Does the communal aspect of moviegoing really matter?

There is no doubt or disagreement that movies are best viewed on the big screen. If you present people with the option to view a film any way they choose, if all methods were equally priced and equally convenient then the theater would win out every time. Even all the kids watching movies on their iWhatsits wouldn't argue that point. Unfortunately, however, the iWhatsits - along with various other forms of digital and personal media - are killing off movie theaters, as every critic and blogger is quick to note.

But many are also quick to note (Manohla Dargis, most recently) that the death of theaters doesn't just extend to the physical structures containing large screens, but the communal viewing experience. We're watching movies sequestered away in our homes, or on tiny screens that only one person can view at a time. Many articles cite this phenomenon as the biggest casualty in the shift away from traditional moviegoing. I am alone, then, in wondering why it's such a big tragedy?

Dargis' article spells out in numerous ways how audiences are becoming fragmented, but doesn't really explain why that's a bad thing. She boasts that she spent two hours waiting in the cold to see Raging Bull with other eager beavers, but doesn't really articulate why or if that made the viewing experience better. I watched Raging Bull by myself on DVD and it was still fantastic. Ultimately, she just comes off as scared and resentful that times are changing.

The biggest argument in favor of communal viewing is shared emotions, which I don't entirely disagree with. However, there are really only some genres that benefit. Comedies obviously receive a boost when a whole crowd is laughing along, and some shrieks and gasps might enhance a horror flick. But that's about it, and even then an audience doesn't always improve the experience. I've seen comedies where the jokes weren't connecting with anyone in the audience but me, and the silence surrounding my laughter was stifling. Similarly, an excessively vocal viewer can deflate the tension in a suspenseful film.

But what about drama? Documentary? Mystery? Isn't the best you can hope for that people just shut up and you forget that they're present? The whole notion that you're, like, sharing an emotional mindspace or whatever is a bit new-agey for me. How often in a theater are you really existing in that mindspace instead of thinking "wow, that's incredibly sad" or "LOLZ" or "so it's a dream WITHIN a dream?!" The best case scenario, at least in my opinion, is that the film is absorbing enough that you forget everything else.

People can be assholes at the theater. Even in the earliest days of cinema, moviegoers had to contend with women's ornate headpieces. Those days are gone, but we still have talkers, texters, shushers, hecklers, chewers, coughers, latecomers, indiscriminate laughers, crazy homeless yellers, and crying/screaming children. And let's not forget the occasional patron who stabs people with a meat thermometer. The odds are really stacked against you when you enter a theater, and yet most people manage to behave themselves. But are they really adding anything to your experience? Would an empty matinee showing be less enjoyable than a packed evening one, even one packed with perfectly behaved viewers?

I've had many solo or intimate viewing experiences that I wouldn't trade for the world. I watched the entire five and a half hour TV version of Ingmar Bergman's contemplative Fanny and Alexander with my boyfriend in our gloriously quiet apartment. I've watched comedies with a handful of friends that share my exact comedic wavelength. I've helped my boyfriend plan around his then-roommates' schedules so we could watch certain films in a sacred zone free of interruption. I've watched some kooky and/or culty films alone or with my boyfriend, knowing full well that the mysterious spells they cast would have been violently obliterated by nonstop seizures of laughter from audience members who interpret anything slightly off as riotously funny. Some films need room to breathe, and a packed house can suffocate it.

The line is also blurry when you consider television. Another favorite topic of bloggers these days is how we're in a TV renaissance, with content like Mad Men and Breaking Bad resembling, rivalling, and often surpassing what we can see in a theater. Where's the demand for these shows to have a communal experience? Why do we need to watch all films (even subpar ones) in a theater for the full experience, but no one questions that we're watching similarly (or more) cinematic content at home on TV? Probably because, like movies in a theater, that's just how it's always been done.

I'll keep going to the theater, because I want to see films sooner and because the presentation is better than it would be at home. I don't just dismiss the whole experience in one fell swoop - none of this "stupid kids and their Inceptions and textphones and it all costs a million dollars and I'll just stay home!" nonsense. (And by the way, all those articles saying that a night at the movies for a family of four costs more than a Porsche can suck it. Go sometime other than Saturday night at 7:00pm, find a coupon, bring your own damn food, and quit whining.) But when I strike it rich, I'm building myself my own personal Arclight and shipping in new prints every day for myself and my closest friends. You should probably start sucking up to me now, just in case.

What do you think? Is the communal aspect of moviegoing important to you?

The problem of "trailer bingo"

I see a lot of movies in theaters - typically at least 2-3 per week, depending on the time of year (i.e. Oscar season pileups). As a result, I see a lot of trailers. Or, to be more precise, I see a moderate amount of trailers many, many times over (even considering that I watch DVRed shows so I can skip commercials and I rarely watch trailers online). Aside from just being repetitive and rather irksome, this especially affects me because I seem to have a disproportionately receptive and sticky brain for trailers (and all the images, lines, and musical cues therein). I only have to see a trailer once to have it lightly etched into my memory, and by the third or so time every frame of it is burned there forever. Thus, when I actually see the movie in question, a phenomenon occurs where I am actively anticipating every microscopic fragment of the trailer. I call this "trailer bingo."

It truly makes me crazy. Symptoms range from noticing that a character is wearing the same outfit as a clip from the trailer and thus waiting for a certain line to come up, to realizing that the movie can't be over yet because a particular moment has not yet occurred. Even for movies whose trailers are mostly visual, such as A Single Man and Micmacs, I kept waiting for every single two-second closeup to appear.

For the most part, I can manage. The one truly unbearable studio, however, is Fox Searchlight. They mercilessly beat you over the head with their trailers (never more than one for the same film, either) for months. My boyfriend and I could fully recite and act out the trailers for The Wrestler, (500) Days of Summer, Crazy Heart and most recently, Cyrus. (He's not as badly afflicted as I am, though.)

I generally have a low threshold for repetition - even for things I like - so perhaps that explains it. I'm not sure what to do about it other than sit in the lobby like a sulking toddler for the entirety of the previews, which isn't a very appealing notion. Guess I'm destined to suffer forever...

Does this affect you too, or am I just completely insane?

Middle-aged people who can't behave at the movies

I will begin with a story. When I was a lot younger, I used to go with my mom and sister to a community pool during the summer. In the women's locker room, I started to notice that all of the women that were in their 50s or above would wander around stark naked. You would get an eyeful of everything from a few wrinkles to varicose veins and boobs dragging on the floor. And there was no discretion, no modesty - these women almost seemed like they were wandering around the locker rooms aimlessly in the nude. It was rather inconsiderate to those who, um, didn't want to see all that. One day, I asked my mom, "Why do they do that?" Her response? "They just don't care anymore."

What does this have to do with moviegoing? Well, believe it or not, I've noticed a parallel between locker room nudity and movie theater politeness. As a child, you have no self-awareness. You'll scream indiscriminately in a movie theater because you can't comprehend that it's an environment where you shouldn't. Similarly, you'll run around naked in a locker room (or often, any number of places) because you can't even conceive of that being a problem. Then, as you get older, you get self-aware and insecure. You would never be seen naked anywhere. This continues through your teens, twenties, thirties. You start to learn appropriate behaviors for different environments. But then, as middle age hits, you've served your time. You've been polite, you've held back. So you let loose. And this is my explanation for why at about half the movies I go to, there are middle-aged people behaving worse than children. I didn't want to get ageist here, folks, but you made me do it.

I should first quantify this statement: I probably don't see as many blockbusters as the average person. I was nowhere to be found for Transformers 2 or 2012, but I did see and enjoy Sherlock Holmes. Those types of films are the ones where the audience pest you're most likely to find is the teenage hooligan. Since blockbusters comprise the backbone of the American moviegoing experience, the teenage hooligan has been generalized as the number one theater pest. But triple their age, and you'll find yourself with the primary menace to foreign, independent, and classic films.

A couple of summers ago, my local rep house did a series of rare film noir double features. My boyfriend and I (read: early 20-somethings) hurried off to the theater with geeky film-nerd excitement. We were by far the youngest people in attendance (we even bumped into one of my professors). Everyone else was 40+.

It was the worst-behaved audience I have ever seen in my life. And I'm counting kid's films and blockbusters.

Everyone, EVERYONE talked at full volume the whole time. They made snarky comments. They laughed nonstop (and these were not comedies). Since this was a small, university-owned venue, there were no ushers. It was unbearable. It makes you wonder why they even bothered to come.

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I saw A Single Man. It's the artsy film debut of a fashion designer - like, you're not gonna wander into it by accident, and on the off-chance you do, it's probably because you meant to see A Serious Man. It stars Colin Firth, and there's a scene where his character is on the toilet. It's not supposed to be funny - it's just the vantage point of the character's house where he can see his neighbor's yard. You can't see any genitalia or anything. There's no bodily function noises. And yet, the second they saw someone on a toilet, the whole highbrow audience started laughing. I've seen the same thing happen at other indie/foreign films when someone is naked, there's a sex scene, etc. You know, things that would make a 12-year-old giggle.

My theory for this is that this middle-to-upper-class middle-aged folks see good reviews of these films in The New York Times and want to seem edumacated and sophistimacated by seeing them, yet they apparently lack the maturity to do so. I don't know exactly, but this isn't blind prejudice because I'm just reporting what's actually happening.

And teenagers and young people aren't the only ones fiddling with their phones, either. I saw The Yes Men Fix the World with my 54-year-old dad at the Film Forum in New York, and he texted THE ENTIRE TIME. I kept gesturing to him to stop, and he wouldn't. I thought it was maybe something urgent or business-related, but no, he was just trying to arrange to get tickets to a baseball game. Clearly, stepping outside for a single brief call would have been out of the question.

So I implore you, baby boomers: BEHAVE. Indie and foreign films often contain sexual situations and other things you have to be 17 to see, or artistically challenging moments. If these situations are literally outside of what your maturity level allows, please don't attend. There are people there trying to experience serious art appropriately. Put your god damn phones away. Try to set an example for the young whippersnappers.

P.S. - This extends to other art forms too. I'm a big dance buff and last year I saw an amazing show by Jirí Kylián called "Black and White." It featured dancers moving their bodies in unexpected but really dynamic and interesting ways, and even periodically using their voices. For some reason people moving their bodies in unexpected ways makes most people really uncomfortable, so my evening was almost ruined by rampant laughter and coughing. (Whenever there is silence in a live theater piece, the audience goes wild coughing.) And again, these are blue-blood fine arts patrons.

Have you found this to be the same problem as me? (All ages welcome to comment, of course!)

Movie theater verbal diarrhea

There seem to be several things that will suddenly happen to me when I turn 40. Besides the obvious physical changes, I will suddenly do everything Oprah tells me to do, for instance. I will find Hugh Jackman attractive (how does he have such a stranglehold on moms?!). But what I am looking forward to the least is the onset of movie theater verbal diarrhea.

This is something I start to notice every year around Oscar season. You'll get a lot of thinkpiece movies, ones that feature cutting dialogue and verbal sparring. Frost/Nixon and Doubt are good examples from this year's crop, particularly since those films are based on plays. When I'm sitting in the audience for films like that, whenever Meryl-Streep-as-Sister-Aloysius or Michael-Sheen-as-David-Frost gives a good jab, a stunning punch of logic or morals, I'm inclined to mentally give a little "oooo" or "yeah!" The key word here is MENTALLY. Verbal diarrhea describes the process of the brain-to-mouth filter eroding, and consequently verbalizing every single thought you have about what is unfolding in front of you.

I saw a Sunday matinee of Doubt, and the theater was awash with moans and grunts. Women particularly would give a big "Oooooo" or "mmmmm" after every line with any weight - so, like, the whole movie. I started to dread those moments in the film because I knew their power would be somewhat diminished by some obligation to give a noise to what the audience was feeling. It was happening when I saw The Wrestler too, after every single moment of emotion.

This isn't to say that people aren't allowed to react to movies. You can and should should laugh when it's funny and cry when it's sad. But verbal diarrhea is the equivalent of someone saying "THAT WAS DEEP" after every line that was. It doesn't let a film breathe.

Am I being completely hypersensitive or does this bother other people too?

My dream week of theater programming

There's a great little independent movie theater in my native Boston called the Brattle Theatre. It has hosted such pivotal moments in my life as almost getting a picture with Simon Pegg and going to a screening of American Splendor because I knew a cute boy was going but ultimately falling completely in love with the film and forgetting the boy. Anyway, they have a cool annual raffle (called the Braffle!) where the winner gets to pick a night of programming for the theater. Anything you want them to show, they'll try to dig it up (read more about it here ). Winning that would clearly be awesome, but I couldn't even begin to think of what I'd pick if I only had one night. Thus my interest was piqued when they posted their schedule for this past March (yes, I started this post a while ago), and I noticed that one of their repertory series is called "Selected By...Andrew Bujalski." Bujalski is a local indie filmmaker (http://imdb.com/name/nm1216004/) and now, the target of my fierce jealousy. I've decided that being chosen to inflict your taste upon people - for a week! - is the ultimate measure of success. You can check out his picks here - or just do what I did and start thinking about what your dream program would be.

Let's say you had six days (as Andrew did). You can do single or double features, maybe a triple, themed or not. But before you just start rattling off all your favorite movies, there are some things to take into consideration. First of all, you might want to think in terms of films that could benefit from being shown on the big screen. Silent expressionist classics? Sure. Lavish musicals? Totally. A Will Ferrell movie? Not really. Second, this is your chance to tell people what they should see. Maybe you really like Jaws, but bringing Jaws to the masses won't really make a statement at this point. It's your chance to be that cool friend saying "hey, check out this movie, maybe you haven't heard of it but I think you'll like it" on a large scale. Finally, you would want to pick films that say something about you as an artist or as a person. If someone told you that they like the Beatles, does that really narrow down what kind of a person they are at all? Similarly, if you were to screen Star Wars or The Godfather or The Wizard of Oz, that's pretty noncommittal. Everyone likes those. Also, if you want, it's fun to think of films that go well together, either thematically, chronologically, by person, etc...

So after some consideration, here is my dream "Selects" series!

NIGHT 1
Ruthless ambition night!

Election (1999)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Though one is a perky high school student and the other is a sleazy and desperate ad man in New York, both Tracy Flick and Sidney Falco are experts at clawing their way to the top. Election's dark comedy would complement the acidic tone of the jazz-tinged Sweet Smell.

NIGHT 2
Dance! Dance! Dance!

Center Stage (2000
All That Jazz (1979)

The former is just a straight-up guilty pleasure. It's what a ridiculous dance movie should be: absurd and contrived dialogue, unlikely coincidences, and unironically awesome dance sequences. The latter is especially timely due to the recent passing of its star, Roy Scheider. If you only know Scheider as Captain Brody from Jaws, you're in for a treat if you witness his bravura performance as a thinly veiled portrayal of the film's director, Bob Fosse. Although he doesn't actually do much singing or dancing, those duties are more than amply distributed to the rest of the cast, who create an alternately jubilant, morose, and surreal experience. Would be amazing on the big screen.

NIGHT 3
Pedro Almodóvar night!

Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown) (1988)
Carne trémula (Live Flesh) (1997)
Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) (1999)

This is my frenzied cry for America to pay more attention to Pedro. He is my favorite director working today, and the only one whose movies I consistently get ridiculously excited for. I try to push him on people at every possible opportunity. This trio of films represents the three stages of his career pretty well. Early on, his movies were lusty screwball farces, of which Mujeres is the best example. Carne marked his move into melodrama, but is still teeming with the extravagant excess of his earlier work. Todo sobre mi madre is one of my absolute favorite films of all time, and represents a maturation and polish to his films. No detail is overlooked, and Almodóvar dictates everything from casting to set design to soundtrack. He is pure cinema. (They actually had a Pedro program at the Brattle this summer, so maybe this would be better somewhere else.)

NIGHT 4
Rockin the suburbs!

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1959)
Little Children (2006)

Two very different films, from very different times, that echo the same sentiment: the suburbs are fucked up. The ORIGINAL Body Snatchers (I don't mess with the 70s version, or that Nicole Kidman remake crap) begs the question of whether the emotionless clones of citizens that begin to appear are symbolic of Communists. Whether they are or not, I think we can all agree that giant oozing pods appearing all over town and spawning evil clones is fairly problematic. Little Children, a criminally overlooked masterpiece of 2006, deals instead with inner demons - adultery, pedophilia, porn addiction, isolation, insecurity, and other fun things of that nature. And Patrick Wilson is gorgeous, so now you have no excuse for missing this nonexistent event.

NIGHT 5
Modern black and white night!

The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

I'm always interested by modern filmmakers who choose to film in black and white. Some, like Kevin Smith for Clerks, do it for financial reasons, but Clooney and the Coens wisely chose it for artistic reasons. Both films, set around mid-century, make ample use of gorgeous cinematography with no shortage of langurous cigarette smoking. Stunning cinematography and acting would make this pairing a knockout.

AFTERNOON 6
Fun!

What a Way to Go! (1964)

A breezy matinee to cap off the week. Did you know that there's a movie starring Shirley MacLaine, Robert Mitchum, Gene Kelly, Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman and Dean Martin, that's a dark comedy that parodies silent film, French film, and musicals? Yes. This exists. And it's awesome.

What would yours be, for a day or a week?

The top 5 worst moviegoing patrons I have ever encountered

I love going out to see movies in theaters - who doesn’t? The only problem (other than skyrocketing ticket prices, gross overpriced food, obscurity of indie features, sticky floors, etc.) is that I cannot have the theater to myself. I am forced to share it with dozens of strangers who often seem hell-bent on making my theater-going experience unpleasant. And yet, some people go above and beyond the call of duty and make it downright miserable. Here is a tribute to the top five people who fall into this prestigious category.

1. Movie: Knocked Up
Offender: The snitch
So I’m at a theater in suburban New York with my boyfriend, and we’re meeting up with his friend there. Once we’re all in line waiting to buy our tickets, I discreetly show the friend the contraband bag of M&Ms I have purchased for the occasion. Suddenly, this guy, who is not even in line but awkwardly off the side, blurts out (in reference to the candy) “I know what you’re gonna do with those!” Um, yeah, eat them. OR BUILD A ROCKET SHIP! No, eat them. I didn’t really know what to say, except maybe that I was proud he had figured out what M&Ms were for? I stared blankly, my boyfriend and his friend equally confused, and then the guy added “What’s to keep me from telling on you?” Note: this guy did NOT work here. I think I said, “Um, karma?” We bought our tickets and went into the theater, but I ran out to use the bathroom right before the movie started. This guy was still in the lobby, with no apparent intention of seeing a movie at any point, and yelled, “There she is! There’s the traitor!” What this man was hoping to achieve through these tactics, I will never know.

2. Movie: V for Vendetta
Offender: Guy who probably thinks he’s going to marry Natalie Portman
My friend Scott and I went to a late-night showing of this opening weekend. It was Saturday night, and the theater was sparsely populated. Before the movie, Scott started eating some chips. A portly fellow sitting directly in front of us, who had clearly crawled out of his mom’s basement and through mountains of ejaculate-soaked pictures of bald Natalie Portman to be here for this occasion, suddenly whipped around and said to Scott, “Do you plan on crunching your food like that for the whole movie?!” Scott, stunned and shocked, whimpered “No.” We agreed later that he should have replied with a triumphant YES!

3. Movie: Borat
Offender: Hyena with epilepsy
Borat is a funny movie. I am aware of this. I knew this going into it, and expected a theater full of merry patrons’ laughter. What I did not expect was the guy I wound up sitting next to. He had a sort of frat-boy look, and enjoyed the movie immensely. The way he expressed this, however, was to erupt into a screeching, bloodcurdling laugh at EVERY JOKE, clap hysterically, rock back and forth like a crazy person, and repeat the hilarious line verbatim. It went something like this:

Borat on screen: High five!
Guy next to me: HIGH FIVE! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap seesaw seesaw seesaw*

4. Movie: The Savages
Offender: The phantom puker
I never came face-to-face with whoever this was, which is good for them, because I would have kicked their ass. I saw this film on a weekday night in a pretty empty theater. The actual movie went on without incident. When I went to leave, I noticed two girls staring at the exit with hesitation. When I approached, I realized that the door was soaked in vomit. The strange thing was that the point of impact was the exact middle of the double doors, right where you would push them open. That absolutely had to be pre-mediated, because in a normal upchucking situation, the vomit would just end up on the floor (which isn’t to say that some didn’t get on the floor too). The doors were so evenly covered that these two girls and myself didn’t know how to get out without touching something sticky. Eventually, we devised a system where I kicked the door open on the one dry patch, and we all ran out. I’m not saying that this was a crippling inconvenience to my life, but it was just fucking disgusting.

5. Movie: A History of Violence
Offender: the entire audience
A History of Violence isn’t a comedy, right? I didn’t think so. But this entire audience did. It was like a huge crowd of teenagers had time-traveled here from the 1950s, where they had been watching a sci-fi B-movie at a drive-in and were anxious for it to be over so they could go to Lovers’ Lane. They behaved themselves for the first half, but the second half consisted of hysterical laughter, jeering, cheering, and lewd and rude shouted comments. Included in this ruckus was my then-roommate, as I had just gotten to college and was eager to bond with the person I lived with. Incidentally, this was the first and last time we ever hung out, because she turned out to be a wretched bitch who had already written nasty things about me on her easy-to-locate blog within the first week of school when I had been nothing but nice to her. Ha, sweet revenge! At least I have the class to keep her anonymous.

Who was the worst theater patron you ever had to deal with?