the seats and yapping. My attention was divided between watching the film and watching the kid's mother keep reeling him back in and plopping him down on the seat beside her and telling him to be quiet.

Loudmusic, I go to see plenty of movies on nights other than opening weekend. True, there are some spaces, but for some reason people like to huddle together. With 500+ seats in the theatre, people will ALWAYS head for the seats in front and behind me. In fact, I can't remember the last time I sat with no one behind me. The only way to escape this is to sit in the absolute back row, but that sucks for its own set of reasons.

I wouldn't call it "Theatre Rage" and I don't think it's got anything to do with road rage. I'm not getting angry and following someone home so I can shoot them for not shutting up during the film. In fact, about all you can do is give the half turn and roll of the eyes. And that rarely works.

My point is that it is INEVITABLE. There is nothing to be done. There is no denying logic, no escaping reason.
 
Anderton
I wouldn't call it "Theatre Rage" and I don't think it's got anything to do with road rage. I'm not getting angry and following someone home so I can shoot them for not shutting up during the film. In fact, about all you can do is give the half turn and roll of the eyes. And that rarely works.

My point is that it is INEVITABLE. There is nothing to be done. There is no denying logic, no escaping reason.
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Uh, I never said you had theatre rage. I was pointing more towards M-Specs experience. People do that kind of stuff on a semi regular basis. It's really strange. and I don't understand it. Don't take infants to action movies! I just can't get it.

I can see Shrek, Incredibles, Sharktale or any other animated film or film geared toward children(Star Wars: Episode I & II :yuck: ) But what's up with bringing little kids to rated R flicks? That's just mean to the child and to the other people in the theatre.

I've always equated it to the same thing as drivers in a parking lot: when they're driving, they see the people walking across and can't believe how they would just walk out in front of a car. They complain and whine while they park. Then they get out of the car, becoming the WALKER, and proceed to do exactly the same stupid thing. Just to have someone else get angry about it.

In conclusion :dopey: Nobody likes it when babies cry in movie theatres! So why bring YOURS so they will cry and annoy everyone else.
 
Swift
In conclusion :dopey: Nobody likes it when babies cry in movie theatres! So why bring YOURS so they will cry and annoy everyone else.
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The real loser in that story wasn't my wife or myself. It wasn't the audience members whose time was wasted. It wasn't even the parents who had to spend their afternoon with the police instead of enjoying a movie. It was the baby, who through sheer bad luck got saddled with a selfish, hateful, raging idiot for a mother. Some people simply have no business procreating.


M
 
///M-Spec
The real loser in that story wasn't my wife or myself. It wasn't the audience members whose time was wasted. It wasn't even the parents who had to spend their afternoon with the police instead of enjoying a movie. It was the baby, who through sheer bad luck got saddled with a selfish, hateful, raging idiot for a mother. Some people simply have no business procreating.


M
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I can see Shrek, Incredibles, Sharktale or any other animated film or film geared toward children(Star Wars: Episode I & II ) But what's up with bringing little kids to rated R flicks? That's just mean to the child and to the other people in the theatre.
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Exactly. All the flashing and banging. Simply can't be good for the child's senses.

I just can't believe people would be so negligent and try to bring a baby to a movie.

Anyhow...is that was this thread was about? :dopey:
 
Lol @ Theatre Rage ! If anyone has seen " How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days " ( Shutup, I saw it with the wife ) there is a classic example therein
 
LoudMusic
I want to be part of a huge theator brawl. That sounds like so much fun (:
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Me too, but I'd probably go to jail for ripping too many teenage hearts from their chests. But I'd like to smash one of those full nacho trays into the face of someone. And maybe take a bag of Nibs that someone's been rustling the entire movie, dump out the remaining Nibs, then slip it over their head and slowly suffocate them.

But of course these are all fantasies I'd never act upon, because I know it makes me look like I have Theatre Rage...
 
The few times I've ever been to the theater (Probably less than 5 times) I've never had any problems. When I went to see LoTR:RoTK, I sat in the very front row where the seats recline because you are so close. The one movie before that (actually, every other movie I've ever been to) I sat in the very middle.
 
Its happened to me before, bunch of 12 year olds kicking my seat repeatdly, so I told them to stop or get their asses kicked...They didn't stop, so I just lossed it and threw my slushie at their heads...That was good, slushie all over them. That shut them up. Also I had a bunch of little kids well maybe another bunch of immature 12 year olds, who wouldn't shut up, or stop yelling.....So my friends and I were pretty p!ssed off, so at the end of the movie we decided to barrage them with coke, and make it look like we accidently spilled our drinks all over them. I guess that my way of dealing with things in the movie theatre, proper etiquette or you get covered in nice cold slushies or pop.:sly:
 
i can deal with the punk kids and the minks (couples).

the punks i'll usually just get up and be like: WHO WANTS THEIR FACES DENTED! etc etc etc.

i remember telling this one douche and his girl: You know, the theater has bathrooms too.

the ironic part though....is that it'd be nice to go to the movies with my friends, and when i do, we crack jokes and stuff on certain movies...however, we never disturb other people.

and the second part of the irony is that i wish i had a girl at the movies. hahaha.
 
Ringing phones are probably my biggest gripe. A child you can hope will remain quiet, but a phone you can make quiet. I've wanted so badly to go take a phone from someone's hand and throw it across the theator.
 
Movie theaters end up ticking me off because of all of this. I only go to movies that I either just can’t wait to see or that I don’t want the end ruined for me. Everything else I wait for video (which works out because I have a nice TV).

The noisy eaters and talkative/laughing people get on my nerves too much to warrant the $5,000 dollars or whatever it is they’re charging for matinees these days.

... I'm going to start a parallel thread in the music forum.
 
What really grates my carrot is people who come in 5 minutes after the movies has begun. I mean, it is that hard to get into the queue for your cokes and 'corn 15 mins earlier?

Then to make matters worse, they dont enter stealthily, instead they come in talking and joking and inevitably have to cross an entire row of seat, in the middle of the audience to reach theirs.

It just makes you want to :mad:
 
Yeah and it's always a party of like 6 people who come in after the house lights go down, and of course they all want to find 6 seats together. So they stand there, distracting everyone, pointing and whispering. Then they start to ascend the steps, looking for seats. I've had people ask me to physically get up and move from my seat to accomodate them. Excuse me? I came early to get this seat. You came late, so you get whatever's left. Now piss off.

I used to work in a theatre and they used to make us go in and shift people around to fill every seat in a sold out show. This is the only time it's acceptable. Usually I have my jacket on the seat beside me, but if it's really busy I never do this because it's just plain rude. And people's need for this "buffer seat" between them and strangers is stupid too. If the show's sold out, you're going to have to sit right beside someone you don't know. Get over it.

Hopefully as the number of people who go to movies decline (which is also due in part to the fact that movie ticket prices seem to have the remarkable ability to increase beyond reason and with no consideration of inflation; the price of a movie ticket should never be more than what an unskilled worker earns in an hour of labour), the theatre companies will get wise and start tossing more people out, banning babies, and punishing seat kicking by physical disfigurement.
 
I read almost this entire thread and your missing the most important thing that P@#$# me off. The person and his friend that dont know what personal hygiene are. THAT pi@#$ me off. The kids too.
Im sorta guilty of the "couple that cant keep their hands off of each other." I used to do that all the time when I was in high school but now ive grown up and realize it can wait till after the show.
The top of my list would be the little kids running around and crying
Second would be ones that dont know about personal hygiene. :yuck:
 
I'll assume you're talking about people who smell? Well, let me tell you a story...

When The Phantom Menace came out, me and my friend lined up for four hours to buy tickets. We didn't get into the very first show (12:01 AM) but we did get tickets for the 12:30 show. But my friend and I also bought a second set for the next day at noon, because we thought it was going to be really good and we'd want to see it twice (boy, weren't we surprised when it turned out to be worse than either of us could have imagined). So, stuck with two extra tickets for a noon showing we didn't really need to see, we went anyway, since the lightsaber battle at the end was pretty good. Well, sitting directly in front of us was this fat guy who had an obvious sweating problem. He had one napkin that he kept using to wipe the sweat from the back of his neck. It was so saturated with human perspiration by 30 minutes into the film it was doing more bad than good every time he re-used it. It made me want to gag.

Another time, we were seeing The Mummy, and this guy beside me kept laughing and his breath was at the level of some people's rectums, smell-wise. Again, I couldn't concentrate on the movie.

These examples, coupled with MOVIE THEATRE FARTERS, who fart silently and let the cloud slowly rise through the auditorium, poisoning those in rows above, are enough to keep any sane person from going to see any movie on the big screen...
 
Saw the Incredibles with a family behind me who wouldn't stop talking during the start and laughed at damn near everything remotely resembling a joke. Mind you, this wasn't normal laughter, this was the kind of laughter reserved for jokes that make you piss your pants. Still had a good time, though.
 
Slick6
You remember the opening theater day of a movie that came out 6 years ago? :odd:
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Back me up on this, guys. A bad movie-going experience is permanently etched in the memory.

As for laughing, at least The Incredibles is funny. When I went to see The Grudge, I sat in a theatre filled with hormone-ridden young teenagers who laughed at every jump scare because their idiot brains were too uderdeveloped to deal with fear in a mature way. Plus, in many theatres nowadays, the acoustics are designed so that people sitting way at the top/back sound like they're right behind you. It's disappointing when you turn around to punch their lights out but there's no one in the seats behind you after all...

Also, once someone spit chewed-up nachos and cheese on me from somewhere above me. It was one of the most emotionally damaging experiences of my life.
 

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