well, to nitpick your nitpick :), those formerly communist countries called themselves socialist. The Scandinavian countries I would call social democratic countries, much like my own. But I, too, could’ve phrased that better, so sorry from me as well.
One more thing about movie going - which is what this thread is about, after all - one thing that I don’t like about movies (or TV) in most countries in Europe is that they dub movies into their own language. Not in Holland, thankfully, but pretty much every other place that I know off.
Although I haven’t seen popcorn and plastic knife fights, I’m usually pretty apalled by the behavior of people at the movies. But, I’ve found that earlier shows usually attract fewer cretins than later ones. The 5:00 showing of WALL-E was quite nice. And, I’ve found that I can usually enjoy subtitled foreign moves at the local art house in peace. But the time I went to a Bourne movie at 9:00 on opening weekend, I was ready to imitate Bourne’s anger-management techniques by the time I left. Shut up!
What I dislike most about the movie-going experience at the mondoplex, though, is the ever-growing amount of time spent on ads and trailers. The movie is supposed to start at 5:00, but I sit there until 5:20 watching freakin’ ads and trailers. So, my options are: 1) get there by the published start time and get pissed off because I just paid $9 to watch advertising; 2) get there 20 minutes late and try to find a seat in the dark; 3) Netflix. Hmmm…
ETA: Getting back on topic, do theaters in Europe inflict that many ads and trailers on their audiences after the published start time?
I’d say 10-15 minutes of ads and trailers. Which works out fine if you’re going to a movie that’s been showing for a few weeks. Since then you can show up that late.
Not so fine if you’re going to a premiere of a Blockbuster…
And regarding interruptions. They do that here in Iceland, but not in Sweden.
Huh? I don’t think I’ve ever been to a cinema in Germany that didn’t sell beer. I can’t think of a reason why a normal cinema would do that. (In some cities they have special children’s cinemas, there selling beer might not be worth it.)
Twenty minutes is long but not certainly not unheard of. From other posts on this board I got the impression that in the US ads in cinemas are a relatively recent phenomenon. Here it has been perfectly normal for decades.
No intermissions in the UK either except for one time when I was watching a film in Cornwall, but that was about 13 years ago.
I’ve walked out of two films in my life and will happily do so again if I’m not enjoying the film (that said I’ve turned off far more films I’m watching on DVD if I’m not enjoying them, so I’d guess that I’m less willing to walk out of cinemas).
I’ve been to at least two cinemas here in Atlanta that serve beer. The one down the street here in Midtown and another that looks new that servers restaurant style food on bar like tables setup for the seats.
I rarely see films in the cinema anymore, at least not until a certain film has been out for so long that I can see it with virtually no one else around me.
And it’s not the kids that bug me; it’s the other adults–the ones with their big jingling key rings, text messaging/blue light crap, and general yammering.
Europe was doing the pre-trailer advertisements long before they became ubiquitous in the U.S. (in fact, that’s where U.S. chains got the idea).
Reservation seating is also something I’d run into in the UK sometimes–picking an exact seat assignment when you buy your ticket (something the new Sundance theater chain is adapting here as well). One thing I liked was that some UK theaters would post not only the times when the adverts/trailers began, but also when the feature would begin, so you knew when to show up if you wanted to skip that stuff beforehand (and because you had an assigned seat, you weren’t left with only bad seats to choose from).
My husband and I go to a LOT of movies (over 150 in the theater last year) and I can count on the one hand the times that I’ve had problems, and that’s from ALL my moviegoing, my ENTIRE LIFE. I’m not kidding either. Some people are just lucky and others are trouble-magnets, that’s what it seems like. Really though, I think the “lucky” ones aren’t so much lucky as serious about movie-going and know when and where, and how, to go to the movies.
Regarding differences, we saw a movie during one of our trips to London (Ghost, which we had no interest in seeing, but our hosts picked the movie, and we were too polite to exclaim “Are you KIDDING ME?”), and it was fine, though we were shocked at the assigned seating. We would absolutely despise that here. We were surprised at how expensive it was and that they served beer too. That was at a huge, old theater in central London (Piccadilly Square? I forget).
During another London trip we went to a movie of our choosing, (The Line, The Cross and The Curve), but that was out in some 'burb, the only place it was playing, so we had to take a convoluted series of buses to get there. We had fun and it was worth the trip, though that theater was indistinguishible from a suburban megaplex here, except it cost more.
Well, a premiere is something more of a social event than an ordinary showing. Clapping at the end might happen on the assumption that people connected to the movie may be present.
I’ll concur with the answers that say that the vast majority of US movies have quiet non-disruptive audiences. Action movies that skew young may produce an audience with more rowdy adolescents.
It’s a relatively common stereotype of unsophisticated horror-movie audiences that depicts them as screaming in fear, or shouting advice to the characters. When I saw this thread title, I imagined French intellectuals shouting at a movie screen: “Zut! Ne vont pas là-dedans. Elle a un couteau!”
In the Los Angeles area at least, they’ve been around for decades, although in a more limited sense. It used to be common to see ONE ad before a movie, and it was usually for the LA Times (newspaper).
Previews of coming attractions have been part of the movie-going experience since our grand-daddies day (true, they used to come after the feature, hence the name “trailers,” but that was a long time ago), and I kind of look forward to seeing them, at least to a point. After the third one they sort of blend together.
What I hate are the ads for television shows. If I wanted to watch crappy sitcoms and reality TV, I would have stayed home and kept my $11. These are usually packaged together into some sort of pseudo-entertainment program. One version is called “The 20”, as in 20 minutes of this garbage. I have noticed, though, at least at one local googleplex, that if you arrive at the published show time you will catch the beginning of the trailers but miss all the other preliminaries. Of course you take a chance on not being able to get a good seat.
When I was in France I was told the standard practice was to advertise the actual start time of the feature itself. This compelled ad agencies to make their ads appealing enough that people would actually come early to see them. But that was many years ago and things have probably changed.
Back to the OP, there is no single standard of cinema behavior in the United States. My experience has led me to expect lots of laughing and shouting and cell-phone usage right up to the start of the feature, but quiet decorum after that. On the other hand, there is one theater I stopped going to altogether because audiences there never seemed to shut up.
I’ve found that my moviegoing experiences are a lot different in New York than they were when I lived in Michigan.
Trying to go see a movie in my small-ish hometown was always a gamble, because audiences were terrible. People would yak away, constantly text, throw food, etc… I think part of the reason might be that there was so little to do in said town that you wound up with a lot of adolescents with time to kill.
I haven’t had a bad experience yet in NYC. The closest was when I went to see 28 Weeks Later and someone actually brought their baby into the theater. The baby predictably started crying during the first preview, someone shouted, “GET THAT BABY OUT OF THE GODDAMN THEATER!”, and the couple left with their tails between their legs. A bit rude, perhaps, but they deserve it for doing something so dumb.
I’ve gone to see a lot of big movies on opening day in some pretty big theaters (like the Regal in Union Square), and I’ve never had a particularly bad experience.
For some reason shouting at the screen is an African American cliche in general. I don’t know why, as I haven’t noticed black people doing it more than anybody else.
Odeon (the main cinema chain in the UK) now have specialist showings during the week for different audiences, including one for parents with babies. Whilst I think it’s a lovely idea I’d hate to be someone in that showing, one baby is bad enough!
I’ve heard of those happening here in the U.S., as well. Even if I were a parent I can’t imagine how horrific those things must be.
Also, I have seen a few movies in the U.K. (at at least two Odeon locations), and I found the audiences to be fine, but not necessarily any more polite than I’ve seen in American theaters. I was in London when Spider-Man 2 was released, and there was some obnoxious foreign guy (yes, I realize that I was also a foreign guy) who wouldn’t shut up during the beginning of the movie but thankfully quieted down quickly.
I’ve never had a problem watching a movie this around here. Occasionally someone will start coughing and stumble out to get some water. Or a kid makes noise and the parents shush or walk/carry the kid out if need be. It does depend on the movie and the time – if its, say, Wall-E on a Saturday afternoon, the kids get a bit unruly, so I just avoid those types of movies on weekends.
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and had similar movie-going experiences, no problems. I did, however, once attend a movie near the Loop, and was amazed at how rude people were – yelling at the screen, talking among themselves loudly. It was freaking awful! So go figure – it depends on the movie, the time, and the place.