Palewriter, while that’s basically a good idea, not everyone under the age of 30 is loud and obnoxious, and not everyone who wishes to see a movie in peace can afford to pay $15-20 a head. For that price, I can buy the DVD and watch it at home in peace and quiet. I could even smoke, were I so inclined.
As other posters have said, we need to reinstate a bit of courtesy and respect for other people in our young. I’m not saying we need to indoctrinate kids to unquestioningly accept authority, but rather to teach them that people other than themselves and their friends matter. My own sister didn’t understand this concept until age 15; even though I was only born five years earlier, I understood it by age five or six. I think something’s happened in the interim, though I don’t know what. Or maybe I’m just getting old :).
There are already theaters that do a version of this. I’ve become a die-hard fan of the Alamo Drafthouses here in Austin because they show good movies, serve great food and drinks, and don’t admit anyone under six except on Baby Days. People under 18 have to accompanied by a parent. Their showings always kick off with “No talking or we’ll take your ass out.” It’s as close to movie-going bliss as possible.
I couldn’t imagine taking a 5-year-old, let alone a 3-year-old to ROtK. Three hours is a long time to ask a kid to be quiet and sit still, even before you factor in the nightmares.
The Alamo has now opened a theater in Houston…it is lovely.
I saw ROTK the day after it opened. Despite the fact that the movie was sold out an hour before the showing, it was the quietest movie I’ve been to in a year or more.
I saw Cold Mountain the other day…I was surrounded by old people (as I went in the middle of the day, when most people my age were at work.) The couple next to me couldn’t hear each other. They kept making obvious observations to each other through the whole thing…twice each time…louder each time. “He got shot.” “What?” “He got SHOT!” “That’s her daddy” “WHAT?” “THAT’S her DADDY!” Across the way sat an older man with a younger, asian lady. I can only assume she didn’t understand much english because he explained the entire movie to her word for word, for an hour. Finally, I got up, crossed the aisle and said “Excuse me sir, if you don’t mind, could you at least whisper?”
He rolled his eyes at me, waved me away and continued to talk, though much quieter for the most part.
Sometimes I think I should stop going to movies. When I was a teen, I worked at the movies. Our movie theater enforced their own rules. Ushers patrolled EVERY movie, EVERY showing. They kicked out underage, made people put their feet down, told people not to talk and occasionally even checked tickets. Ohh, and they cleaned the theaters in between showings. Even the floors.
It’s only been 10 years, one would think things wouldn’t have changed that much. But one last story…A few weeks ago I was in the movie theater bathroom when two of the female ushers came in. They stood around at the mirrors, they had just been chewed out by management (I’d seen a bit of that firsthand too). Apparently, they had taken 45 minute breaks instead of 15 minute breaks. They couldn’t believe their manager yelled at them. They couldn’t believe they got in trouble for what they’d done. “Not like it was a big deal”, one of them said. Between the break, the chewing out, and ensuing bathroom consoling of one another, they’ve now had a break of more than an hour.
She wouldn’t have had a case in a world, at least not until you socked her one
Though really, I can’t think of much to do in the case of her putting her foot right next to your face. If you lay a finger on her, you’re screwed. Powerless in the face of a 14-year old girl bully. Nothing to do but tattle to the manager, I guess.
Oddly enough, some friends of mine took their 3-and-a-half year old girl to see RotK. A recipe for trouble, you’d think…but she was enraptured throughout except for about the last twenty minutes – and sitting in Daddy’s lap for that bit was enough to keep her from being fidgety.
Then again, they’re good folks – and the girl was raised by a bunch of people who cared a good deal for her and weren’t about to put up with any foolishness. She’s always been good in movies – she was just a wee little thing when they took her to Monsters, Inc and she was utterly silent all through it.
As for little kids going to see the LotR movies…well, they certainly are violent, as are the books themselves. And they’re not exactly easy to understand. I’m biased, though – my dad read me the Hobbit when I was about six and started on the rest of the trilogy right after. It’s not the easiest material, but it’s not impossible, either…
Still – I wouldn’t take a kid of less than, say, seven or eight to see it. Assuming a high level of maturity on the kid. And no child under my care would be fussy in a theater – at least, not for very long. I don’t care how much we spent on tickets – more than one “Shh” from me and we’re gone.
And the only reason I didn’t was so that I would not have to trample down the narrow row over 30 or 40 more people, thus disrupting the experience for even more people, in order to get outside and find a manager, then have all of those people disrupted again if/when the manager showed up to tell the idiot with the demon to leave.
By the time the movie ended, the theatre was closing and the manager was already gone. I won’t be giving that theatre any more of my money, either.
Can I go to dinner and a movie with you? I’ll pay for my own!
Would it matter? Once she makes the accusation and the cops take over, it’s not long before his name and picture are on the news and in the newspaper with the headline that he was accused of molesting a 14 year old girl. By the time they figure out her accusation is totally false, his reputation’s already smeared.
Err…are you sure? There is usually a manager there until the last person leaves the theater. The manager is responsible for collecting all of the monies, and locking the door at the end of the night, at the least. I would guess that very few managers would leave their keys with another employee.
When I saw Master & Commander there was a screaming baby. But what amused me was that there was a very short “pre-film” from project Greenlight called “Mafia Movie Madness”. THe presmise was a theater run by mafia goons straight out of central casting doing mafia stuff in the theater. For example, when a guy wants to buy a small coke, he gets persuaded to buy a large.
But.
Just before the movie in the mafia theater starts, two tough guys with baseball bats stand in the aisle and say “anyone talks or makes any noise, dey get somma dis” (waves bat). Its suppose to be humorously showing an intimidating theater.
But all I could think of was: Where is this theater? I want to see all my movies there from now on.
My thought is that the little pre films that tell people to be quiet, take their feet off the seats in front of them, and depost trash need to be a little more firm. Something like:
“If that baby starts screaming, get him OUT OF THE THEATER or he will soon be an orphan.” Cartoon of parents being brutalized.
“No talking. SHUT THE HELL UP! THIS ISN’T YOUR LIVING ROOM! OTHER PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO WATCH THE MOVIE” cartoon of person duct taped to chair.
“Please turn off cell phones and pagers. THIS MEANS YOU! YOU WON’T GET AN EMERGENCY CALL DURING THIS MOVIE. PEOPLE LIVED FOR DECADES GOING TO THEATERS WITHOUT CELL PHONES SO DEAL.” Image of a lightning bolt hitting a cell phone.
“Please take your feet off the seat in front of you. OR WE’LL USE OUR OWN METHOD OF REMOVING THEM” Cartoon of chainsaw going through legs.
They need to be more firm. A woman putting her finger to her lips isn’t going to do it.
Mr. Miskatonic, that sounds like something that’s the start of the movie Tampopo. I don’t remember exactly what happens, but it’s definitely something like that, and built into the movie to boot.
Wrong. I thought of something immediately: Take a drink of your soda, pretend to cough, and spit it all over her foot. I can guarantee that she’ll move her foot with screams of, “Ewwww, gross!” while not really having a harassment leg to stand on. “Sorry, Mr. Manager, I choked on my soda and I can’t help it if it hit her foot since her foot WAS right next to my face.”
Makes me long for the days of the drive in theater, when you didn’t have to listen to noisy jerks, and you could get a blow job while watching the movie without disturbing anyone.
What no car horns? Those are an ever-present problems at drive ins. As far as the blow jobs, I guess I went to the wrong sorts of pictures.
Re: The girl with her bare foot in your face – you could have easily solved the problem by licking her foot. See more suggestions at www.badideasthatwillgetyouarrested.org.
Must there be a manager on duty and in the building at all times? Yes. That is the law. At least it was 20 years ago. In Massachusetts, anyway.
When I was an usher, it was in our job description to patrol theatres at least every 15 minutes, and we took customer complaints very seriously. Looks like that policy is long since gone.
I was reading this thread with some trepidation. You see, I was planning on giving my wife a break today and taking my four year old to see this movie. I really wanted to see it in the theatre.
I had mixed emotions. We’d watched the two previous ones together at home, and she liked them. I built it up as really exciting.
Still, I was resigned to the possibility of having to leave the theatre at about the two hour mark if she got fidgety. There’s only so much you can expect from a little kid.
Unbeleivable she only spoke twice during the whole thing. Once was when she wanted to go to the bathroom, and the second was because this large man behind us seemed to have this intermittent coughing fit, and she wanted me to make him shut up so she could watch the movie.
The Witch King didn’t bother her, the Dragons didn’t bother her, the Oliphants didn’t bother, but She-Lob scared the crap out of both of us.
I’d like to thank the 500 or so people in the showcase cinema, birstall, west yorkshire on the day before xmas eve 6.30 showing of ROTK for continually rattling popcorn bags, plastic sweet wrappers and having their phones go off (this including my sister, who i bollocked thoroughly, seeing as i had paid).
I never go to the flicks when theres going to be a big audience, but I wanted to take my parents and thats the only time we all could manage.
And a special shout out to the kid sat beside me (about 13) who constantly asked his mum “is that the one off the two towers, mum? is that the girl that did the thing, mum?” over and over.
people in cinemas=shit
I also enjoyed the guy in the row behind who said “3 1/2 hours? I ‘ope thes a break int’ middle” fucking clown.
Geez, I never realized how lucky I was until I read this thread.
I used to work as an on-call maintenance guy for the local 4-plex. Pay wasn’t that great, but the family and I could go see any showing any time for free (including popcorn and drinks.) Tuesday nights were particularly nice because they were slow and we’d often have the whole place to ourselves.
Anyway, UvulaDaughter was about 18 months old when we started bringing her to the movies. Mrs. Uvula and I would park her in a seat between us with a bucket of popcorn on her lap, and she wouldn’t make a peep through the whole film, concentrating on the popcorn and hardly even looking at the screen.
We took her to movies throughout her young childhood without a problem; by the time she was old enough to actually watch movies with us she was fully aware of the behavior expected of her.
We went to see it last night, and it was deathly quiet.
Apart from me crying, that is. (It was so sad when the spider got stabbed!)
But I agree with the Uvula Donor - you have to train the young 'uns gradually on how to behave in public, and accept that a certain amount of the time, you are going to have to go home early. A three hour movie is more of a final exam than an intermediate step, though.
There was something like that in theaters a couple years ago. The whole thing was done with Barbie dolls - every time they demonstrated bad behavior, something horrible happened to them (getting sucked up a vaccum, electrocution, other bad stuff I can’t remember).
