I’ve been to about half a dozen since late May. I paid for a year of Unlimited at Regal theaters so I was trying to get my money’s worth since there was a pause in my subscription last year and I’ve no way of knowing exactly when it will run out. The last movie I saw was Snake Eyes a few days ago, and it was a “private showing”, ie, nobody else was in the theater. The most I’ve seen in the same theater with me is maybe 6 other people, all sitting well away from me. I purposely choose movies that have been out for a few weeks or unpopular time slots so there’s as few people as possible. About half the movies I’ve seen I’ve been the only person in the theater. The staff does wear masks and cleans well between each showing, but I don’t see how they’ll keep their doors open long with the abysmal attendance.
I went to see Black Widow a couple of weeks ago. There were, I think, maybe six or seven other people in the theater with me, which was absolutely delightful. I’m not entirely sure how much the pandemic had to do with that. I mean, if you go see something that’s been out a whole month on a weekday matinee, attendance is almost certainly going to be pretty sparse. I was, on the other hand, a little taken aback with what a ghost town the lobby was. I can recall seeing just one party of three or four people purchasing tickets. It was certainly a far cry from the last time I went to the movies, when the lines were so long I just barely got into my seat before the movie started.
I saw The Suicide Squad last week. There were about eight people in the theatre. I went on a Tuesday afternoon when I thought the numbers would be low. I think there was only one person staffing the small three-screen mall cinema. There was no one at the ticket desk, and a sign directed patrons to go to the concessions counter for tickets. A young woman there was selling tickets and popcorn/soda from a single register.
When the trailers started running, the audio was strange. I could hear the music and effects clearly, but the volume on the vocal soundtrack seemed to be turned down all the way. I went out to the concession stand and let the woman know, and she said she would take care of it in a little while. (She had a few customers at the counter.) A few minutes into the movie, I spotted her up in the projection booth fixing the problem, and everything was fine after that. I hope they pay her a decent wage, because she seemed pretty competent and was handling everything with no assistance from anyone else.
Yes, a crazy amount*. Most of the screenings we go to are sparsely attended, but that’s either because the movie is one where a lot of people wouldn’t be there anyway, or because we use apps to choose days and showtimes with few or no people there. We mask up if there’s even one other person in the theater. There have been times when the theater was more full than our usual experience, such as when we saw Thursday night screenings of Black Widow and The Suicide Squad (we couldn’t resist), but it doesn’t matter all that much to us since we automatically socially distance based on where we sit in the theater, which is always down front.
Movies and seeing movies in the theater is very important to us, and we take precautions seriously. We’re vaccinated and double-mask, we get there early, if there are more than a few people there, we leave late so we’re not with a crowd of people walking out, and there’s our preferred antisocial seating.
Apps are definitely useful in seeing how many people are in the theater and where they’re sitting, although again, it doesn’t matter so much for us, since nobody EVER sits anywhere near where we sit. But, if we were normal people, apps would be a godsend. The more flexible you are, the more useful apps will be to find empty or near-empty screenings. I use the AMC and Cinemark apps, and for all other theaters I use IMDB Showtimes. I used to use the Regal app when I lived in Chicago and had Unlimited, but then we moved and the lone Regal here is way too far away to visit, so I gave it up.
I already bought our tickets to the Thursday 9/2 showing of Shang-Chi, but I fear that theaters will close down again before I can see my most-anticipated movie of the year, Eternals.
- 268 since theaters here opened back up a year ago.
YES! My wife hates to sit any closer than the middle of the room.
So, first movie I went to, I went by myself, and when I walked in the theater was empty. When someone else came in, I moved waaaaay down front (to keep the entirety of society healthy, of course).
Good thing you can recline those space-age leather seats, because I would’ve had a crick in my neck from looking straight up.
Hey, I was thinking about you the other day. With movie shut down for a year or so, did you just watch movies at home? I know you are big into the theater experience.
Thank you Mahaloth. I was upset when movie theaters closed in Chicago on March 17th, 2020 (I’d already seen 127 movies in the theater by then, because I’m happily nuts) but strangely enough, them being closed turned out well for me in that we moved from Chicago to Kansas City so I didn’t have to fret about all the movies I was missing while I was packing and getting ready to move. Once I moved here, we watched a lot of things at home, and went to the Drive-in a few times.
The AMC theaters reopened here in August 2020 and we immediately reactivated our AMC A*Lists and started going back. Other chains reopened too, such as Cinemark. We were happy because, not only were we back in our element, we were supporting theaters and we did. We saw as many movies as we could, and we also started to buy concessions, usually drinks and Nachos, which we rarely did before, just to support the theaters.
For the first several months, we’d see everything whether we were interested in the movie or not. We used our three A*Lists a week for any new films that were released (for instance, Tenet, Peninsula, The Personal History of David Copperfield) and then we’d see even more via “$5 Fan Favorites” (always older movies ranging from Inception, to Back To The Future, to the LOTR trilogy, in IMAX!, to all the Lego movies and so many more). The $5FF came in handy to see older movies that we’d never seen before, such as Caddyshack, Top Gun and a few others. We’d also take advantage of Discount Tuesdays. We saw 86 movies in the theater from August to December, and 181 from January to now (I realize how douchy throwing out numbers is, but I can’t help myself). We don’t see every single movie that comes out now, but, still, most of them. We’ll keep going as long as we can, as long as theaters are open, as long as we’re physically able to go. Our next 4 movies are Candyman, Together, some wacky thing called Death Rider in the House of Vampires (it’s only playing at Cinemark) and, I’m so excited, Shang-Chi.
My favorite movie of the year so far is, and I’m not in the least bit ashamed to say it, Pig.
Hey, we have “Movies You’ve Seen Recently” thread that you should share your highlights on. I also saw Pig and liked it quite a bit. My top 5 for 2021 right now, not having seen as many as you, are:
The Green Knight
Mitchells Vs. Machines <–netflix only movie
Censor
The Suicide Squad
In The Heights
Here is the thread I was talking about.
Worst movie(s) of 2021 I’ve seen so far:
Army of the Dead <–netflix only
Fast and the Furious 9
I agree d. digs, recliners are very important. We’re lucky to have several theaters to choose from because this is AMC Corporate Headquarters territory. We have the luxury of picking and choosing. We have a particular favorite theater for Dolby, another favorite for IMAX, another favorite for 3D, and for normal digital, we know which theaters to avoid because of their seating. We follow the movies though, so if a movie is only playing in one theater, we’ll go there to see it no matter what the seats are like. There are a few theaters where we sit at the very front row, because the screen is far enough away and the seats are recliners. Most of the time we’re in the 2nd row, occasionally 3rd if the theater is mostly empty.
Aw, I liked Army of the Dead, but I’m a sucker for zombie movies. We didn’t see F9 because we had only seen a couple of the earlier ones. We had this grand plan of watching them all leading up to then seeing F9 in the theater but it fell apart, we got bored.
I liked The Green Knight, The Suicide Squad and In The Height (saw them all twice each in the theater), and watched Mitchells vs. Machines at home. We loved it, and wish we could have seen it in the theater. It was supposed to come out last year, and I saw the trailer several times in the theater. I wish it, Mulan, and Soul had all played in theaters. I understand why they didn’t, but damn.
I hadn’t heard of Censor. It sounds interesting. I’m not sure it even played here, though there is one theater that might have played it. We rarely even think about it because it’s a long drive and is very expensive. I’ve only seen 2 movies there in the year we’ve lived in KC. They were worth the drive and the price (Annette and Tarkovsky’s Mirror from 1975) but it’s just too damn far and expensive, so I usually don’t even pay attention to their listings lest I get depressed.
I don’t tend to think about Worst movies because either I try to find the good in everything I see or I just want to forget about them. There were a couple of movies we walked out on, which is almst unheard of for us and I don’t even remember their names. Both of them were Indian movies. We’ve seen a lot of good Indian movies but these two were just insufferable. We went on Discount Tuesday so we didn’t pay much. We’ll keep going to see Indian movies because most of them are good, and we want to support the theater that brings them in.
Censor was great and a little hard to find in theaters depending on your area. It does stream.
Annette was a fascinating movie, but I don’t think it was really all that great.
I saw Black Widow at an Alamo Drafthouse. Theater about half full. It was the same experience as ever except for wearing masks when we weren’t eating.