I went to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror in Harvard Square (Boston) back in the early 80’s, and was constantly pelted with food & harrassed by “actors” in the aisles.
That’s the whole point! 
My brother and I went to see Gangs of New York. The film was good (not great) but there were technical problems that stopped the projector just as the big climactic fight was building up. It took ten or fifteen minutes to fix, and I have no idea how much of the film we didn’t get to see, as the showing didn’t pick up where it had left off. As it was, it ruined the continuity and flow of the film. Yeah, I know, waaaah.
I took a lady friend to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which is now and forever shall be one of my favorite films. I was completely floored, however, that she took a couple of cell phone calls in the middle of the movie. Okay, I understand, she’d left her three daughters at home with the thirteen year old in charge, and needed to answer in case there was an emergency, but she might’ve had the courtesy to take her conversation into the lobby. Folks who assumed she was my wife were shooting me dirty looks all throughout.
My ex-wife and I saw Topsy-Turvy in a small arthouse theater. The two women sitting in front of us were either very turned on by operetta or simply had their minds on other things because they began making out rather passionately. Ordinarily, being decidedly on the male side of the sexual spectrum, I would not have minded such a display in the least. On the other hand, being a devoted Savoyard and having waiting for more than a year to see the film, I found it rather detracted from my enjoyment.
I had a “date” (grade 7) to go see a double feature of Star Wars & Empire Strikes Back. She was the most beautiful girl in our school. I was smitten.
Midway through Empire Strikes Back, she asked me “Who’s that guy in black again?”.
I got unsmote.
Toss-up between Blair Witch Project, which aside from being rubbish also gave me motion-sickness, and Royal Tenebaums which was marketed as the “laugh out loud comedy event of the year” but which in reality was a self-consciously outre bunch of arse that didn’t make me smile once.
So in both cases purely related to the quality of the film on show.
Side note-- the director of the (agreed, excellent) Killing Fields is Roland Joffe.
Look at his IMDB page, and it’s frightening how many awful movies the guy later directed (Super Mario Bros., Captivity!?!). His career looks like somebody who lost a bet.
I’m frankly amazed that you chose to see these movies at all. The only way I would be convinced to see these movies is if there were a substantial reward in it for me immediately following. I’d expect you to be able to recognize complete shit just by the previews alone.
I have to ask; why the blue fuck did you go to see all those movies? I can understand accidentally seeing a dog or two, but those were OBVIOUSLY going to be catastrophically terrible. Were you brought to the theatre at gunpoint?
Lousy experience from a few years back - blind date, she wanted to see the third “Matrix” movie. I thought the first one was OK for one viewing, had no desire to see the second one (still haven’t) and less to see the third one but what the heck. She was really into them.
We saw it at the local Imax. Within a few minutes I could tell that the movie was going to suck more ass than a donkey vacuum. I was sitting there in slack-jawed amazement at just how bad the film was and actually got up to “use the bathroom” just so I could email my friends about it.
Afterwards my date was gushing about how cool it was and then she asked me what I thought. I’m not a dancer but I was proud of my footwork on that one.
Nothing bad happened during the movie other than the movie itself but seeing it in Imax was like reading the world’s worst book in Large Print.
I’m lucky enough to not have too many bad experiences to report.
Ranking up there is the time Mom took me to see Eyes Wide Shut, completely oblivious to its content. We sat in the front row and I was 13. As we left the theater she whispered, ‘‘I am so, so sorry.’’
The other day we saw Watchmen with a developmentally disabled dude parked in a wheelchair in the front row. The violence of the movies began to severely upset him. It took a lot of us a long time to realize he was crying out in fear rather than just some random loud asshole. The family waited until he was practically hysterical before they got him out of there. It was a very uncomfortable situation and I don’t know why they didn’t start getting him out of there the moment it was clear how distressed he was.
Rocky 3 (the one with Mr. T) as a little kid with my Dad…
at a ghetto theater in New Jersey…
in a half black, half Italian neighborhood…
on opening weekend…
The movie itself was is fine but afterward was scary (as a kid at least). I think some of the black patrons actually thought Mr. T was going to win.
I saw Pootie-Tang in the theater. I don’t know why we didn’t just leave, at the end we agreed we all should.
When I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the film started, but the film wasn’t threaded properly, so the frames weren’t centered on the screen. Houselights came back up, and we sat there for twenty minutes while they sorted it out. Finally, the lights come back down, film starts up, everything’s fine… until the woman behind me decided that her boyfriend should beat me up on account of me being too tall. (FTR, I’m six foot even.) What was doubly bizarre about that is that the theater was about 3/4 empty. She could have shifted one seat to either side, and not have to deal with my clearly deliberate excessive tallness. Instead, she wanted her date to teach me a lesson. Luckily, the guy wasn’t having any of it, and declined to make a scene.
I’d have to go with seeing Requiem For A Dream…
…with my In-Laws. Nothing like sharing a Jennifer Connelly double-dildo-ass-pounding scene with your Mother In Law sitting in the dark next to you.
Kind of. I’ve answered this before, but part of my job involves taking DD people to movies. That’s a double edged sword, of course. On the onehand, I get paid to go to movies. On the other hand, the clients pick the movies. I have a client who is excessively fond of dumb comedies. His favorite is Adam Sandler. Not all the movies I have to go to are bad, and I see a lot of the mainstream releases, but there are times that I wish I could read a book during a movie.
As appalled as I was that Dio actuall attended the three movies he named, I am almost equally appalled that you didn’t appreciate the genius of that movie! I’m surprised someone actually was privileged to see it in a theatre!
“Ah’m gawna sagn yo’ name on da paddy-stye.”
I’ve probably blotted out the worst, but a really bad one was seeing The Dark Knight in a theater that had “rumble seats”. No, not like the car. It was a big IMAX theater that had installed heavy bass speakers in the seats so during hardcore special effects, your seat would vibrate.
Why no, it was not pleasant at all. I spent probably the last quarter of the film, stuck in the middle of a row, desperately trying to convince my bladder that we were going to be just fine, thank you.
To make matters worse, I spent at least half of the movie going “hey, that’s the Chicago Board of Trade/Lower Wacker Drive/that restaurant a half-block from Union Station/etc.” so I wasn’t paying that close of attention to the action of the film when I was architecture-gazing/playing spot-the-stuff-I know.
Mine was “Twister”.
My 6 months pregnant friend and I hadn’t gotten to do anything together in a long time and we decided to go see this movie.
I was really looking forward to seeing the infamous cow scene.
Well, things started out badly when the people in front of us *reeked *of Cow Barn and perfume. I’m chemically sensitive so the perfume alone was bad enough, but mixed in with cow dung? Ugh.
Then the movie started. Ok, the first time they had the camera swirling in a circle as an assumed metaphor for a tornado was slightly amusing. But THEY KEPT DOING IT over and over and over.
Between that and the stench coming from in front of me, I was feeling quite sick. My pregnant friend, who got sick at everything, was fine! I had to leave the theater several times because I thought I was going to toss my cookies.
Finally, I ended up standing at the back of the theater, face pressed against the wall to assure my motion-sick brain that the room was NOT moving and saw the rest of what I’d have to call a totally stupid movie. A total waste of money.
Worst of all, I missed the danged cow scene I’d so wanted to see!
It still makes me queasy thinking about how sick I felt…
Well, at least you get paid for it. You should be paid some sort of bonus system whereby your bonus is inversely proportional to the Tomatometer rating of the movie. Adam Sandler? That’s a bonus. Jason Mewes? Bonus. Pauly Shore? Choose your Caribbean retirement destination.
I saw Batman Returns (the one with Danny DeVito) when it first came out. It was an afternoon show on a sunny afternoon. Why do I remember what the weather was like on a random afternoon 15 years ago? I decided to wear my sunglasses and forget my regular specs.
That film was dark