Today at lunchtime I drove by a movie theatre and saw some schmoe sitting in his lawn chair, already in line for the first evening showing of M:I2.
Is it really worth it? I could see waiting in line for buying tickets for a one-time concert, but heck, the movie will still be there tomorrow! If you wait until next tuesday and go see it at the 22:30 (10:30 PM) showing you’ll have the theatre all to yourself! Why wait in line for hours? It’s not like Thandie Newton is going to show up and sit next to you.
Disclaimer: as a young man I hung out with a group of friends who were into the “gotta see Batman on the first day” scene. But now I’m older and wiser.
Disclaimer2: I have nothing against M:I2 itself, except the dumb title :mad:. (If I never see another movie title of the form “Hit Movie”#2 it’ll be too soon.) But I happen to think that the previews were exciting, John Woo is a terrific action/adventure director, and Tom Cruise looks pretty hot. I wouldn’t mind looking like him as he appears in M:I2.
Arnold, one guy in a lawn chair is sad, a line of tents down one of the main streets in my neighborhood for over a week (more elsewhere, from what I hear) is downright disturbing. People really had nothing better to do than wait for Star Wars prequel for 1 friggin week? Man, that’s a waste.
Don’t get me wrong, I went to the movie, waited in line 3 minutes too (I hate lines of any length). Loved it for whatever it had to offer. But camping out to see the first showing in town is rediculous - are we that desparate to escape real life?
I knew a big group that waited in front of Mann’s Chinese for Star Wars opening. They were the second group there… waiting for weeks. Weeks.
But they had fun doing it. And because I lent them my cell phone, I got tix without staying there for weeks (heh). But I say if that is your thing: If you really really love being the first person in the theatre on opening night, then more power to you.
To me its no worse then obsessing over whatever else, like the fact that I spend lots of time playing computer games. Many say that it is a waste, but for me, it’s valuable.
To answer the OP tho, yeah I agree it’s a waste of time, for me. But I don’t think they are “desperate to escape real life”… they are just excited.
But, Star Wars e.1 sucked, and most of the people in that line now admit it wasn’t worth it.
(Hijack) Realizing that the above is hyperbole, I have seen Tom Cruise IRL, and he is about 5’8". Which is certainly not tall, but neither it is tiny. And were he tiny, he’d still be incredibly hot :)His wife is very tall; about six feet, I’d guess.(/hijack)
Camping in line for a once in a lifetime concert is fine.
Camping in line for a four weeks in a lifetime movie is a bit strange, but I can understand being really excited about a movie.
But here in the Bay Area was recently had peopled camped out for over 12 hours for the opening of an IKEA. A friggin’ furniture store. Hello! I’m sorry, but why wait? That store will be there in a week. It’ll be there in a month. It’ll probably still be there in 15 years!
I agree, it is a waste of time. For what? To tell your friends that you got to see it first? Most of the time I just wait for the movie to come out on pay for view or on HBO.
It’s another symptom of the MTV generation. Everything has to be breathlessly exciting, new, different, and overhyped (even if only in the minds of a few whackos), or it’s justnot worth doing. Yes the Danis modern particleboard furniture wills till be ther next week, but OMIGOD!!! WE’RE GOING TO BE, LIKE, THE FIRST PEOPLE IN THIS IKEA!!! ISN’T THAT, LIKE, TOTALLY RAD??? THEIR STUFF IS JUST, LIKE, SOOOOOO AWESOME!!!
A friend of mine is a huge Star Wars fan. He wanted to be the first to see it in the Mall of America at the midnite showing.
We live about 2 1/2 hours away from there. He had to work the next day at 6am. So that means…he was there at midnite, watched it (2 hours? I didn’t see the movie) and made the 2 1/2 hour trek home, and had a couple of hours sleep. Then he did it AGAIN the next night. I asked him why it was so important to him to be the first (and at that particular theater) and he said that that is how much he loves the movie and I don’t understand.
All are right, waiting in lines for overhyped things sucks. 5’8" is short. Cute guys need to be taller, they really, really do. (I’m just over six feet tall. There is nothing more heavenly than being hugged by a taller guy.)
Just on a personal note, sometimes I like to see movies on opening night that I’ve been excited about seeing, because I don’t want to be jaded by the reviews. Most hype movies seem to get poor reviews. I know it makes more sense to save that $10, but it ruins the fun feeling.
FWIW, waiting in lines for stuff is fun only if the hype, frenzy and companionship are part of the total experience. Being a jaded, cranky old poot, there’s very little I’ll wait in line for more than about 15 minutes.
You obviously don’t pay much attention to the furniture business. Most of those guys don’t last as long as the local floating craps game. About 1% of the industry has been open since 1860. There other 99% of the industry was created from the ashes of someone else’s “going out of business” sale last year.
[/hijack]
I’m just glad that people find something to get that excited about.
How sad that there are so few things that people will put their lives on hold for, even for a few hours. Hell, many people don’t even put the mundanity (is that a word?) of their lives on hold to celebrate the birth of a child, a brand new life just starting out.
I’m all for grabbing your enjoyment in life any way that you can. Life is too short to spend only getting excited about things that others find acceptable.
I have been known to become absolutely giddy at noticing the first street-side strawberry vendor in May. I have taken the day off work just to be able to play in the first true summer shower of the season–just so I could smell that unmistakeable scent of cool rain on warm mud and pavement for the first time that year. I have called my husband at work to breathlessly describe a unique caterpillar in our garden.
The novelty of things should be celebrated. There will always only ever be one beginning of something. Some people like to celebrate beginnings–births, seasons, weddings and yes, movies.
Everyone is different. At least the people who camped out for those movie tickets aren’t just sitting around in an MTV Generation-inspired stupor bemoaning the fact that nothing exciting ever happens to them.
btw, i saw people who had waited in line for star wars for a month! that’s crazy… not worth that long of a wait for sure…
oh well, some people love that for some reason…
I waited in line for about an hour to get in to see Phantom Menace, since a friend had done the hard work the day before and gotten the tickets. It was actually quite fun hanging around in the parket lot with a bunch of really rabid movie fans. There’s no way I would spend a day waiting around for it, but one hour… Heck, you can wait that long to get into the bathroom if you go where the in crowd goes.
Evilbeth - I agree, it’s good to get excited about things, and allow yourself to celebrate whatever feels good to you. I just think that a week on the pavement for Star Wars is sad (even though I have seen each episode more than once). I think getting excited about the birth of a child is on quite a different category!
Ikea is a joke. My wife insisted we go to this store, and I mutterred the whole way (“I could be watching the game instead of this sh…”), and stood in line, I HATE LINES, but I love my wife so that was that, and I hated it. This was a week or two after the place opened and it was still a zoo. I swore I would not be back there for a long time, but two weeks later there I was, swearing again! Anyway, the story gets better, 'cause the next day at work a co-worker told of his mysery, the trip to Ikea from 5 to 10 PM on a Saturday Night!! OK, the madness must end, I’m looking for some C4…
BTW, MI2 is next on my list, but no lines! Tom Cruze can be 3’5", if he is starring in a Mission:Impossible flick he da man!
