Not films per se, but the movie theatre simulcasts of Live at the Met, including it’s replays, include intermissions which provide a needed stretch, and also make the event much more social, for you get to chat with folks about the show.
I very much enjoy long movies that I can settle into, but it would be nice to have intermissions every hour and a half or so, for sometimes being stuck in the chair for so long with the wall of light and sound coming at me, I wonder if the management thinks I am Alex DeLarge.
This thread is so old (how old is it?) that there have been more than a few threads about the disappearance of intermissions from American movie theaters over the last 25 years (however, it’s late and I’m too tired to seach for them).
FTR, the last movie I went to that had an intermission was Gandhi which was released in 1982. Gettysburg had an intermission but that was back in 1993. Aside from The Hateful Eight, I can’t think of any film released in the US since then that had an intermission even though there have been more than a few that ran three hours or more.
The obvious answer is that intermissions increase the running time, which reduces the number of times a movie can be shown, which is assumed to reduce attendance, which reduces income. Given the user name of the OP, that should be something he favors.
They didn’t use to clear people out between showing, plus there were cartoons, serials, etc. You could go in in the middle, sit through everything, say, “This is where I came in at,” and leave.
When I saw one of the Lord of the Rings movies in the on-campus discount theater, they put in an intermission. But I think that that might have been because their equipment wasn’t capable of loading up the entire movie at once, and they had to change platters.
The Last Emperor (1987) definitely had an intermission. I remember watching that at a poorly attended showing in Ottumwa, Iowa, and the intermission kind of surprised me.
When I saw Titanic, it had an intermission. No, wait, I had to make my own intermission by leaving my seat to go take a pee. Must have been all that water onscreen. That and the large Pepsi I drank.
I’m the OP just checking in; of course I forgot I started the thread. It’s an honor to have an old thread revived.
As far as the
I joined in 2000 and had just started reading Atlas Shrugged and loved the first line “Who is John Galt?” Hell if I knew then, and I still don’t really know who he is- I just couldn’t make it through his speech. The name has nothing to do with my world view…
Now, if that speech was ever included in a movie version of Atlas Shrugged, you certainly have my permission to take an intermission - a LONG intermission. You won’t miss anything.
The Hateful 8 has already been mentioned, the Road Show screenings had a long, luxurious intermission. I wish more movies did, it was wonderful to be able to dash to the bathroom and not have to whisper “what did I miss?” when I came back.
I understand that it increases run time, but theaters would make more money from me if they had intermissions. A lot of times I skip the soda because I don’t want to take that bathroom break, I’d buy it more often if knew relief was only an hour away!
I’ve seen several Bollywood/Indian movies in theaters. Most of them have a place for an intermission, and sometimes they will actually do a 10 minute break or so, and sometimes the theater will just ignore it and keep going. It’s probably the theater’s choice.
Hmmm . . . go to a theatre, miss parts of a movie so I can pee; repeatedly get disturbed by other people squeezing in front of me to get out of the row so they can pee, and then repeatedly get disrupted by people squeezing in front of me to get back across the row to their seats after the have peed; pay a lot for refreshments that are no longer at the proper temperature (cold pop, hot popcorn) when I want to munch on them in the middle of a show.
Or just watch at home.
And the theatre operators wonder why so many people have dumped them for home theatre.
