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Posted
On 3/6/2025 at 12:38 AM, High Plains Drifter said:

 

I also miss dollar theaters. No fucks given at those things. 

But I really miss drive ins. Parents took me to see Smokey and the Bandit and Jaws as a double feature back in the day.

 

Speaking of drive ins, any of you old pervs ever go to the drive in porn theater that used to be off of Smith School Road in far south Austin? They closed down sometime in the early 80s. 

We got to the drive in in new braunfels all the time. Even saw Jaws there last summer.

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Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

There is a drive in in New Braunfels? I did not know that. 

 

 

https://driveinusa.com
 

It’s FM audio so that part just is what it is. But it’s nice to sit out in the lawn chair with some popcorn. Plus they do some good double features.
On weekend nights they do police the lot pretty well. Occasionally there is some idiot that doesn’t turn their car off and some high school kid on a golf cart goes and yells at them.

Edited by hobbes2702
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Posted

i absolutely love going to the movies. our first date we saw Rising Sun at The Arbor. some of it is definitely nostalgia.

but honestly it's mostly bc i just could not imagine seeing a new Tarantino or PTA or Nolan or Coen bros. picture on anything other than the big screen. or Spielberg or Cruise or Scorcese or whoever...

like, i saw Dune 2 twice in theater and once in our decked out basement theater room and the latter did not compare.

we just went to an Interstellar re-release at our fantastic Harkins CineXL theater a couple weeks ago and it was an incredible experience, reminiscent of seeing Aliens or Empire Strikes back when i was young. 

going to the movies has been an integral part of my life experience that i hope i can enjoy until i physically can't anymore.

 

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Posted
6 hours ago, seven said:

The theater doesn't let me smoke a bowl during the movie. Hard pass. 

Bowl in the car before, pen in my pocket for “restroom break”. Or pop a gummy.

Buddy and I got extremely lit before we saw dark knight rises in theater. Too bad that movie sucked asses 

Posted
On 3/4/2025 at 1:30 PM, Aqua Buddha said:

#3.  100%.  We legitimately like going to the movies but most of the movies we want to see either aren't anywhere near us or in some obscure theater at an odd time.  I want to see Anora, Babygirl, and The Substance but I can't find any other them so I'm just waiting until they come out on streaming.

Instead, all of the theaters are stacked with cartoons and comic book movies.

i feel like the message from the academy is "fuck your experience or economics and go back to supporting our mass-market bullshit so we can stay special and rich and feel good about ourselves voting for not-mass-market bullshit"

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Posted
On 3/5/2025 at 12:05 PM, utee94 said:

But my question to the folks at the Oscars insisting that we should go to movies in public theaters is... Why?

Is it because THEY make more money that way?  If so, why should I care about that?

Is it because THEY believe it's a better viewing experience?  Plenty of people on this thread are stating that for them personally, it is not.

Is it for the sake of nostalgia?  If so, why should that be a compelling point for people who don't feel nostalgic about it?

WHY should we lament the loss of 1,000 screens over the past couple of years any more than we lament the loss of 9,000 Blockbuster Video stores since 2004?  

they will tell us it's about better experience, community and nostalgia

reality is they have a network of distributors and theater owners they want to keep fat and happy and the yzoomers can't detach their fones from their faces

in the end the studios will get their hundreds of millions from the next cgi 120' 4D ejaculation but there are too many screens sitting empty and if they lose big screens it will cut in to their ejaculation profit and shrink the top-end of the industry

tl/dr: it not about us it's about them

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Posted
10 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

they will tell us it's about better experience, community and nostalgia

or movie-goers will tell you it's about all that. which i literally just did three posts up lol

i mean my perspective is all about me 😁

 

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Posted
On 3/5/2025 at 12:21 PM, Reynolds Woodcock said:

There is a revenue factor, sure, but making movies is an art form. Like any other art form, the artist wants their product to be consumed in an ideal viewing experience to the greatest extent possible. Watching Oppenheimer on your run of the mill TV with factory speakers (and , god forbid, motion smoothing) is like looking at a screensaver of Guernica.

If streaming only replaced blockbuster on a 1:1 basis, there would be no issue. It's the fact that it's aggressively eating away at the theatrical viewing opportunities. The better comparison is really the replacement of vinyl records and CDs with compressed audio files as the primary form of music consumption. Sure, you have any song any time you want, but the tradeoff is losing much of the quality of the product as originally created.    

my question to the academy is how many voters paid their own money to watch oppenheimer on a large public screen and spent their own money on rotgut and endured 25 minutes of retinastorm eardrumcannon before the film?

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Posted
2 minutes ago, mchookem said:

or movie-goers will tell you it's about all that. which i literally just did three posts up lol

i mean my perspective is all about me 😁

 

i'm reading all the posts from the beginning and haven't gotten to yours yet - my apologies

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Posted
On 3/5/2025 at 1:09 PM, Captain Ron said:

BTW team theater. Yeah, I have a home setup that is pretty good. I like the experience with others. Seeing moments like

 

 

or

 

 

This just hit differently when you hear the audience gasp or the the cheers of the crowd. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

you are absolutely right but both of those were made before the current paradigm took hold - lotr was filming right now 25 years ago

if "hollywood" is serious about this appeal, then they need to organize a national program to use big screens for school kids during the day and disney (starwars) and newline/warner (tolkien) can forego their rights fees for screenings of lucas 4/5/6 and jackson 1/2/3 to program the alphas en masse

and han shot first, get off my lawn

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Posted
On 3/6/2025 at 2:24 AM, notre dame joe said:

tarantino: it's a collective shared experience that you remember

i don't remember lucas5 or jackson2 because i was with other people - the majesty of those moments on a big screen are the same with or without "community"

the shared/collective argument is bullshit

again does qt venture out in public and watch anora in a megaplex?

when the academy proves it eats it's own dog food i might sympathize with their predicament

 

Posted
On 3/6/2025 at 9:50 AM, BurdineBandit said:

I'm sure there's some nostalgia at play, but I still love the big-screen, dark theater experience. 

everyone posting here loves the dark theater experience

it's the enshitification that's the problem

Posted
On 3/7/2025 at 8:07 AM, austingirl said:

The last component, and what I think Sean Baker was really getting at, is that we miss the community aspect of movie-going when we watch at home, and that community aspect is worth more than we think

put aside communing with your family before or after the film

do you commune with strangers before or after?

please do not take this as being antagonistic

i just do not get this community reason for going

Posted
4 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

put aside communing with your family before or after the film

do you commune with strangers before or after?

please do not take this as being antagonistic

i just do not get this community reason for going

I mean, I guess it's like going to a football game vs watching it at home. 

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Posted

It’s not just the one thing. It’s the dismal tide. 
 

Too expensive. Big screens are cheap. Not as many good movies. Here’s a take on why that last one is:

 

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Posted
6 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

i don't remember lucas5 or jackson2 because i was with other people - the majesty of those moments on a big screen are the same with or without "community"

the shared/collective argument is bullshit

again does qt venture out in public and watch anora in a megaplex?

when the academy proves it eats it's own dog food i might sympathize with their predicament

 

You think watching Empire for the first time at home while partially doom scrolling/texting is equivalent to seeing it in a big screen with a group of people collectively having their mind blown? 

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Posted

I saw Pulp Fiction in the theater, late in its run. I was the only one in the theater. It was the best movie experience ever. Fuck the "community" bullshit.

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Posted

I would hate for theaters to close. They’re an experience that I look forward to and plan for. The big screen and comfortable seats are a plus today that I didn’t have growing up. I would hate for that to be gone because of low attendance.so I feel it so important to support them. The biggest problem I’m having is the lack of good films to watch. I really wanted to go Friday and there was zero movies that interested me. 

Posted
5 hours ago, austingirl said:

I mean, I guess it's like going to a football game vs watching it at home. 

But at a football game, we're all rooting for a common cause. I want the people around me to make noise. I like high-fiving strangers. 

I have never done any of those things at a move theater.

Posted
22 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

But at a football game, we're all rooting for a common cause. I want the people around me to make noise. I like high-fiving strangers. 

I have never done any of those things at a move theater.

Well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

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Posted
51 minutes ago, Brandywine said:

The biggest problem I’m having is the lack of good films to watch.

ain't that the truth.  it doesn't take much to get me to a theater but there just isn't much coming out these days that's much of a draw.

Posted
2 minutes ago, futureman said:

ain't that the truth.  it doesn't take much to get me to a theater but there just isn't much coming out these days that's much of a draw.

The death of the comedy movie is the main reason for this imo. We still get the big blockbuster movies from franchises, Ip, and big time directors, but we no longer get the stuff in between. 
Basically the only theater caliber stuff we get is that which I mentioned and horror (which is confined to a couple months a year).

Posted
12 hours ago, Reynolds Woodcock said:

You think watching Empire for the first time at home while partially doom scrolling/texting is equivalent to seeing it in a big screen with a group of people collectively having their mind blown? 

No but he has his hand at all times clutching the remote.

Posted
On 3/7/2025 at 9:40 PM, hobbes2702 said:

https://driveinusa.com
 

It’s FM audio so that part just is what it is. But it’s nice to sit out in the lawn chair with some popcorn. Plus they do some good double features.
On weekend nights they do police the lot pretty well. Occasionally there is some idiot that doesn’t turn their car off and some high school kid on a golf cart goes and yells at them.

Went last year to a double-feature of The Thing and The Shining.  Hard to beat.

Posted
On 3/8/2025 at 8:18 AM, hobbes2702 said:

Bowl in the car before, pen in my pocket for “restroom break”. Or pop a gummy.

Buddy and I got extremely lit before we saw dark knight rises in theater. Too bad that movie sucked asses 

The first time I saw Pulp Fiction we smoked out a little too much in the parking lot before the movie. At some point during the movie I went to the restroom and spaced out for a bit staring at the tiles. Ended up returning to the wrong movie and wanderered around the aisles until I got paranoid and took a seat and watched the rest of some other movie.

Terrible experience.

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Posted
On 3/8/2025 at 4:44 PM, austingirl said:

I mean, I guess it's like going to a football game vs watching it at home. 

This is a great comparison. The crowd gives off a vibe that can't be replicated at home even if you are watching at home with a group.

The Rocky movies were always fun to watch in a crowded theater, the audience would somehow get sweeped up in the fight scene and made it feel like you were ringside.

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Posted
On 3/8/2025 at 9:15 PM, futureman said:

it doesn't take much to get me to a theater but there just isn't much coming out these days that's much of a draw.

as a follow-up to this post…

 

plus the lion king.  JP was released in 1993 but it stayed in theaters for over a year. 

Posted
On 3/4/2025 at 2:53 PM, BrazilHorn said:


 

Theaters are closing down similar to taxis and Blockbusters. Subpar business model that didn’t have a viable competitor. Now they do. 

There's actually a blockbuster still open in Bend, Oregon.  Though from the looks of their merchandise when I was in there a couple of weeks ago, they're making their money selling movie paraphernalia and other crap to nostalgic Gen Xers.  

Posted
On 3/4/2025 at 8:02 AM, Kel Varnsen said:

I like watching at home because if a steamy scene comes on I can take it out and pleasure myself. Last time I did that at a theater, it didn't go well.

Well "it" was a little too loud and we couldn't hear the fucking dialogue

Petrol Dildo on Make a GIF

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Posted
1 hour ago, Not a cat said:

There's actually a blockbuster still open in Bend, Oregon.  Though from the looks of their merchandise when I was in there a couple of weeks ago, they're making their money selling movie paraphernalia and other crap to nostalgic Gen Xers.  

Good for them for understanding their customer base. 

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Rehashing a bit and dovetailing on a couple of other posts...

In his acceptance speech for directing Anora, Sean Baker says (some paraphrased), "Where did we fall in love with the movies?  At the movie theater.  Watching with an audience is an experience.  Communal experience you do not get at home.  Movie theaters are a vital part of our culture.  We want to make films for the big screen.  Distributors, focus on the big screen."  etc.

As noted, there is a nostalgic aspect to seeing a movie in the theaters.  And, in some cases, the experience can be better - especially for some action movies...

The academy are pining for the resurgence of an old, outdated model.  In that model, the largest home TV was a 32", 100+ lb standard definition CRT that cost over $800 when released.  In that model, you could only see movies around 6-12 months after release - best case.  They controlled the distribution; they controlled what was released; etc.

Today, you can get a decent 65" hi-def panel for as low as $350 - and it can provide for all of your entertainment needs: sports, remnants of network TV, streaming, etc.  You can choose when you get to consume the media and with whom.  And, you can turn off a shitty movie without the regret of losing $50+ for the experience.

The business model is evolving and the academy is trying to play on our heartstrings to go see movies in the theater.  I get the nostalgia.  I fell in love with driving and my first car was a 1970s era Honda Civic.  No part of me wants to relive driving that car.  I want the experience to evolve.

That said, it does appear that the movie distributors know what will put butts in theater seats.  Previews I saw at a recent movie: another Jurassic Park; another Mission Impossible; another Superman; another MCU movie; another Karate Kid variant; another Pixar movie (Elio), another Smurfs.  Everything is leveraging an existing franchise; most are action oriented.  Each of those play on nostalgia, but a different nostalgia than the "communal experience" which can really stink if you are attending with the wrong commune.

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Posted

The model is what will support actual film making. Streaming will not. The only streamer who has money is Netflix. For the most part, their releases are shit or a massive waste of money like The Electric State. We're getting sequels, reboots, and IP fests because that's what we, the audience, will only support. But those movies will also support passion projects like the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie and Sinners by Ryan Coogler that will be expensive and probably won't make back their budget. I'm trying to think of the last wholly original idea that made any money that wasn't in the horror genre. I guess Civil War. And sure we all have great home systems but I'm going to see Sinners in 70MM IMAX next Sunday because I want to support a filmmaker who definitely went the extra mile to try to give me a great theater experience. 

The Minecraft thread can attest to the power of the communal experience that you're not getting by waiting till the movie comes out on streaming. 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, mdmost said:

The model is what will support actual film making. Streaming will not. The only streamer who has money is Netflix. For the most part, their releases are shit or a massive waste of money like The Electric State. We're getting sequels, reboots, and IP fests because that's what we, the audience, will only support. But those movies will also support passion projects like the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie and Sinners by Ryan Coogler that will be expensive and probably won't make back their budget. I'm trying to think of the last wholly original idea that made any money that wasn't in the horror genre. I guess Civil War. And sure we all have great home systems but I'm going to see Sinners in 70MM IMAX next Sunday because I want to support a filmmaker who definitely went the extra mile to try to give me a great theater experience. 

The Minecraft thread can attest to the power of the communal experience that you're not getting by waiting till the movie comes out on streaming. 

Agree re: Minecraft - and all of the reboots we are getting.  There definitely is a communal aspect of those, and I participated in it at Minecraft w/ my son. 

Sinners was also previewed at Minecraft and it is on my list of "to see" movies.  Sinners cost around $90mm to make.  A couple of good weekends in the theater followed by decent distribution deals should allow them to recuperate their costs or make significant profit.

"The model is what will support actual film making" - certainly, but the market has changed.  Film studios have adapted, but the film makers are worried, so they are playing the nostalgic "every movie was better at the theater when we were growing up" theme.

It will be more difficult to green-light a higher-cost arty/quirky film going forward.  However, I see your point that a high-profit reboot can help subsidize the arty drama films.  

Apple, Netflix, Amazon, and to a lesser extent HBO/Max are streamers with money.  Most full-length films that get released directly to streaming are films that the studios passed on.  So, most feature films are being vetted by the studios before they get to streaming.  Most high quality content on streaming is in miniseries or series form.  I realize I may seem to be arguing against my own point, but the consumer now has the option of paying $15 per ticket today to see something on the big screen or wait 6-12 months to see it on their high quality home theater.  20 years ago, the latter option was 12-24 months (if at all) on a 26"-32" tube TV.

 

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Posted
2 hours ago, boilerhorn said:

Previews I saw at a recent movie: another Jurassic Park; another Mission Impossible; another Superman; another MCU movie; another Karate Kid variant; another Pixar movie (Elio), another Smurfs.  Everything is leveraging an existing franchise; most are action oriented.  Each of those play on nostalgia, but a different nostalgia than the "communal experience" which can really stink if you are attending with the wrong commune.

7 previews

the model they want us to support requires the patron to pay for the theft of their own time

once a day, add $5 to the ticket price for a showing with no previews

sell at least 1 carbonated beverage without high-fructose corn syrup

form cinema clubs that support that local theater; allow the clubs to schedule their own showings of important films for their kids, i.e. Episode IV, etc.

get creative

innovate

Posted

follow-on:

a week ago at a well-known and popular texmex location the child waiter stated he was a cinephile

i named 10 films from the 20th century and he had seen none of them including the 10 commandments, jaws, goodfellas, unforgiven, and on and on and on

the only 20th century actor I named that he recognized was eastwood

none of this was embarrassing for him

Posted
On 4/3/2025 at 8:54 PM, henrygandorf said:

image.thumb.jpeg.1ef822777edfbb89736c1b16a8c500ef.jpeg

Agree that there’s nothing worth spending $50-100 to see. The family is excited about seeing the new Mision Impossible in the theatre. The last good summer blockbuster worth watching in the movie theater was the last MI 2 years ago. Make some great summertime blockbusters and I’ll go.

Posted

I don’t mind the previews. They give my an idea of what’s coming out of get me psyched up to see nothing I’ve been eating for. Just start them before the movie start time so you can show up to watch or skip them if you don’t.

Posted

A movie doesn’t need to make a billion dollars. Stop charging the theaters so much to show your movie. Then they won’t have to charge us so gotdamn much on concessions. 
 

If you need all that extra profit to cover the rest of your studio’s projects, then stop making unprofitable garbage content. 

Posted

i admit ive never thought about previews in a movie theater as stealing my time 😄 i mean... they're all assigned seats now, you could just, i dunno, show up 15 minutes later 

Sinners looks interesting... we'll see how the reviews look. MI part 2 is absolutely on the list!

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Posted
15 minutes ago, mchookem said:

i admit ive never thought about previews in a movie theater as stealing my time 😄 i mean... they're all assigned seats now, you could just, i dunno, show up 15 minutes later

i've tried that many times; success rate below 20%; how it's gone wrong:

- my reserved seats are occupied, regardless of how full the theater is; when holding a popcorn and drink it's impossible to get the phone out to show the usurpers; it's also impossible to communicate verbally due to the aforementioned preview soundcannon; by the time a manager is found, if they can be found, the movie has started

- there are all kinds of perturbations to the above; a horde of children that want to sit together and their karenmoms incensed i want to sit in my reserved seats; there are empty seats down low in the look straight up section and the usurpers motion to those seats implying that's where i should go; the manager fails to get the usurpers to move and motions me down to the bullshit section and on and on

- staggered start times are factored for concession staffing; if your movie is one of the last of a batch then the manager is going to cut staff loose or re-task them where they are not available to help any late surge; in addition the competence level of concession staffing has plummeted to negative numbers; this last caveat alone requires the insurance of a 20-minute buffer, which of course inevitably only is needed when it's not needed

- occasionally the manager will volunteer a refund for complaints, but only for monies paid, with no consideration for the sunk cost of opportunity and time; i made the effort to buy the ticket online and commit the time, and i don't care what the "contract" says or doesn't say, the only way to ensure my sunk costs are recovered is to arrive early, acquire concessions, and then hold hands over my ears and shut my eyes during the 20-minute preview storm

now, of course, i could patronize alamo, which kicks ass but it's 30 minutes away

there is an alamo-clone 15 minutes away, but it sucks and is over-run with people who i don't like to be around

 

 

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Posted
21 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

i've tried that many times; success rate below 20%; how it's gone wrong:

- my reserved seats are occupied, regardless of how full the theater is; when holding a popcorn and drink it's impossible to get the phone out to show the usurpers; it's also impossible to communicate verbally due to the aforementioned preview soundcannon; by the time a manager is found, if they can be found, the movie has started

- there are all kinds of perturbations to the above; a horde of children that want to sit together and their karenmoms incensed i want to sit in my reserved seats; there are empty seats down low in the look straight up section and the usurpers motion to those seats implying that's where i should go; the manager fails to get the usurpers to move and motions me down to the bullshit section and on and on

- staggered start times are factored for concession staffing; if your movie is one of the last of a batch then the manager is going to cut staff loose or re-task them where they are not available to help any late surge; in addition the competence level of concession staffing has plummeted to negative numbers; this last caveat alone requires the insurance of a 20-minute buffer, which of course inevitably only is needed when it's not needed

- occasionally the manager will volunteer a refund for complaints, but only for monies paid, with no consideration for the sunk cost of opportunity and time; i made the effort to buy the ticket online and commit the time, and i don't care what the "contract" says or doesn't say, the only way to ensure my sunk costs are recovered is to arrive early, acquire concessions, and then hold hands over my ears and shut my eyes during the 20-minute preview storm

now, of course, i could patronize alamo, which kicks ass but it's 30 minutes away

there is an alamo-clone 15 minutes away, but it sucks and is over-run with people who i don't like to be around

I go see movies in the theaters 2-3 times per month. Not once have I had a problem with someone else in my seat.

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