The reason why I rarely go to Movie Theaters - Page 2

It is a temporary situation, until Laser Light projectors replace blub based projectors.

Eastman Kodak is leading the charge for this new light source technology:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1317597

I find this is a really bad trend lately, and not just with teens. I am so sick of people laughing at serious parts of movies, what is their problem??????

I usually go to matinees during the week, and i escape most of the crazies in the audience, but not all of them.

Superman Returns only had a couple of scenes in 3D. If you kept the glasses on for the whole movie, then you were watching it wrong.

It's the age I think........most of them tend to grow up though, but not all of them. Like Jude Apatow for example or the american pie "creative team", or of course the best of the best, the Jackass bozos.

AFAIK, you can't lower the lamp brightness on a digital projector. Their brightness falloff is created by the theater not replacing the blub when they should.

The fact is a 3D movie will lose at least 50% of it's brightness to the viewer due to the glasses. If you can raise the light output of the projector to be say twice as bright as a 2D image, then by putting on the glasses, the images will appear to be as bright as a 2D image.

And they have a standard for brightness in theaters. For 2D it is 16 Ft. Lam while for 3D is is 14 Ft. Lam. They were established by SMPTE (2D) and the DCI (3D)

This meshes with the other topics on content.
Between the two, many of us were driven away over time.
There are a few films each year I might enjoy in the theater if I could find a place where the patrons are interested in watching a movie.
Not easy. The old trick of 4:30 pm worked for a while, but it's hard to escape the new 'Atmosphere' in my city.

Ahh, the days when my biggest gripe was waiting for someone to run out of popcorn in the first 20 minutes or when 10 people would stare down a talker and he'd shut up.

Ebert must screen in a rare place if his only complaint is light.

I didn't watch it wrong. It was just my first feature length 3D experience in many years. All of my experiences since have mirrored it however. The effects aren't worth the trouble or the low fL reproduction.The storm scene was a great example of the problem.

Art

Maybe but Tron,for example, looked more like 3 or 4fL in my theater locally using Christie units.

Art

What bugs me is when the whole theater full of adults, other than myself, are laughing their heads off at 6 year-old mentality bathroom humor.

Was that at a Regal digital IMAX theater?

I'm not a teen, but I think for some people its a way to break tension. I quietly crack jokes during scary or suspenseful parts of some films with pals. I'm never loud or rude about it though. I imagine for teens its mostly about attention whoring.


Amen.

No, but I'm guessing 90% of 3D presentations aren't. Regal digital IMAX won't hold up theaters generally.It may be a great presentation and that's great don't get me wrong but I don't have one around here.



Art

re: movie theater crowds

I had to go to municipal court the other night for a traffic ticket. Even after the announcement from the officers and judge about how you should conduct yourself people still acted like they do at movie theaters. Cell phones, ipads, loud talking, screaming babies, etc. etc.

If these dopes act like animals in a courtroom then there's no hope for a lawless theater auditorium.

I hate people more and more every day.

PS - the theater I go to has a nice BRIGHT crispy clear & saturated digital picture.

The reason why I asked was because I had read some comments about poor 3D presentations at some of the Regal digital IMAX theaters.

I still love to go to the movie theater when possible (which is all too rare these days, time-wise).

I've always loved the social aspect of movie-going, experiencing a movie with a crowd.
For the past 1 1/2 years I've had the home theater of my dreams and I adore it. However, I don't think I've ever had a movie experience in my home theater that reaches the level I routinely got in going to the movie theaters, in terms of emotional impact. As much as I love it, it can never fully reproduce some of the great aspects of movie-going for me.

I remember going to see the (fairly recent) release of the BladeRunner Final Cut in the theaters before it came out on HD DVD/Blu-Ray. I'd seen Blade Runner countless times at home, and in friend's home theaters. But seeing it with an audience again in a big theater, as when it first came out, it felt entirely new again. All those lines in the movie that had become rote in my head, stale and dead as it were, came alive because of how people in the audience reacted to the screen. You could hear/feel/sense people reacting to various lines, which gave the experience more of a "live" feeling instead of something canned. I never thought that movie would be fresh again, but there it was.

Not long ago I had a BladeRunner party at my place and we watched the Blu-Ray on my big screen. It was a fabulous sonic/visual experience and certainly made better by the presence of some friends. But still didn't quite reach the experience of the cinema.

So...I'll keep going to cinemas as long as they are around and the crowds keep coming.

Rich, I couldn't agree more. Nothing sadder than an A/V geek sitting alone in a Home Theater, with a projector and surround sound, thinking that he has the ultimate theater experience. The social aspect of theater going is often neglected. I remember the 50 cent movies at the Student Union. It was 16mm film and photoelectric mono sound, shown on a pulldown screen. The audience would cheer the heroes and hiss at the villians, and often this was more entertaining that the movie itself.

I could have typed this myself.

My God. Someone else on this forum actually gets it.

You...complete...me...

Thanks for the tips, but the problems won't stop with the projectors in commercial cinemas.



Really? You don't think I did that already for having such pointed view on the subject? I used to enjoy going to the movies, btw, but it's no longer the case, so I spend less time going and searching for a better theater, then what I have at home.

What's wrong with Atlanta? [never been there]

Got it ,thanks. The nearest IMAX period is just over an hour away. I go there but I have to want to see the film not just see IMAX to go.

Art

In actual fact, I don't think anything has changed, qualitatively, in the theater experience. Once upon a time, you were of the age to laugh inappropriately during a movie. But you aren't anymore, and you never will be again. But many people try desperately to hang onto earlier phases of their life.

It's actually the same discussion that breaks out here all the time. There is a contingent that has to insist that this or that Star Wars movie has never been and will never be equalled. The truth of the matter, of course, is that they will never again be a movie viewer with teenage hormones in their body. It's impossible that another movie will ever make them feel the same way. But for them, it's all the fault of incompetent movie makers, who need to get over their cranial-rectal inversion and make a movie that invokes the same emotions as ___________ did (pick one) 10/20/30/40 years ago.

Just as today, they are in fact old farts who will never again be willing to tolerate typical teenage behavior in public, or willing to give the middle-aged crowd desperately trying to hang onto youth, a break. Even though for some poor folks, the theater represents the only part of their life where they feel they can act inappropriately in public.

It's all part of the circle of life. There always has been a contingent of the population who thinks that they were happier in one of the previous phases of their life than they will be in the next phase. If they are insistent enough about this, they usually succeed in making themselves miserable.

But of course, some of these folks will be so unwilling to accept their own mortality, that they must take up keyboard and tell me how wrong I am. Because THEY haven't changed, they are just the same as they were during puberty, and will always be that same age.

How bout those cell-phone lights and conversations?


LOL. I wish I could say that I haven't changed! However, I can remember the excitement and anticipation I felt that opening weekend when STAR WARS came out. And now, many years later, I can say that I'm having the same feelings about the GREEN LANTERN movie. (Assuming it doesn't suck.)

That's how I feel about IMAX, too. I won't see a film simply because it is being shown in an IMAX theater. For example, my experience with Thor in IMAX 3D was terribly disappointing, although Avatar in IMAX 3D at the same theater had blown me away. This caused me to resolve never again to see a so called IMAX 3D presentation until and unless posters here who had already seen it and whose judgment I respected first posted that the 3D IMAX treatment really worked.

This somes it up for me.

Went to see Thor on a Wed. afternoon(11:45am to be exact) because I thought to myself, "The theater should be empty."

It was the 3D version, and the screen was a little dark, and I found myself taking off the 3D glasses whenever the scene was not using the 3D effect. Distracting, but all in all, I thought the movie was "OK", and would reccommend anyone to watch it once.

But unfortunately for me, the one thing that I was afraid of happening, did. A young couple came in with their "toddler", and that little kid proceeded to cry, and whine through 90% of the film. Never shutting up.

But you know what, it is not his fault.

IT IS HIS IDIOTIC PARENTS FAULT FOR BRINGING A TODDLER TO A MOVIE HE SHOULDN'T BE AT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!

Their were only 4 of us in the theater, and this completely ruined it for me. What the hell is wrong with people?

Americans must be getting dumber, and less considerate, or the whole "me" thing has reached a level where common courtesy is dead.

I understand parents might want to get out, but leave the kid with a babysitter, and go.

But as I type this, I know it is a waste of time. The only way I am going to enjoy movies anymore is watching them on my 58" screen, on a Blu-Ray, with 5.1 DD or DTS surround sound.

I have to give up. So unfortunately for me, Captain America, Green Lantern, Transformers 3, Harry Potter, Cowboys vs. Aliens, X-Men First Class, are all going to have be watched at home.

I figure they will have most of those on Blu-Ray by Thanksgiving.

The only 3D showings I will see are IMAX, simply because of how terribly dark non IMAX 3D is. Every time I have tried Dolby or RealD, I have been met with images so dark that my eyes began to hurt from the strain of trying to see.

Basically, for 3D I will see it in IMAX or in 2D. I am tired of being screwed over.

As much as I love and rely on my HT system, I still see a lot of films in the theater. Glitches are inevitable, of course, but they only happen to me rarely. In return for having to occasionally suffer from bad projection, badly adjusted audio, or an unruly crowd, I get the pleasure of seeing and hearing a film in the way it was designed to be shown, on a large screen with first class sound in a theater with other people.