***Avatar ***is an overwhelming, immersive experience on the screen; one of the highlights of my moviegoing experience. It will come close to sucking on the small screen.
This is why you sneak in candy! 
I don’t sneak candy into theaters because of the high prices of said candy, although the prices of the candy, soda, popcorn and other snacks are obscene.
No, if I sneak in candy, it’s because theater candy is invariably stale and nasty, and they usually don’t have any that I particularly like. If I’m going to raise my blood sugar by eating candy, I’m going to eat GOOD candy, fresh candy, candy that I like.
Usually, though, I think that there’s quite enough popcorn in even the smallest size to keep me occupied throughout the film.
Ah. I do it for price, and selection. They never have what I want, so I buy a kit kat or a milky way or pack of cookies and smuggle!
I have to say the distractions are worse in a theater, plus you can’t pause the movie! I hate it when people use their cell phones in a theatre, and it’s commonplace now. Not to talk, but to check the time, text, read email, etc etc.
We see an average of 15 movies a month in the theater, and don’t have any of the problems people always bitch about when they’re bitching about theaters. It’s always so weird to read these threads.
I think it’s the darkness.
I don’t go to a lot of movies, maybe 3 or 4 per year (in contrast with the 3 or 4 per month I watch at home via On Demand rental).
The movies I go to are either BIG EVENT movies (Harry Potter, Twilight, e.g.), or some personal whim that I just have to satisfy (Up, Dreamgirls, e.g.). In the first case, I go with other people and enjoy the “being there” experience. In the latter case, I go by myself and sink into a seat, let the darkness envelop me, and laugh or cry to my heart’s content.
A movie at home can take me to faraway places and move my soul to emotions from ragged to sublime, but there is nothing like that dark theater immersion.
So, yeah, the darkness. And the popcorn.
Strange, my parents’ place is the opposite. Dad likes to reiterate things he’s heard about films, Mum likes to reiterate obvious plot points loudly. Never had that done in the cinema, except for the guy who reminded us during Iron Man that the movie was “fucking class” 
Some movies are better shared, comedies and action movies for me. I’ve never been in a movie where the audience has behaved like I’ve read some American audiences do. But its nice to have someone else laughing at the same time or jumping at the same time.
That and the sound and vision experience of course.
I just wish I culd go see a movie in the theater… I feels like a newsboy in '30.
I saw, as usual, more than 150 films in the theater last year - so I think I have reason to believe I have a valid opinion about the theater-going experience.
Theaters aren’t promoting their THX certifications anymore, and it’s a shame. It’s a set of standards and measurements for the construction, equipment and settings for theater sound and projection. And one is playing test tones and measuring the level to ensure that all the sound channels are set at the correct levels and that all drivers in the speakers are working.
I suspect that it’s the usual reason - that the chain owners cut back on the expense of bringing in trained THX experts to ensure their auditoriums are still up to standards. That said, most of the theaters I go to still meet THX standards, or better (in the case of the AMC Mainstreet with it’s 11.2 with bass shakers in each seat system).
Have you tried different theaters, or failing that, a different chain with better standards?
My wife and I are both on a low carb diet (her for diabetes, me for weight loss) so everything except the diet sodas are off limits for us. Luckily AMC policy explicitly allows u to bring in our own food and drinks. I have a backpack with a small cooler in it that holds a bottle or two of soda and some cheese and celery sticks. Hershey’s no-sugar chocolates (made with Splenda) are actually better than their regular chocolate!
I could supply you with a list of a dozen films, still in the theater, that are worth watching. But having made such a sweeping denunciation in advance, you’d be forced to damn all my selections, so I’m not going to bother.
Exactly. Even if I’m not as big a fan as the rest of the people there (for instance, I didn’t read Watchman before seeing the movie) the experience of seeing a film with an excited crowd is worth it all by it’s self.
One of my finest movie-going experiences was Trilogy Tuesday, where we spent a day in the theater watching all three Lord of the Rings movies in a row - the extended versions of the first two, followed by the premiere of the Return of the King
H1N1
All of this chatter about popcorn,candy, and cell phone use in theaters disguises the sad fact of this topic. That there are people out there who are actually happy to sit in their rooms, staring into a computer screen, watching a movie. How very sad. Not only that, but they can’t understand why anyone would leave the house and go to a theater. It’s mind-boggling, but then I’m a simple-minded sort who demands we do that kind of thing out on a “date”.
Huh, apparently you need to be condescending to people who aren’t like you. How very sad.
Not condescending, it really IS sad. But thanks for your two cents!
I was hired to work in the box office of a newly constructed theater in 1988. The theater was promoted as having state of the art (for the time) sound and projection equipment. I still had problems with the sound levels. Probably part of the problem is ME…sometimes I have difficulty understanding words. But part of the problem was that the background and music levels in the films were too high. I think that film makers think that louder background music and sound means that the movie will seem more dramatic. I’ve gone to different theaters, and each theater is part of a different chain, but the problems are the same.
Actually, I’d be interested in such a list. I might not watch them in theaters, but I’d probably put them on my mental list to check out sometime. I do enjoy watching some of my old favorites again and again. I particularly like musicals that were adapted from stage plays (Little Shop of Horrors, the version with Rick Moranis, Into the Woods, Rocky Horror Picture Show, etc.), science fiction/fantasy, if it meets my standards for the genre (I’m on my third copy of Labyrinth, I’ve worn out two VHS copies and the new one is on DVD), and a lot of kids’ movies, particularly those made by Pixar. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is another one of my all time favorites. It’s actually science fiction/fantasy, when you think about it. It’s set in an alternate universe, one where there are different physical laws, at least for toons, and there are intelligent non-human species living on Earth, interacting with normal humans.
Why is it sad? It’s expensive and often annoying, especially if you don’t live near a theatre, to go out. If it’s cheaper and more convenient to see a movie at home on a computer or on TV, why is that so sad? For some people, it’s really not worth it.
I enjoy going out to the theater for plays–I could just as easily say that it’s pedestrian and bourgeois that you prefer the cinema to seeing a live performance, but that would be condescending, don’t you think?
Exactly. You’re not SPOSED to pause a movie. I have a friend who loves talking about movies, but it’s frustrating because he only watches movies on his laptop. And, your first statement being incorrect–there are infinitely more distractions when you’re watching a movie on a laptop than in a theater–he tends to take about a week to watch a movie, in ten-minute scraps. How can that not disrupt one’s appreciation of almost any movie?
Markxxx,…how quickly you’ve forgotten your youth. In my day my buddies and I would go to the midnight movies. We’d smuggle bottles of booze into the theatre.(this in itself was a rush) Then we’d sit down and watch The Song Remains the Same or The Wall,something cool like that. How much fun would it be to get away with something at your mom’s house? Movies are all about the social element. If you ever go to a movie again,let me suggest this,go with your friends,…smuggle in some booze,and get ripped watching the movie. You’ll have a great time I guarantee it!! People like theatres for the same reason they like to go to restaurants. It gets boring sitting at home doing the same repetitive shit night after night.
It’s sad because you’re out the full experience. It’s NOT sad, on the other hand, because not really knowing that you’re not actually missing it. Still, it’s sad. It’s kind of like giving someone a gift of a $50 bottle of great champagne, and they go, " What’s the big deal? The grape koolaid coolers I made with it tasted just like all the other grape koolaid coolers I’ve had." See? Sad. You may like grape koolaid coolers, and have no inkling how good a good champagne can be, but some people would be said you missed out on the great champagne for just another “regular” drink.
I saw the first Star Wars when it came out on a full size screen (not the wimpy little ones today). It was a spectacular experience. If Avatar wasn’t such a dork-ass movie it would be the same experience today. And the 3D effects couldn’t be reproduced at home.