I’m reminded of the episode of Dead Like Me where Rube is at the airport. There’s a screaming kid and Rube says “I’m gonna kill that fucking baby.” Then he gets taken in for the full security treatment and has to explain that he was just blowing off steam and had no intention of actually harming a baby. After a long and thorough investigation, and an apology letter from him, they let him go back out to his seat.
What does he say when he sits back down at his seat? “I’m gonna kill that fucking baby.”
I worked in a movie theater in the late 80s. Yeah, we had ushers. Good luck finding one during movie time, though, because they were SUPPOSED to be checking theaters for problems, doing maintenance, or other chores. Usually they were sneaking each other in and out of the back door, so they could smoke.
The thing with modern American theaters is that most of them are multiplexes, and the movies all start within a few minutes of each other. This means that the box office, concession stand, and entries are swamped during these periods, and then all the workers stand around, for the most part. There’s SOME jobs that can be done during the downtime, but not all that many. So that’s one reason why it takes a while to buy the tickets and then buy any food or drink. Since the workers are idle most of the time, the theaters are reluctant to hire yet another person.
I’ve noticed this and I think it’s the worst business planning ever. I would much rather have staggered movie start times and get used to seeing movies at odd times than deal with the huge post movie bathroom lineups and pre movie bucket o’ coke lineups.
One might think that they would use that available labor during that IDLE time during the movie showing to be putting caps in the asses of people disturbing said movies.
If most people went to the movies alone or knew what they wanted to see, staggered times might work. But how often does a couple or group arrive that spends 15 min. trying to decide what to see? If they then have to wait not till 7 pm, but 20 past for the third round to start, they might go elsewhere.
Huh? Most people just arrive at the theater having no idea of the show time or what film they want to see? Perhaps that’s why so many jackwagons come stumbling in ten minutes after the show has started. It would never occur to me to just show up at a theater and see what’s playing.
I was wondering about this myself. Going to an movie with even one person other than my husband requires multiple emails to cover time, title and theatre negotiations
My experience is over 20 years out of date…but most people who came up to the box office knew exactly which movie they wanted to see, and what time it started. A very few of them didn’t know. Even before the internet, newspapers printed movie listings, and if someone wanted to go to a movie, then s/he’d examine the listings for the day. And the theaters usually had a recorded message about the movies and show times.
We did have a couple of regulars who would show up in the evening, and ask for a ticket, any ticket at all. They didn’t care if the movie had started an hour ago. The thing is, they wanted to be able to use our phones with little harassment. This was back before disposable cell phones. These guys were drug dealers, setting up deals. I’m not sure how, exactly, they went about business, but the managers all swore that they were dealing drugs, and we had to kick them out if they weren’t watching movies.
I have a group of friends that will sometimes set up a casual movie date by saying “Let’s meet at such and such movie theater around 7” with the idea being that we’ll decide when we get there which 7ish movie we’ll see. If it turns out the movie doesn’t start for another hour, we’ll go somewhere and pick up a quick dinner beforehand or whatever. We definitely don’t decide to see something that already started, though!
I don’t know if it’s “most”. And yes, usually, there’s so much stuff that I don’t want to see that I say “only this movie, I want to see with X and Y” and then try to find a date we all have time. Also, cheap days are Mondays and Tuesday, which needs scheduling.
But I think esp. in the younger crowd, and esp. on Friday or the weekend, a group just meets and says “Let’s go see a movie” and go to a multiplex (esp. since there will be a lot of different movies there) and then decide which one they like.
That might explain why some people are such dickweasels at the cinema - they don’t actually want to watch the movie, they’re just there as part of a group who decided that a movie was the right thing to do that weekend.
I would never go to the cinema without first checking what’s on at what time - I don’t think I know anybody who would do otherwise. If there’s nothing that we want to see, we just go and spend the price of a ticket on a small family car, or a holiday in the Bahamas.
I assure you that once we’ve decided which movie we want to see, we do indeed want to see that movie and don’t act like “dickweasels” during the show. Also, I suspect that every single person in the movie theater decided at some point that a movie was the right thing to do that weekend, or they wouldn’t be there.
I love the movies, there are often specific films I am looking forward to, and I hate people who are disruptive during movies with the heat of a thousand suns. And yet sometimes I am not quite sure which of several movies I want to see until I get together with friends and we discuss it. Sometimes we choose to do this in person rather than email or Facebook beforehand. I don’t really see how this correlates with being “dickweasels” personally.
Good lord. You put up with that for an entire movie? No request to management to eject them or give you your money back?
That’s what I don’t get about the screaming about the screaming kid–there must have been a whole roomful of people who were bothered here, to various degrees of upset rising up to the one guy’s boiling point. And nobody complained to the management? No wonder it’s getting worse.
I don’t understand your confusion at his post. Did he say anything bad about you? No. But if a group of teens just decides “Hey let’s go to the movies at 8pm and just see whatever’s starting,” then yeah that could be an explanation why they act like dicks during the movie. They don’t really care about seeing it, it’s just something to do that night.
