I pit assholes in movie theaters

The BBQ Pit
61

Well said. What used to be my favorite hobby has now almost turned into a chore. These days I only go to the theater if it’s a movie I *really * want to see because experience has taught me that there’s a high probability that I’m going to end up pissed off. I don’t *want *to be the asshole that has to “enforce the rules” but if someone’s going to ruin my experience anyway I’m going to pay them back in kind.

As for kids in theaters, I was trying to be charitable in my initial post. Hell yes they should be taught how to behave but since that’s not usually the case I just resign myself to the fact that seeing a childrens’ movie isn’t going to be a very fun experience. Of course, if I’m going to a childrens’ movie in the first place it’s because I’m there with my boyfriend’s son and it’s not like it’s about me anyway.

62

I like that. I may give it a try next time :smiley:

63

Even a movie for adults isn’t much fun, given the lack of manners anymore. That, along with the high prices for tickets and concessions, the freaking cold, the way-too-high volume, sticky floors, and grubby seats, keeps me out of the theatres and in the comfort of my own living room with DVDs.

64

Yes and yes. I rarely see one movie when I go out, usually it’s two, or more. Today was an exception when I went out to see Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins (I love Samurai movies). I could have also seen Meek’s Cutoff and Bill Cunningham New York, but I’d already seen them and though I liked both, and wouldn’t have minded seeing them again, I needed to get home. I saw 329 movies in the theater last year. With today’s movie I’m at 188 since Jan. 1 of this year. The number is slightly inflated because of a month-long film festival I attended in March. I saw 63 movies in the theater in March, all but 12 part of the European Union Film Festival. Normally it’s half or so that. With tomorrow’s movie (Sirius by Czech director Frantisek Vlacil) I’ll have seen 34 movies in May. I saw 43 movies in April.

Yes, insane. Very happily so!

I miss more that I want to see than I see. There are theaters in Chicago that show amazing movies, that I never go to. They’re too expensive and/or too far away.

I have very eclectic taste in movies, and many different things interest me. I like foreign-language films, low-budget films, indies, silents, blockbusters (good ones), documentaries, dramas, (some) comedies. Just as an example of the movies I’ve seen in May (in spoiler tags so people can skip the list):

13 Assassins (Samurai movie)
Midnight In Paris (Woody Allen movie)
Hesher (creepy sociopath meets grieving family movie)
Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie (documentary about the humanitarian)
City Lights (1931 Charlie Chaplin movie)
The Valley of the Bees (1967 Frantisek Vlacil movie, a Czech director, set in medieval times)
The Great Dictator (1940 Charlie Chaplin movie)
Little Man, What Now? (1934 Frank Borzage movie, about a financially struggling couple)
Rio (fun animated movie)
The White Dove (1960 Frantisek Vlacil movie, about, well, it’d take too long)
The Circus (1928 Charlie Chaplin movie)
Everything Must Go (Will Farrell drama)
Cost of a Soul (low budget crime drama)
Arthur (Russell Brand movie)
The Kid (1921 Charlie Chaplin movie)
Water For Elephants (I’m a sucker for '30’s-set films)
Thor (3 times, once in 3D and twice in 2D)
Bridesmaids (alleged comedy)
Queen To Play (French film about a maid who discovers a talent for chess)
Beginners (wonderful film starring Ewan McGregor)
Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (entertaining documentary about product placement)
The Beaver (pretty great film by Jodie Foster)
Fast Five (action film, enjoyable enough)
I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You (helluva title, but I didn’t like the movie)
Blue Velvet (David Lynch movie)
How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? (documentary about architect Norman Foster, who created the Gherkin in London, and the Millau Viaduct)
American: The Bill Hicks Story (documentary about the comic)
The Leopard (1963 Italian film with Burt Lancaster)
Queen of the Sun (Bees-In-Danger documentary, not as good as one I saw in April called Vanishing of the Bees)
Stake Land (very good low-budget apocalyptic vampire movie)
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (about a vampire/werewolf/monster killer in New Orleans)

As you might have guessed, there’s a retrospective of both Charlie Chaplin and Franticek Vlacil films going on. The retrospectives continue in June so I have many more to watch. I’d never seen a movie by either one, so I’m catching them all now. Yeah, I could get all the Chaplin movies on DVD, but it’s more fun watching them for the first time in the theater, on the big screen, with an audience. The Vlacil films aren’t available anywhere outside of Czechoslovakia, I believe.

There’s always something to see, mainly because I’m lucky to live in a place where there’s a great choice. Not everyone’s so lucky.

I don’t work in the industry, wouldn’t want to. Obviously interest is no problem. Time I have because my kid is grown and lives in another state and we don’t have a dog. I work full time but see movies after work and on weekends. Money is not that big a deal, mainly because we’re all about bargains. We didn’t pay full price for any of those films. Most of those were seen at the Gene Siskel Film Center, where we have a membership. We pay $80 a year for a duel membership, but then all movies are $5 for us anytime. Other movies were either $4, $5, $5.50 or $6.00 depending on where we saw them. The most spent was for the 3D Thor but even that was discount, since I had a $8 Costco pass, and I paid for the 2D Thor (unethical, yeah, but anyone who wants to bitch at me can bite me, because I refuse to pay extra for 3D. I carry my own clip-on 3D glasses for those rare times I might want to see the stupid gimmick).

Once in a while I get a free pass from Cinema Chicago, but not very often. I used to get more free passes but lost a contact a couple of years ago. Last year out of 329 movies, only 9 of those were free screenings. Even paying for most, I don’t feel bad. I’ve never added it up but I’d say it’s well less than $2000 a year. Lots of people spend far more on their hobbies than we do.

One thing that helps is that we don’t own a car by choice so we don’t have to spend any money on car payments, fuel, insurance, repairs, tags, stickers etc. so that extra money gets spent on movies. Again, we’re lucky enough to live in a place where we don’t need a car. Movies are our main hobby and our only vice. We don’t drink, do drugs, buy expensive anythings, don’t care about keeping up with any Joneses, we just really really like seeing movies, and seeing them in the theater. We have a home theater system (and I mean a serious one, a 4’x7’ screen, ceiling-mounted projector, surround-sound, 1500+ DVDs) but we rarely watch anything in it because we prefer seeing movies in the theater. It’s been great seeing movies like Lawrence of Arabia, The Grapes of Wrath, The Birds, Psycho, 8 1/2, Breathless and so many other classics on the big screen.

In the past, there were years I rarely went to the theater. At this point in our lives, we go a lot, this is what we’re into. At another point, things will change and we won’t go so much and we’ll have our DVDs to watch. But for now, I’m enjoying myself tremendously, and lament all the good movies I miss.

65

I have to strongly disagree. It seems ridiculous to me that staying out of the ‘asshole’ club means sitting silently while someone else ruins the experience I have payed good money for. We need more folks yelling at the cell phone user, not less. Preferably, in unison.

66

Often, people like the OP take responsibility for the whole theater because there’s no-one else to do it. Most movie-goers are whiny pussies like you who won’t say anything when some douchebag is talking on his cellphone for half the movie.

67

False dichotomy. I don’t have a problem with taking action. I have a problem with the specific action mentioned in the OP. There are ways of dealing with this besides yelling death threats in a theater.

And if you are yelling at people for texting, you are definitely being more annoying than they could ever be. I can’t turn my ears away from a shouter.

68

QFT.

I certainly wont make death threats at a kids movie (if I have to see a kids movie, I will select a viewing where kids wont likely show up), but I’m often the “asshole” who will tell very loudly to the very nice people gracing me with their conversation or phoning to “Shut the fuck up!”.
Repeatedly if I have to.
I wont go looking for an usher, I’m a big enough guy and big enough mouth that I dont have to. But even though, when I have reached the point that I have to do this, I’m gonna be in rage. And I dont go to the movies to get adrenaline boosts by displaying agressive behaviour towards the audience but to be entertained by a story. Whatever happens, even if the loudmouth shuts up, he will have “treaded on my dreams”, and I wont get that back.

69

Apologies. I misinterpreted the tone of “That is insane.”

70

I was just agreeing with Equipoise’s (what I’m sure was) lighthearted use of the term. I too would enjoy the luxury of watching that many movies.

[QUOTE=Equipoise]
I don’t work in the industry, wouldn’t want to. Obviously interest is no problem.
[/QUOTE]

What I mean by “interest” in this context is:

If you invited me to see Dude, Where’s My Car?, offered to pay for the ticket and a reasonable amount of concessions, I’d decline. I have interest in watching movies, just not that movie. My question was “How do you generate the interest to go see a movie you know is likely going to suck?” for surely at least a few of those 500+ movies were artistic refuse.

Speaking of insanity, I’m insanely jealous. I wish I had the resources to see a movie (essentially) every day.

71

You joking about killing someone’s kid is about as humorous as me joking about raping your date. Its threatening enough not to be humorous no matter unlikely it might be..

72

Oh, please. That is only true if there is enough realism in the threat. Date rape occurs with appalling frequency: therefore, do not joke-threaten people with date rape (or any other kind of rape). Irritated theater patrons, however, have never once murdered a child for being annoying. Therefore, any rational human would know that a joke about killing someone’s kid is just hyperbole. It may not be humorous, but it’s not threatening either unless you are irrationally paranoid.

73

You misread my post. I am not threatening to rape my own date, I am threatening to rape YOUR date. Irritated theatre patrons have never once raped someone’s date.

74

I tend not to go see movies I think I’ll hate. If there’s something interesting about them I might go out of curiosity but I just skip many movies. The result is that I tend to enjoy most of the movies I see. Not all. There are some duds, but I have a good time more often than not.

If there’s something iffy and I have a free pass, I might go see it simply because I’d never pay for it. But I’ll always choose something else if applicable. Last week I gave up a free pass to Hangover II in favor of paying to see a Charlie Chaplin film. I came out ahead.

I didn’t in the past. I may not again in the future. For now, I can and that’s why I’m taking advantage of it.

75

You can’t date-rape someone else’s date, only your own. If it’s somebody else’s date, it’s just rape.

If you threatened to rape my date (or me) for being annoying in the theater, I’d probably think it was ridiculously over the top, but I would mentally translate it the same way as “kill” — you weren’t actually going to rape or kill us, but you might well commit an act of violence. Actually, I’d probably take it more seriously than a threat to kill, because people use “kill” as hyperbole all the time, but who threatens someone with rape?

76

I don’t recall saying date rape. BTW, do you have kids?

If so and you have no problem with someone yelling that they are going to kill your kids in a movie theatre then you are far more sanguine than most parents I know.

If you don’t have kids then when you have kids, see how you feel when someone threatens to kill your kid, no matter how ridiculous the threat might be.

77

:confused: Mmm, Clothahump, there are a great many words for . . . that thing you do with assholes in movie theaters on certain odd occasions . . . but “pit,” though we have rather . . . . ahem stretched its meaning for Dopurposes, is not quite . . . elastic enough to encompass the concept. :o

78

I’m not sure I’d find that threatening, so much as surreal. If SHE found it threatening though, she’d probably kick you in the cock. So probably not worth it.

79

I don’t think it’s meant to be humorous as much as hyperbolic. It’s deliberately over-the-top. *There is a threat *there, but no one…at least no intelligent person, thinks that the person is seriously intending to harm the child.

80

It was a kids’ film in an afternoon showing. That is the kind of thing where I would expect some kid noise - it is normal and appopriate. It’s not like she was chattering through the whole thing, just reacting out loud to a couple of scenes. I did say ‘shh, quiet voice,’ but she was young and really into the film - she didn’t get it straight away.

If you want complete silence then don’t go to a kids’ movie in the afternoon.

She did quite quickly learn to be quiet at films, but the way she learnt that was by going to films - it didn’t happen instantly.