Why people would rather have DVD's...
POSTED BY: UnregisteredCompanion
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 06:47
VIEWED: 5770
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My wife & I are addicted to the big screen experience, too. Fortunately we live in a very small town with one small cinema and people tend to be more polite, methinks. What those big cineplexes need is a return to staffs of ushers to keep order. To modernize, they should be equipped with those little guns that shoot a needle on an electric wire; zap the noisy bastards senseless and leave them in their seat until after the movie, where they can lug them out with the rest of the garbage. Another cool tool would be a directional electron gun that zeroes in on cell phones that are turned on; zap and slag them into melted puddles of goo. 
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"That's what governments are for, [to] get in a man's way." -- Malcolm Reynolds
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Yeah I think the article makes very valid points about the lowered quality of the movie going experience...
ad to that the heightened expense
and in many (my local) theaters you have bad sound & picture...to get to a theater with great sound and stadium seating I have to drive a 1/2 hour each way, which keeps me from going as often as I might if a good theater was closer
but frankly, most movies now days are not really worth watching in a theater. A movie like 'King Kong' (over 3 hours long) is a big commitment when you don't care anything about the story, at home you know you can fast forward or walk out of the room to get things done....
There are a lot of films when (IMO) the director really dragged things out that could have been cut...
Or where the jokes were too obvious and low brow
Too many movies now days are trying to appeal to everyone, and they end up not being all that appealing....
So I decide to save the money, and my time, and the trouble, and see it later on DVD....
Obviously that was not the case w/'Serenity' which I saw 8 times in spite of having to drive a long way each and every time I saw it... but I could understand the people who didn't do that.
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watch the R. Tam Session vids: http://www.hittarivertam.nu/
and buy the 'Serenity' comics published by Dark Horse,
and have you joined the Browncoats yet?
http://browncoats.serenitymovie.com/serenity/?fuseaction=tools.invlink
&u=embers&linkID=36
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Its all in the news lately..The film industry is in a funk.
I personally won't pay full retail for a movie unless I love it.. ie. Serenity, Star Wars, Narnia.
The rest I'll see at the dollar movie.
Theater is always better than video!
"Jesus saves, everyone else takes damage" -tee shirt some girl was wearing at Megacon.
http://dantedreams.com <-my webcomic
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not t be an ass but what did you like about narnia ?
i was reallylooking foward to the movie and was so disapoited that i can hardly find a good thing about it.
so maybe you saying what you like migth help me get a more balnced view o the movie
The wages of sin are death, but the hours are good and the perks are fantastic.
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First: Spinland, you owe me a new blouse seeing as I just spilled tea over mine while laughing at your post.
Second: I have to agree with everything the article says.
I just moved out of the San Francisco area, where the cell-phone/pager problem is rampant! Every single programmer/sys-admin/executive, etc has their cel-phone on, ringing, answering it, discussing "The problem at hand" while you're trying to listen to the film.
You cannot go to a film for under 10$, unless you get to the theater at 10:00 am for a matinee, and usually the movies being shown as matinees aren't films I would choose to watch.
Films that rely on special effects I see in the theater. "Star Wars", "Harry Potter", "Serenity"... I wanted to see Serenity against the black on the big screen. And now that I see the dvds, where she looks so small and ineffectual, I'm so glad I had that moment in the theater where I got to see her soar.
Anything with epic cinematography - Films like Narnia, to name something recent, and "Unforgiven" to name something older, lose their epic impact on the small screen.
"The Family Stone"? "Diary of Bridget Jones"? Is there any reason to see them on big screen? It's the dialogue that's the import there, not the visual effects.
As for "Chronicles of Narnia"... what was not to like? The CGI wasn't as good as it should have been, certainly, but the acting was very good. (although I kept listening to Ray Winstone and hearing, "It's like a babies fist, 'oldin' an apple!").
It really captured the book very well, I thought.
There's been some dissing of the casting of Aslan, but I loved Liam in the role. Aslan is gentle, forgiving, and extremely powerful. I felt that through Liam's voice.
I also love the translation of Peter's knowledge of the Blitz into the stone air drop in Narnia. It was a whole new way of fighting back then, and for the directors to make that choice, to show that Peter was learned in something that the Centaurs couldn't teach him, helped fill a gap that I feel C.S. Lewis left out of the books.
In the books, one day, Peter kills a wolf and then he fights a battle that you do not see, only hear described later, and then, he's High King of Narnia.
In the movie, Peter kills the wolf, then organizes his troops, and then shows them something new. A youth deserved of the title of High King, I think. I liked that decision on the part of the filmmakers alot.
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Maybe people are more polite in Colorado, but I haven't really experienced the cell phone issue. But then again, I go to matinees because I am so cheap.
I do like a HUGE WALL of images flying at me, but half the time the print is scratched. Big giant fuzz balls kind of ruins the effect. Plus, the concessions are so over priced it's just stupid. $5 for a dinky bag of popcorn? $4 for a soda???
I smuggle in snacks when I go. I haven't been busted yet...and I have been doing this for over 30 years :)
You can get drinks and dinner at a nice restaurant for the price of a family going to the movies.
Having some friends over, a DVD, a big screen tv, home-made nachos and cold beer, not having to pay a baby sitter...much better.
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"Funny and sexy. You have no idea. And you never will."
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My wife and I had stopped going to movies. The crowds were rude; cell phones used during the movie; people had open discussions with the characters on the screen. In essence all of the horror stories about over priced movies. We even tried going VERY LATE. The 10:45 start times didn't stop people from bringing their babies and negelecting them while they had full volume conversations with their friends.
Then we moved away from Tallahassee. In the small town we're in now the prices are lower, the people actually are QUIET during the movie and the whole experience has returned to being "movie magic". The problem seems to be very location dependent.
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I work 3-11 PM so other than during holiday seasons when early matinees are avaialble, I can only get to movie theaters on the weekends.
Some movies are just always going to be better on the big screen.
I use 2 methods to chose what to go see:
1: watch comercials, read the reviews and try to be very choosy about movies I go see (EG: Serenity, Narnia, etc...) and just grab DVDs of the rest I'm interested in as they come out or later when they drop to the $10 bin. 
2: On rare occations I'll just go to a random theater and buy a ticked for whatever movie is next starting after I arrive. I've seen some very good movies as well as very bad ones this way. It's fun to see a movie with absolutely NO expectations going in the door because you have never even seen one commercial for it. Lets you really see it for what it is rather than what you think it should be. I would have NEVER seen "Gridlock'd" (Tim Roth - 1997) and almost walked out of the theater during the first boring/very depressing ten minutes or so. I decided to stick it out and gave it just a few more minutes. Once the movie gets going, it turns out to be a really fun movie to watch. Just really slow and depressing to start off. If you happen to stumble over it at the video store, give it a shot. It's tough to get through the first 10 minutes but I think it's WELL worth it. 
I liked Narnia for the most part. I have the complete set of books from when I was a little kid and purposely DIDN'T re-read any before seeing the movie. As far as I could remember, it followed the storyline prety well.
I made the re-read the book mistake before going to see The Bourne Identity... Other than the names of most of the characters, a few random plot points and the title, the movie had practicaly NOTHING to do with the book. I was hugely dissapointed when I went to see it. After waiting a while, I saw it again on DVD when my sister rented it and enjoyed it much more. Once I decided to accept it on it's own merrits and didn't try to compare it to the book, it really wasn't all that bad. Wasn't great either but, there you go. If they had called it something else or advertised it as "_V_E_R_Y_ LOOSELY based on the book" to warn me, I would probably have enjoyed it from the start. Then again, I would probably have only seen it on DVD then.
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dc4bs
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The food.
I don't like the sound of someone eating noisily, and I really don't like them doing it in my lugs for the whole two hours (at least) that you're trapped in the cinema.
I'm amazed how people starve themselves and their children for weeks at a time, and miraculously choose that particular day and cinema to catch up. (Hint. It's probably cheaper, and almost certainly healthier to buy food from...you know...shops.)
And the mobile phone thing. I'm almost on board with the possibility of receiving emergency calls while at the theatre. But making emergency calls? Not so much.
"Help! I've run out of popcorn." "Help! It's gone really dark." "Help! I'm in a big room, and there are hundreds of pissed-off looking Orcs running towards me." "Help! The guy next to me has had a heart attack." (OK, maybe the last one...)
And double features. They used to be good. The only proper one I can remember seeing was with "Silent Running." Outstandingly dull film, especially as that was the one I'd gone to see. In the event, the supporting feature, "American Graffiti" was a lot more fun.
Finally, though many mention the days of the double feature and the present ads + film situation you get now, there was a weird transitional period during which you got these really crappy half-hour 16mm travelogues with cheesy 1970s porno soundtracks: "Telly Savalas Goes to Portsmouth" or "Telly Savalas goes to St Andrews" and no doubt elsewhere too. Maybe that prompted folk to think "Ads may not be such a bad thing after all." Weren't they ever wrong.
G
Ranting. Something you only realise you've been doing after you've hit the "Post" button.
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I didn't address the cell phone problem in my earlier post. I live in a small town with a small 6 screen theater and no problems there except outdated seats (no stadium)and old screens. There's no cell problems here.
If I go half an hour up the road to a larger university town a with big new multiplex (where I saw King Kong)there are usually no problems with cell phones despite the large student/faculty population. There is also a large population of doctors too (the university has a medical school and large regional hospital) and I don't remember ever hearing a cell phone or beeper-the multiplex has a reminder after the ads and before the feature to turn off your cell phones.
Personally I put my cell phone on vibrate as I have an elderly Mom that needs to be able to call me. If she would call I'd go outside the the theater.
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