Movie Etiquette

I had my first encounter with a "My ass, she is planted." I was at a sold-out showing of Avengers. A movie theater employee went around asking everyone to move together, so there were seats together instead of one seat between each group already seated.

This one guy sneered and went "If someone wants this seat, they can come have it." Three different people told him how rude he was, and the movie theater employee gave free passes to the ones that did move (and announced that she was doing so where the jerk could hear it). He later got up and went to get snacks, but clearly moving one seat over was a huge imposition.

There was an infant at my midnight showing of The Avengers. Had to be taken out three times. What is that? Who's that *stupid*, let alone that inconsiderate?

I saw The Avengers at midnight at Studio Movie Grill. Around 11:50 one of the managers came in and said that the bar and kitchen would be closing at 12:30, so if people wanted to order food or drinks they should do it then. Five minutes into the trailer this guy walks up to the aisle ahead of me with a beer in hand, and he yells out, "Shawn!" and waves at his friend who is presumably at the end of the aisle. Everyone shushed him, and he scampered off.

Almost an hour later, that same guy was standing at the end of the aisle yelling for his friend AGAIN, right in the middle of a good part. So rude.

laddical wrote:There was an infant at my midnight showing of The Avengers. Had to be taken out three times. What is that? Who's that *stupid*, let alone that inconsiderate?

"Honey, I want to see the movie at midnight!"
"Well, so do I!"
"We can't BOTH do it. Someone has to stay home with the baby!"
"Like hell! Baby comes too!"

Oh, I get the logic as far as that goes. But the notion, "Hey, the baby will just sleep through the MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS AND STROBING LIGHTS" is where I lose it.

I had a bit of an issue at my showing of The Avengers as well. There was a little girl sitting behind me, and while she was basically well behaved, there were moments where she was confused, so her mom had to explain things to her a bit. The first half was hard for her to follow, but once all the action started, I didn't hear a peep. I hate to complain, but a part of me was thinking her parents should have waited until the movie came out on DVD.

There were quite a few kids in my showing of The Avengers and I could hear several of them talking during quiet parts of the film, which mostly wasn't that big of a deal. A kid exclaimed "Wow, that was SO COOL!" when Captain America used his shield to break up the Iron Man/Thor brawl, but then ruined the moment by continuing to talk loudly afterward. And a small kid said "Whoa, what eating?" during the post-credit scene and it made everyone laugh.

My bigger issue was with the couple sitting next to me, who talked in a normal tone of voice during the louder scenes of the movie and I could hear them clearly since they were so close to me. The woman kept cooing "Oooh!" every time someone made a cool move during a fight scene and she kept loudly asking her boyfriend/husband/mate questions about The Hulk when he first hulked out. Maybe you could wait and read up on him after the movie is over?

When we went to see The Avengers, two young lads both yelled "YESS!!" when Tony Stark

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It was the sort of thing that even though I couldn't see them because they were a few rows behind us, I just know that they fist pumped from the way they said it.

We had a tiny little Thor at our showing, mask and all. Adorable.

We ended up having to wait for a slightly later showing, so we were sitting in the theater for about 45 minutes before the movie started, which was fine because we had good aisle seats. I put my purse on the floor to eat popcorn and had the thought after a while that I should probably pick my expensive new purse off of the dirty theater floor. LITERALLY 60 seconds later, the lady behind us dropped her aproximately 150 ounces of soda on the ground. It was like a bomb went off. Suddenly there's a torrent of carbonated beverage washing over our feet and spraying between the seats. I didn't notice until afterward that my sweater was soaked, because I was wearing it over my back brace. I was SUPER pissed (and sticky). It could have been an accident, but the lady and her daughter booked it out of the theater without even a "sorry" as they fled.

Dear parents of the five month old sitting a few rows behind us,

You hear the loud screech constantly coming from your baby?

So do we.

The woman kept cooing "Oooh!" every time someone made a cool move during a fight scene and she kept loudly asking her boyfriend/husband/mate questions about The Hulk when he first hulked out.

Years ago when I went to see Iron Man, a woman and her boyfriend sat in front of us. At the scene over halfway through the movie, when Tony has to break open the box with his original arc reactor, with "proof that Tony Stark has a heart, from Pepper" written in huge letters on it, the woman loudly asks "Who's Pepper?" Both a dumb question, and ruining a pivotal moment in the movie. My sister turned to me after the movie was over and said that that guy needed to dump that woman immediately. There's only one important female character in Iron Man, and they say her name a million times! Maybe she was asleep most of the movie? There was a woman like that at my showing of Spider-Man 2, as I recall. As a female comic book movie fan trying to enjoy these movies, I have to say, if you don't want to go with your boyfriend to a comic book movie, then just don't go! Or see the rom com playing next door.

I had my first drive-in experience this weekend and if you have one near you, it's a really cool experience and one that I hope lasts for a while longer. However, there was an etiquette issue that I wasn't sure about, mostly to do with cars running.

During the first show Rock of Ages, one patron left his car running the entire time, presumably so he and his family could hear the sound from the movie through their speakers. Now since the rear of the car was facing toward the screen, we didn't get exhaust, but about every ten or fifteen minutes, the fan on his car would kick in, very loudly, to cool the engine off. I'm sure he couldn't hear it because he and his family were on the other side of the car, but it was really annoying many of us.

It just seemed like one of those things you'd think about, but he also might not know that cars have fans...

Why would you need your engine running to hear through the car radio speakers? Oh and the drive in is the best, I thought Grindhouse missed a huge opportunity in doing a special drive in release when it came out a few years ago. And one of my favorite Drive In experiences was seeing Contact with the speakers jacked up all the way at the end, so it felt like the car was

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I have a nearby drive-in and it's the only place I see movies in the summer. It's much more comfortable than a regular theater. Plus if people are talking quietly or texting it's much less noticeable. But people running their cars or leaving their lights on are big pet peeves of mine. Also, people who drive like maniacs. There are a lot of people (and small kids) who don't want to get hit just because you didn't want to get stuck in end of movie traffic.

I just saw Now You See Me and right after the big reveal

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No shit, Sherlock.

Went to a matinee and despite there only being a whopping 10 people in the theater, crappy etiquette abounded.

A little group of 4 people sat down much closer than they needed to be considering all the open seats in the theater and then proceeded to talk at full volume anytime they had something to say.

They also didn't really get when the movie actually started and so spent the first 5 minutes of the actual movie going "Is this the movie, did it start?" "Um, I think so, I think this might be it" etc. Gah!

Then at the end of the movie, a woman decided that she wanted to watch the full credits AFTER she moved into the aisle so she stood there staring at the screen oblivious to the people standing behind her on the steps.

So I went to the cinema today. I sat down, all was well. However, after a minute or two I realised my trousers were damp. Part of the seat was wet! Obviously I moved straight away. I choose to believe that someone spilled a freshly opened bottle of water on the chair, as I'd rather not contemplate any other scenario. It's all downhill from there.

I suggest checking your seat before sitting down.

I went to see Frozen, which was much more crowded than I had expected (full theater). I was totally okay with the kids, since it is a family movie, and the four year old in the seat right next to me was actually really well behaved.

What made me come here is that I totally saw a "tiny moist hands" situation in the making. The family next to me had a toddler, maybe a year and a half old. She kept leaning over and between seats. Luckily nobody was in those two seats in front of where she was playing around, but I kept looking over to make sure that if she got far enough to either side to "tiny moist hands" someone, I could warn the mother. Also to make sure she didn't run into my foot - I ended up crossing my leg the other way after it almost happened twice. I think the mother thought she was annoying me and finally took her outside. Really I was just worried for the potential cleolindas in the row in front of us.

Oh man, all I had to read was "tiny moist hands" and I started giggling.

I always hear it in a telling horror stories around the campfire voice.

My husband and I went to a matinee for Edge of Tomorrow at the cheap theatre yesterday. Our experience was:

• Despite the movie starting at 1:15, the theatre employees didn't open the doors until 1:00.
  
• The theatre was pitch-black when we entered. No lights whatsoever. (They came on later - about two minutes before the show started.)
  
• No sound with the previews until they'd been playing for several minutes.
  
• Ten minutes after the show started, three people entered the theatre and started yelling and giggling at the top of their lungs. "START THE MOVIE OVER! HEEE HEE HEE!"
  
• One of those three seemed to find everything funny (I suspect drugs or booze or both, because I heard a "pop-fsssssh" of a can being opened). At one point a minor character called Tom Cruise a "coward", and I thought this girl was going to bust a gut, she was laughing so hard.
  
• After several minutes of that, another older lady and myself yelled "WILL YOU KIDS KEEP QUIET?" They did so for a very short time, then started up again.
  
• It was at that point that I went outside to get an usher. THEN they finally shut up (mostly).
  

If you cannot remain off of your phone for 2 hours, perhaps movies in the theater are not for you.

Shalamar, as someone who was a cinema manager in a past life all's I can say is, you put up with a lot more than I'd be prepared to. As soon as I'd have seen those lights not on, I'd have been about to staff asap, never mind sitting there without sound or having people talking through the film.

We saw Guardians of the Galaxy yesterday, which is not my thing at all, but my husband wanted to go, and I like Chris Pratt, so whatever. There were SO MANY little (like 4-6) year old kids in the theater. I realize it was our bad for going to an 11:30 am show, but the movie is PG-13. I figured we'd be surrounded by pre-teens, not really little kids. The kid at the end of our aisle lost interest about 10 minutes in and kept dancing around and yelling about getting ice cream, and the little girl in front of us (who was maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe 4) spent two hours going, "where's Groot? Where did he go?" every single time he wasn't on screen. And then when they

Spoiler:

Lesson learned, but still - PG13 + 2 hour runtime does not scream take your 4 year old to me, you know?

Now get the hell off my lawn *fistshake*

You'd be surprised what people consider appropriate for their kids to watch. When I worked in the cinema, the ratings for films were U, PG, 12's, 15's, and 18's. The 12's rating was the worst because so many films got that rating, especially Titanic and it seemed like every ten year old girl in the county wanted to see it so we had to ID them and then we got aggro from parents but we had to enforce the ratings because the manager was very insistent and although she was 'nice', she was a briar when roused and she was on top of things like you wouldn't believe.

Anyway, my point is the amount of times we had parents trying to bring small children into 12's and 15's films because their argument was "I am their parent and I decide what they can see" and we were like, those films have those ratings for a reason and more to the point, your kid is going to be bored stiff in there!

(My deep rooted intolerance for customers, even if I'm just in line with them, can be traced back to working in the cinema).

It's different now that they've changed them to 12 accompanied and the ratings board has taken the line that the rating is a guideline, not a censorship, but they expect parents to be informed about what they're bringing their kids to. But some people are really stupid about these things. It's why there are certain screenings I won't go to because I don't want to experience what you described, mokey, especially if I'm after handing over my cash for the privilege. If I want to see kids bouncing around at films, I'll just go hang out with my friends and their children and turn on Netflix, you know?