Pajiba

It's pretty tame but I often see movies with a group of five other friends, all male, and they absolutely refust to sit in adjacent seats. So the six of us end up taking up amost a whole row. Not sure who, but at least a couple of my friends have issues.

Back when I was in the military working shift work (12 hours at night/seven fucking days a week for months on end)...and a full fledged alcoholic, I would show up to a theater for the earliest showing with as much vodka and beer I could sneak in. I would stick around until I ran out of booze or got told to get out when I would pass out. God I watched a lot of shitty movies...over and over again...

If I'm by myself, I spend about 10 to 15 minutes picking my seat. First, I survey the lay of the theater. Next, I estimate from what height and angle my eyes will work best that day. Then, I slowly climb the stairs/go down the aisle, stopping every row to estimate what the viewing experience will be like. I then try out a couple seats and see if I like the row. If not, I get back up and keep moving through the theater. Eventually, I choose the row. Then I need to pick just the right seat. I don't like to sit behind anyone else, in front of anyone else, or within three seats of anyone else as long as those conditions are under my control. I pick my perfect seat, build up a fort of bags and coats to protect the seats to my left and right, then proceed to dig out my reviewing notebook, an assortment of pens, my bottle of water, and my healthy theater snack. Finally, I judge everyone else as a horrible human being for doing any of the same things I did. Lazy thieving isolating asshole thinking he's hot shit for taking notes during a film and making a spectacle of himself.

One night in high school, I sneaked into a midnight showing of Hudson Hawk with four or five other guys. The theater was empty so we ran relay races around the room. At least I think the theater was empty. It was empty by the time we left.

We're pretty easygoing in theatres, although we always smuggle in candy & buy pop.
I have a horrible fried chicken experience, too. We saw I Am Legend, and during the scene when the dog died, I became hysterical. I can't handle dead dogs, and for whatever naive reason, did not see this coming, so I ended up with my face buried in my husband's jacket, sobbing uncontrollably. Meanwhile, the enormous man next to me continued to loudly eat his chicken wings, including gnawing the meat from the bone & slurping his fingers. I've never felt so simultaneously sad & nauseous in my life.

Oops. Got a little overzealous with my caps, there.

...and I settle in to watch AND LISTEN to the movie. This is why I usually only go to theaters when I know it will be empty.

This one time, I saw My Bloody Valentine 3D, and this old lady with a cane sat next to me, and cackled the whole way through. It was AWESOME. Way better than the annoying teenagers who stood behind me after the movie started and talked and talked and talked until an usher FINALLY told them they had to find seats or leave. That old lady and I, though, we had a good old time.

I smuggle when I bother to plan ahead. And if I smuggle it's a bottle of water and some Reese's peanut butter cups. Mmmm, Reese's....

I remember when I was a kid my Aunt Sunshine (yes, that was her real name) took me to see The Last Emperor and she took a huge purse so she could smuggle in a bag of microwave popcorn as well as a couple Dr. Peppers for us. She was a champion smuggler. I was shocked as my mom never had any food in her purse except lemon drops and it seemed so dishonest for my saintly auntie to bring food in like that.

Anywho, no rituals other than wanting to sit slightly in front and to the left of the middle of the theater. I also ALWAYS clean up after myself and don't leave any food containers or napkins lying around. Also, I stay for all the credits. Boring.

My husband's weird thing is how damn hard it is to get him to go to a movie at all. He's incredibly cheap and hates to spend the money when he can always easily find some random Clint Eastwood film on cable. *sigh*

"Did that projectile vomitting thing really happened, because I think it was on the worst episode of Family Guy I ever saw."

Posted by: Viking at April 21, 2010 9:16 PM

Yes, it really happened. It was in the fall of 2004 at a showing of The Incredibles at the Regal in Eagan, which I went to with my then-boyfriend. It was pretty nasty, but all the pukers (there were four in total) were sitting on the other side of the aisle from where we were, so there was blessedly a decent amount of distance between us and the spewing. Fried Chicken Farts Lady was so much worse than the barfers though, because she was sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME.

I saw Andy Warhol's Trash several years ago at the Egyptian Theater in Seattle, and a guy two rows in front of me combed his hair throughout the entire movie. I'm still not sure which sight was the superior entertainment....

I will at times indulge my snark and do an MST3K thing at the trailers, but I generally quiet down when the main feature starts.

If the main feature's a flaming sack of dog poo, though, I go back to channeling Joel and Da Bots.

I don't go to the theatre too often, but I have a habit of getting as cozy as possible. If watching a movie at home, I impulsively hug pillows. Unfortunately, I've never brought anything snuggly into a movie theatre and usually just hug my knees until my legs fall asleep, then sit normally until enough feeling returns that I can curl up again. Vicious cycle.

I like my space and I like it to be child and comment free. If I am on a date and the movie stinks, I reserve the right to sleep all the way through the movie undisturbed.

If the movie is crowded, I want to sit on the end of the row. I'd rather have people climbing over and around me than do the climbing myself.
We like the food at the Alamo enough that if we can't think of what to do for dinner (and the g/f is craving popcorn) we'll just hope there's a movie that doesn't suck too bad and go watch it.

What's the worst thing that happened at the movies? So, the Alamo Drafthouse has tables of a sort all in a row in front of the seats, right? And they bring you real food? First of all, this girl next to me, in a packed theater, asks loudly if I can take my "stank meat smell of my dinner" away from her. Uh, no. Shut up, hippie. THEN, she proceeds to put her BARE feet on the TABLE next to my FOOD. Plus, she almost knocked over my sangria. The server saw me freaking out and threatened the girl with a beer bottle. It made my night.

Got a hum job in a theater once, true story. It wasn't disgusting. In fact, it was marvelous.

Don't remember the movie, but you wouldn't either.

When I go to the movies with my dad--who I go to the movies with often because he is the only other person I know who loves really bad movies (like 2012) like I do--we always sit in the back row and before this becomes one of those "OMG West Virginia everyone is really uncomfortable now" stories, it's because we both equally hate everyone and we figure the last row means one less row of people around us to annoy the fuck out of us. Sometimes it even works.

We always go to the Sunday matinee, at least three weeks after the original movie opening, to further ensure there won't be 85 annoying teenagers and a baby in the mix.

For movies I tend to bring my own sunflower seeds and use some sort of cup/receptacle for the shells. I like to go with friends but otherwise, goin' to a movie by myself in the middle of the day, the place nice and quiet, THAT is my prime viewing experience. Also a lot of movie theaters that I frequent have restaurants with bars next to the theater, so I will knock back a few before even picking up the ticket. ALSO: unless the movie is going to be a "Big Deal", I'll wait a couple weeks before I see a flick, just because I hate young (see: suburban highschool kids dropped off by their parents) crowds and anyone who talks during a movie.

I have to see the previews no matter what and tell the person I am with how terrible or awesome the movie looks. If it is particularly terrible or awesome I will tell everyone around me how I feel.

My brother and I usually smuggle in McDonalds or candies in his bag when we get in. We never get caught. I find it funny that we usually show up with the stuff in our hands and the guy at the front tells us we cant bring it in so we just come back with a backpack.

Toward the end of senior year of HS, everyone had a graduation party. They would usually end at about 10, which was too early to go home but too late to go anywhere real in the suburbs. Luckily, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was playing every night at 10:30! So on 15 or so separate occasions my friends and I went to that showing and took over the theater. We'd each lie down on 5 seats or so (the armrests went up), we'd hang our wet bathing suits over seats, we'd recite the lines along with the movie. Usually there were only a few other people there, so we felt OK about being totally obnoxious. Normally, though, I'm pretty chill about movies, except that I often (maybe 90% of the time) sneak crepes into the theater.

I need to be at the end of the row of people I'm sitting with or in the seat next to the aisle. I NEED to be there. I don't know what it is, I don't know why it happens, but if I get stuck in the middle of a row that is packed out with people and I have no escape route, I will have a panic attack and have to leave. When picking seats, I have to find the emptiest row.

Once I sat down in the wheelchair row where there were two seats together, a gap, and another two seats together. I was with my husband, but instead of sitting in the chair next to me, he sat in the chair on the other side of the gap. (Don't judge, he understands my issues.) Anyway, the movie had been on for about 15 minutes when some guy walked in, sat down in the chair right next to me, snuggled up against my shoulder and handed me his popcorn bucket. I think he thought I was his date or that he knew me, but when I looked at him and he realized I was a stranger, we both got very awkward. I wasn't sure what to do. I think he didn't want to make it obvious that he'd made a mistake by sitting with me, so he just stayed where he was and played it off as if he'd done it on purpose. I wasn't about to give up my seat. That was the longest damn movie I've ever sat through in my life.

I always get pocorn and a soda and I absolutely cannot start consuming either until the movie begins. Ever. Even if I'm early and there are 3 previews and all my friends are staring at me funny. Also, I don't share. Ever.
My weirdest movie experiences (thus far) were:
- Watching Malcolm X in Times Square and realizing I was the only Caucasian in the joint surrounded by people yelling "Kill Whitey" and "Blue-eyed devil".
- Watching Out of Africa as a kid a row behind my parents, forgetting the man on my left was in fact not my Dad but a complete stranger, and asking him brightly "What's syphilis?" I don't think the gentlemen has quite recovered to this day.

Oh, I will certainly smuggle. I got no shame in bringing in a bigger bag of M&M Peanuts than what's sold at the concession stand -- because it's still CHEAPER than the one they sell me. TBF, I will buy a soda or popcorn every now and again. But candy? Nuts? I sneak those suckers in.

Aside: the winter movie season is easier than the summer one to sneak stuff in. Big coats with lots of pockets are perfect. But in summer, it's nothing but t-shirts, jeans and nothing big on top...which is where a big purse comes in. But for that, you better be/get a girl.

As for bad stories, here's 2:

- We go see Swordfish and in front of us sits a whole group of college kids who are clearly working on a bender. Why they decided to stop drinking, leave their bar and come to a movie theater, I don't know. Anycase, one of the girls, a blonde slurping down a daiquiri can't shut up throughout the movie -- talking back a the screen, talking to her friends. Finally some yells "STFU Bitch!" and she turns around angry.

Unfortunately, drunks don't do well when spinning fast. And as she finished the arc of her angry turn, her stomach decides it can't handle the evening's contents and she pukes all over her seat. Cue angry patrons. Cue friends all grabbing her and making a dash for exits.

- Another time we made a midnight showing of Blade 2 (why is it you never go see Award winning stuff late at night?) In any case, a group of young guys sits a few rows ahead of us. Not a problem. Everything's going cool. And then midway through the movie, we begin hearing a loud noise. We look around and it's one of the guys that has fallen asleep and is now SNORING loudly in the theater.

Everyone starts giggling but no one shuts him up. The snoring comes and goes for the rest of the movie then, as if commanded, the audience (all 30 of us) got up quietly and made as little noise as it left while he kept snoring. Guy didn't move and didn't wake until the ushers came in and rousted him. By then everyone was laughing their asses off at him.

My cinema rituals are relatively basic; I have to get a black coffee, water, and something sweet like candy or sorbet(I dont eat ice cream)

I drink my coffee, eat my sweets, then drink all my water to try and flush out both the caffeine and the sugar.

My dad has similar rituals down to where we sit. We have to be vaguely centre aisle but if we're nearer the end, he HAS to sit on the outside to protect us(his kids/wife who ever) from any loonies that might come down the aisle.
This is based on an incident when my mum was sat on the outside of the aisle and some weirdo sat beside her and started jerking off. Mum told Dad who bodily lifted her from her seat, plonked her in his, then took hers and sat and GLARED at the literal wanker, until the dude went away.

I cannot, CANNOT be in a movie theatre with more than 10-15 other people. I don't go to concerts for that same reason. I have purchased tickets, walked in and promptly walked right back out if it's too "crowded". Phobic, probably, but enclosed crowds freak me out - crowds in the dark, FOR-GET-IT.

I always leave going to the cinema until the last few showings of a movie's run, and sit in the seats as far away from anyone else as possible. Mainly this is out of courtesy to other people, as I do like to occasionally lean over to the person I'm with and make some comment that causes them to shoot Pepsi out of their nose. This usually causes a war between us to ensue, ending in me shaking so hard to keep from laughing out loud that the entire row is moving.
When I saw Twilight (don't judge me) with my sister the cinema was fairly busy, and I ended up biting my hand to stop from snorting with laughter. Then the hiccups started. Thankfully the nearby tweens thought this was hilarious and everyone treated the whole film as a comedy from then onwards.

I fully realise that is incredibly irritating behaviour, and when anyone else does it I will be sure to tell them to be quiet or get the hell out. Hypocritical is my natural state of being.

(Sidenote - grapes are an excellent snack to smuggle in. You can eat as many as you want without feeling sick or going into a sugar coma. Also, put them in a box and you make no noise with rustling or crunching - they are the ninjas of the snack world.)

I have to get to the theater well before the previews or I FREAK THE FUCK OUT. What if the previews aren't 30 minutes long? Then we'll miss the beginning of the movie and I'll be unable to fully enjoy the movie and we've wasted $500 or however much it costs to see a movie now. I also smuggle in candies but buy drinks there. We only take Monkey to daytime showings of kid movies and if it is summertime we only take her to the drive-in. Actually, I much prefer to just go to the drive-in whether we have Monkey with us or not.

When we go to the drive-in I make cheeseburgers before we leave and wrap them in foil. We pack a cooler, blankets, pillows, and I take a book. We get to the drive-in well before the movies will start because I want a good spot in the middle of one of the back rows reserved for the SUVs and vans. We pull into the space, lift the hatch on the back of the Explorer, lay down the back seats and make a bed, find the correct station, put the cooler on the gravel in front of us and wait for the movie to begin. At some point I require nachos. Then we watch our movies, changing screens when we want to and trying to get three movies in. Also, we can attempt to make Monkey sleep and, if we can't, her screams from seeing something like Indiana Jones Twelvedy-Ninety are unheard by other patrons.

Raisinettes and Diet Coke since I was a little kid. Once in awhile I'll skip the Raisinettes and get a small popcorn. I prefer the upper rows but sitting in the middle or the far right corner.

And if you talk during the previews I will fuck you up. I've had boyfriends trying to kiss me and I've shoved them away so I could watch trailers. I fully believe the "trailer guy's" voice and the sweeping music makes shitting movies that much better.

And after living in Harlem, I never go to a predominantly black neighborhood movie theater anymore. Not cause they're dirty or full of drugs (some in NYC are great), but because even the midnight shows have people talking to the screen, talking on their cell phones and people with toddlers and infants on their laps, crawling on the floor and in strollers. Even for hardcore movies like Saw. Boggles my mind. Get a fucking babysitter.

Up at school, I refused to see a movie if it wasn't before 1 P.M., so I could use the $5 ticket coupon.
And I will never fool around in a movie theater. One, because when I go to the movies I actually want to watch. And Two, because I am too considerate of others.
But when it comes to yelling at the screen, my deaf firefighter father is the worst. He is shameless, and it's either embarrassing or awesome. And I realized I am my father's son when I laughed and groaned my way through Beowulf with such conviction that the whole theater joined in.

I went to the midnight showing of Wolverine, drunk out of my mind, and the theater they showed it at was level seating, so it blew, and being drunk, i though people should know this.
So I stood up and said "This movie sucks as bad as these seats!"
Some girl gave me a box of chocolate covered gummies.

I always smuggle in drinks, and usually candy or goldfish crackers. If the movie theater drink choices were something other than "sip" for $2.25 and "oil barrel" for $2.50, I might buy them at the concession stand, but that's never the case. I want 12 oz of soda, dammit, no more, no less.

If we're going to the dollar theater then I have to bring a blanket no matter what the weather. Our dollar theaters don't turn on the heat in the winter, but the A/C is cranked to Arctic between April and October. I'm not a little-old-lady w/r/t room temperatures, but honestly, you're not supposed to see your breath in a theater, right?

My husband's girl friend and I went to a 6:25 showing of Remember Me at the discount theater last night. Got our tickets and required snacks (popcorn/Diet Coke in the non-oil barrel size) at 6:26. Headed up to the teeny-tiny theater #4 and had the kick-ass pleasure of a private showing. As the only ones in the theater (last run of this particular movie), we could chat, giggle, put our feet on the seats in front and stretch the fuck out. It was ten kinds of awesome and will probably never happen again. And all for the low, low price of $14 TOTAL.

I call her his girl friend because they've known each other since elementary school and she keeps his shit in check when I need backup. Plus she's certifiably insane and that makes her A-OK in my book. PLUS, her husband is pocket-sized and HOT. So, we share her.

And not in **that** way you dirty-minded fucks!

We usually try to sit in the very top row, center, just below the projector. I'm short, so I don't worry about some jerkwad tall fuck sitting right in front of me.

I'm a big smuggler...being a single mom taught me to go to the dollar store or Big Lots just before the movie, load up on cheapass bottled water/tea/cheap pop, cheap candy/cookies/chips while carrying a giant purse. If I DO buy food, it HAS to be nachos or a pretzel with cheez.

I am the bitch who will stare daggers thru you while you text, talk on the phone, have the fussy-ass baby or yabber loudly to your friends...I will stare at you and loudly say, REALLY???? and continue to stare at you until you get the frickin' hint.

I do remember several years ago seeing Sky Captain with the ex, and the 2 of us being the only 2 people in the theatre who really appreciated that, in the underwater scenes, they went past a sunken Venture, complete with giant, busted cage. Yes, it sucks to be semi-intelligent in my part of the woods.

I don't like sitting in the back. I pay the extra bucks for the big screen experience, and it doesn't look very big from the last row.

So I sit in the middle of the first elevated row. For some reason my multiplex has the first 3 rows on a lower level, so basically the movie is above you rather than in front of you - I skip those.

JFD: It's Chakares Drive In in Ohio.

My boyfriend and I will sometimes sneak candy or a water bottle in. But I usually purchase nachos to make up for that. And I always clean up after myself.

My movie theater story: I went with girlfriends to see the Sex and the City movie. We were the only ones in the theater, except for this couple sitting all the way in the back row. I happened to glance back just as the girl stuffed her head in her boyfriend's lap. If every male significant other had been promised a blowjob for coming to such a terrible film, I bet the theater would have been packed.

No rituals. If my husband and I are at the movies, it's because some wonderful person has volunteered to watch our toddler and infant. Under those circumstances, I don't care if I'm in the front row in a freezing theatre with an old lady narrating the movie the whole damn time.

my "thing" is I must get to the theater early enough to see the pre pre previews. I we get to the theater at 9:25pm and the movie starts at 9:30pm we must wait for the next show. I MUST be in the theater 30 minutes before the movie starts.

Non european people who refer to vacation as holiday and calling the movies " the cinema" need to crawl up their own asses and die.
-Nadine, if your dads idea of protecting his loved ones is GLARING at a man literally jerking off sitting next to his wife then his idea of protection is pretty fucking pathetic.
Nico = daterapist
That is all

your right Jack Random, I feel raped.. but I liked it.. so it's ok.. She was bored and I usually don't say no when a hand goes down my pants... usually..

I don't like to sit next to anybody, or too close to the screen, or too far away (unless it's Imax, in which case 'too far away' is the only viable position to be in). So I like to take a few minutes to choose a seat. I'm not keen on packed theatres, for that reason.
All I bring in is water, and maybe a bag of gummy sweets. I really don't get why people want to eat noisy, smelly, messy actual meals in the cinema. It's dark, how can they even see what they are eating, or if they are dropping it on themselves?

I haven't seen too much weird cinema behaviour.
Well, there was the woman who brought her toddler to Chicken Run. The little bugger asked loud questions throughout, which she answered at the same volume. So far, so annoying-but-normal. But when he needed to pee, rather than miss anything by taking him to the loo, she let him do it into her empty Coke cup, right there in the seat next to us. Then she left the cup o' pee on the floor. No doubt somebody kicked it over, eventually.

Oh, and the guy who took his shoes off in the front row for American Beauty. He then stretched out all comfy like he was in his living room, oblivious to the fact that we, his fellow patrons, were all holding our noses and trying not to breathe the fromageous waft from his plates of meat. He stank the place out. Gross!