No sticky theater floors (yuck!)
No distracting talkers or cell-phone users
No trailers or ads
No nauseating stench of stale popcorn grease
No sound system turned up to “11”
Disadvantages:
Only one: I can’t come to the SDMB to talk about the movie, because everyone saw it a year ago! I don’t want to revivify the vintage discussion thread. And it seems lame to start a new one at this point.
I’m either going to have to suck it up and go to movie theaters, or resign myself to never getting to talk about movies I just saw. I love to discuss films, but I don’t typically see big mainstream movies. Dopers are usually the only folk I know who like the films I like - foreign, independent, artsy or quirky.
I just rented and saw The World’s Fastest Indian, which was great, and not a soul here at work ever even heard of the movie. It’s frustrating.
I only go to the theater (by choice) for movies like the Harry Potter series, the LOTR series etc. Big epic style movies that are enhanced by the big screen experience.
I get dragged every now and then to one by my SO, he likes things like the Saw movies so I end up seeing those in the theater too.
Other than that, any movies are seen in the comfort of my living room.
Comfy couch: can lie down if you choose.
Curling up with SO
Wearing comfy clothes, or less of them.
The “Pause” button for bathroom breaks
The “Rewind” button for “what did he say?”
The “Subtitles” button for some British features
Better and cheaper food
The extras, added features, and commentaries, especially for films based on actual people and events, like The Battle of Algiers, Motorcycle Diaries, etc.
[ul]
[li]DVD rentals cost less than the price of a theater admission, including matinees.[/li][li]No overpriced snacks.[/li][li]I can go back and rewatch something I’ve missed or want to see again.[/li][li]I can look up information on IMDB about the movie while watching it.[/li][li]I can turn on the captions in case the dialog is difficult to hear.[/li][li]You get all the DVD extras that you don’t see at the theater.[/li][/ul]
Other DVD advantages:
Not having to pay a babysitter, parking or fight traffic
I can turn it off if I’m bored without feeling guilty for bothering other people by walking out of the theater
I can take or make a phone call in the middle without pissing people (including me) off
I can watch it a zillion times in a row if I want (hello, Moulin Rouge!)
I can watch only those scenes I want to a zillion times in a row (hello, “Elephant Love Song Medley”!)
I, like Antinor01, only go to the theater for big special effects extravaganzas anymore. When WhyBaby’s a little older, Disney/Pixar stuff might get added to that list.
I’ve seen it. In fact I bought the DVD. It’s a wonderful movie. You might consider reading the book One Good Run also, because the movire skipped over some interesting facts.
This movie is an advantage to waiting for the DVD; it only played in one theatre around here, over 20 miles away in a giant mall. I would rather wait for the DVD. Actually, I would rather eat dirt than go to the giant mall.
We have a nice home theater (projector mounted on the ceiling, a 4’x7’ screen and Surround Sound) and over 1500 DVDs, and still we see over 100 movies in the theater ever year (and I miss many I’d like to see). In fact, I’m leaving soon to go see 3, and maybe 4 movies if I can squeeze in a late show. It’s “$5 Tuesday” wheee!
I was misunderstood my husband the other night; he bought this movie, he didn’t rent it. I understand there’s a documentary about (and featuring) the real Burt Munro included on this DVD. I plan on seeing it tonight.
I’ve never thought a ‘big screen’ was anything that special. Somehow it just passes me by. Admittedly, I have a pretty big screen TV, but that was more of a self indulgence really, and not something I crave for the full movie experience. It does allow for more accurate widescreen viewing. But when I’m in the center of a cinema, the screen may be big, but it’s far enough away that it’s actually fairly ordinary in scale.
Anyway, I saw exactly three movies in the cinema last year, and do not regret it. If anything, I could’ve missed one of those and been equally happy, had I known it was as disappointing as it turned out to be.
I really don’t have any qualms when people want to start a thread on a movie that was just released on DVD even though it was in theatres months before hand. Usually they just title them Superman Returns: Revisited and you’ll get a bunch of people that just saw the DVD release that same week.
I used to hate ads too, until I realized that theaters don’t usually make very much money on the movies themselves. The studios take the biggest chunk until a few weeks into the run, and by then a lot of movies are gone. The theaters have to have ads and charge big for consessions to stay in business. I just block out the ads now. I read until the trailers come on. If the lights are too low I have a book lamp that allows me to read. I don’t generally buy snacks (unless I’m at an AMC, I love their nachos) but If I’m seeing a brand new film, I make it a point to buy something, just as a show of support to the theater, because I know they’re not making dick on the showing. Double if it’s a midnight showing of an event film like Harry Potter because theaters probably lose money on those.
People who go “meh” at seeing films in theaters, unless they have kids, are poor, or who live far away from good theaters, just aren’t movie buffs. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m a movie buff. I want to see movies I want to see asap, and have the whole big screen/sound movie experience.
Wrong. No kids, plenty of money, and it takes me fifteen minutes to walk to the nearest cinema. I went once in 2006, because the phone company sent me a free movie ticket as a promotional thing and I had nothing else to do that night. In 2005 I went twice. And trust me, I’m a movie buff. I love the living shit out of the artform. I watch two to four new movies a week.
Going to the movies just isn’t worth it for me. Too many people, too much noise, too much disturbance, not being able to pause or eat what I want or lie down on my couch… my living-room just wins out for so many reasons.
We don’t sit all that close (the first row of the upper seats in stadium seating, if possible, so we can rest our feet on the railing), but it’s a lot bigger than our TV!
Your screen is probably big enough to see it, but on my screen I lose details like the raw edges of the cloaks of the Fellowship in *LOTR *or the detailed fiddly bits in the elephant in Moulin Rouge!. Little (literally) things that work on an almost subconscious level to make a movie’s world seem richer and more “real” than an after school special. Plus, I’m a costuming geek and sewer, so I get off on the texture of fabrics even more than the total look of the costume. Texture’s what you loose on the small screen. Not to mention writing, in many cases. *Memento *was difficult on our TV, because once widescreened, it was hard to read a lot of what he was writing. Still a great movie, though.
Plus, there’s some visual experiences I just want to surround and wash over me, not be framed by a TV casing. The Fountain had these fantastic (cheap) effects which were shot in microscopic miniature and blown up to be cosmic sized. I’m afraid on a TV screen, they’re going to look like rings of moisture damage on a wooden coffee table, but in the theater they were stunning. They were, as is only proper of The Universe, literally bigger than life.
Was I crushed that I stayed home with the baby when my husband and older kid went to see X-Men III? No. But my ass was in the theater for Pan’s Labyrinth, I tell you wot!
Ok then I guess you would be called a movie buff and I would be, I guess, a cinephile, though that word sounds very snooty.
That’s foreign to me.
I understand that, we watch DVDs at home too. I do like the fact that in the theater you’re totally immersed and not distracted. The pause button is just too tempting.
So the difference between a movie buff and a cinephile (which is the word I usually use, I just said “movie buff” because that’s what you said) is that the former watches movies at home and the latter watches movies in the cinema?