Ever had a problem when you were in the theatre and you actually went out to report it?
Was it a person making too much noise or doing something else?
Was it a sound system defect?
Was it a projector malfunction?
Other?
Which movie, if you recall the title?
I once went out to make a complaint during the first Men in Black because they had set the projector so low that we couldn’t read the subtitles during the conversation between the aliens at the table.
I nearly went out during Star Trek Nemesis–except that a guy beat me to it–to tell them that there was a weird, blurry black band across the bottom third of the screen, obscuring things.
I’ve never had the nerve to report a human being for noisiness, though I very nearly did during American Beauty, when some guy down in front kept busting up laughing every five minutes as if he were in his own living room. I came this close to lobbing my box of Milk Duds at his noggin.
Donnie Darko was out of focus in the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in Manhattan. When I told the projectionist, he went to fix it and told me also that the movie was “shot in soft focus.”
During Amelie the subtitles were off the screen. I had seen it before so I didn’t miss anything by leaving to report it. I just didn’t get the applause I expected when I returned
“Fellowship Of The Ring” because, during the trailers before the movie got started, there was NO SOUND.
The theatre went berserk. We were all afraid we were going to miss ONE SECOND of FOTR!
I should probably mention that this was opening night, btw.
I ran out and told an usher. A few minutes later, we had sound. Meanwhile, some wags up front amused themselves and everyone else by doing MST3K-style running dialogue and commentary for the trailers…
When I went to see “The Two Towers,” the projector was aimed too low during the pre-previews natter (you’ve seen this, I’m sure - during the waiting period before the movies start, they show a silent slideshow of images on the screen, with movie trivia and such? At least at Hoyts theaters they do). I was afraid that this problem would continue into the actual movie, so I went and told somebody in the lobby, and they reassured me that they knew, but the movie itself was on a different projector and the movie would be ok. And it was. “We don’t want to make everyone seasick watching the trivia slideshow slide around on the screen, so we’re just going to fix that projector while your movie is on.”
This is no shit. When I was in the USAF, years and years ago, the projectionist at the base theatre stopped the movie twice, turned up the house lights and came down front to admonish the entire audience on their despicable, shameful behavior. He finally gave up.
The film was Rock Horror Picture Show. The audience was performing to the nines and this guy had never heard of it before and thought everyone was nuts.
Don’t know if someone complained or it was just him but he was APPALLED ! [/slighthijack]
Some asswipe 13-year-old brought a laser-pointer to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I complained, and he got thrown out.
Friday night at TTT some buttmunch behind me had fallen asleep and was snoring, but I didn’t report him. I thought about trying to throw popcorn into his mouth (like they did in that scene from Everybody Loves Raymond), but then thought better of it.
I report films regularly (too many to count) if they’re out of focus, out of frame, or having sound problems. Usually, you can tell with the previews so I’ve never really missed the movie to do so.
If the film gets caught in the gate and burns a hole through the film, I run to get a manager because that’s a problem the projectionist won’t notice and which won’t trip the alarm arms on the projector, which means with every second it goes unaddressed, the film is wrapping around the brain of the platter in a worse and worse state, meaning it’ll be that much harder to get back onscreen.
I never really run into behavior issues in movies that require a manager. This is usually because of the movies I see, when I go, which theaters I choose to frequent, and where I sit in the theater. If somebody’s talking or being disruptive, I’ll confront them and that usually does the trick.
Have run to the projectionist a couple times about problems with sound and/or focus.
Then there was the time some pervert kept trying to talk to me.
When, at the climax of the movie, he reached over and touched me, I yelled at him, he ran out of the theater, and I got a refund and a couple free tickets to future films.
Months later, I finally rented the movie and found out who the killer was.
We were watching Ninth Gate in the movies. Good horror movie, we’re getting into it. Then, the house lights start flickering. Bizarre. Then the movie melts on the screen, and we see just a white screen.
We waited a bit, and realized that no one was going to tell the management. We complained, and they gave us free tickets.
Later we read the review of it in the paper: “Good movie, but it falls apart in the last few minutes.” Eeeek! We ended up renting it and realized that we didn’t miss much.
Same thing happened to me during “The Craft”, Magog. It burned up about 40 minutes into it and seemed fun at the time. About 8 months later, I rented it and pretty much everything after that moment sucked ass.
When my wife and I went to see Life is Beautiful, the trailers were extreamly loud. When the actual movie started the volume was so loud it was unbearable, so I went to the lobby to complain that it was way too loud. A few minutes later the sound was brought down to a reasonable level.
There was a big snowstorm that night, and we were the only people in the theater that night.
Also, when I was about 7, I was at the theater with my 10-year-old brother. There were some junior high kids who were going around knocking the popcorn out of younger kids hands. We complained about them at the concession stand. They gave us new popcorn and threw out the brats.
When my friend and I saw Trainspotting, the movie just…died about halfway through. Took about ten minutes for them to fix it. The management promised us free tickets to another movie as an apology, so afterwards, we went to claim them. The theater dude handed the two movie passes to me. We started to walk away, when my friend (who had paid for both of us, because I didn’t have any cash on me) decided she’d rather get a cash refund. We went back, and the same dude handed the cash to her. We were about a block away when we realized what had happened. We’d not only seen Trainspotting for free, but we still had movie passes!
While watching * Twister, * we were all startled by a loud noise. I turned around, and saw that a huge chunk of plaster had fallen from the ceiling, and bashed some poor guy on the head. Everyone jumped up out of their seats, but no one moved. Seated toward the back, and seeing that no one was doing anything, except for the victim, who was clutching his head and moaning, I headed out into the lobby. As I approached the counter, the man who had been beaned by the plaster chunk stumbled out of the theater, covered in white dust, and dripping blood from the gash on his head.
They evacuated the theater and gave us all free passes. The newspaper the next afternoon claimed that it was a piece the size of a shoebox, but it was actually the size of a cabinet. The guy was fine, thank goodness.
During David Duchovny’s first movie (the one where he plays a doctor employed by gangsters), the movie died twice. The only employees outside were the teenagers manning the concession stand, so I went to them and demanded to see the manager. After a long time and repeated demands, she came out and I demanded my money back. She very reluctantly agreed that I could get my money back the following day, claiming there was no money in the theater. (I said, “What, the Brink’s truck pulls up at 10:00 each night?”) I did in fact get my money back the next day.
The weekend before Christmas, I was disturbed by the fact that the theater was too half-assed to have anyone close the doors or even turn off the house lights once the movie started. Somebody else must have complained, because the house lights went down five minutes into “Analyze That”. (I had to close the damn door.) Usually I’m not the one who complains because of this ridiculous fear of missing a few minutes of the movie I paid to see. Yes, it was that same crappy AMC chain theater.
What most often bothers me is people kicking the back of my seat and talking, but I have never complained about that to management. Sometimes I’ll just grit my teeth and bear it, other times I’ll turn around and shoot them a glare (only works sometimes), and more rarely I’ll tell them to knock it off (still doesn’t work all the time).
Only once have I seen a patron complain to the house about rude behavior. An older guy went out into the lobby to complain about rude teenagers, and one of those teenagers actually followed him out into the lobby to call him a liar and insult and threaten him. I guess that would tend to cut down on complaints.
On the opening night of the re-release of Star Wars: Episode 4, the film died right at the moment (um, Spoiler, I guess?) the Death Star explodes. As in, Luke just shot down the shaft, and the wide shot of the Death Star comes on screen – then, ZAP!, nothing. This was a theater full of nerds carrying light sabers, so you can imagine the ruckus that erupted. They fixed it after about 10 minutes, but the damage was done. I really thought the nerds were going to burn down the place.
But at least everyone got free passes from the manager, who looked to be very afraid of the mob that surrounded him after the movie.
