Do DUers go to movies (in theatres/theaters)?

[karlrschneider]

My partner and I haven't gone to see a movie since 1990, I believe it was...we lived in Tampa and there was a small theater that served food & drinks which we went to occasionally (and many drive-ins when they still existed in the 80s down there), but the last time we went it was showing Silence of the Lambs and we thought it was so idiotic we walked out halfway through and have never since been to a movie. We do on rare occasion watch one on our satellite, though. Maybe 1 a month...

[NMDemDist2]

1. i go rarely but buy a lot of pay per view and rent DVDs n/t

[Connie_Corleone]

2. Once or twice. I'll probably go see V for Vendetta.

[waiting for hope]

3. As a mother of

a 5 year old and one year old....if my husband and decide to go out, it's for a nice dinner, not one that includes chicken tenders with fries...:9

[Extend a Hand]

4. I voted rarely

My husband and I almost always just wait for movies to hit pay-per-view.
However, my 14 year old son goes out to movies with a group of kids from school quite frequently. Two or three times a month. It's not like when I was a kid and things were in walking distance. Pre-driving age teenagers around here don't have a lot of options. They frequently meet at the mall for movies.

[onehandle]

5. A dozen+ times a year up until recently.

Now, maybe once or twice a year.

People think that the theater is their living room. Or their kid's baby sitter.

And what's with the f*cking tv commercials?


I miss the theater experience.

[marmar]

6. About 3 times a month...

and mostly to art-house theaters, for foreign and independent films.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

7. Never - way too expensive.

[karlrschneider]

10. When I was a kid, we would walk down to the Brook theater

and get in for eleven cents. I'm serious. This was in the very early 1950s. That was the price of admission. ;-)

[Starbucks Anarchist]

13. I'm only 25, so anything under $5 blows my mind.

Of course, the 1950s produced many great films, unlike most of what comes out today.

[mwb970]

39. I was bummed when weekend matinees went from 25 to 50 cents!

Two quarters just to see a science fiction "B" movie? Of course, this was back around 1960...

[Book Lover]

17. I remember $2 matinees

and this was in the late 80's-early 90's in Queens. A second-run theatre, but still...

[foreverdem]

40. I remember the $1 movie theater

I remember in the early '80's in my hometown, when a movie had made the run of every theater in town, including the drive ins, it would end up at a theater called the Pennsbury theater, where you could pay $1 admission to see it, day or night.

[TahitiNut]

24. When I was a kid in the very early 50s, it cost 20 cents for the Saturday

... matinee. My 50 cents allowance was enough for the movie, a pop, and enough candy to rot my teeth and make me dizzy from sugar. (My favorite was Halloway All-Day Suckers. They were the Tooth fairy's favorite, too.)

[Obamarama]

8. I rarely go to a movie in a commercial mega-plex.

We have a GREAT small specialty theatre around the corner from where we live that gets all the current foreign/indie films and that's where we take in most of our movie viewing, at only $5 a pop, too. We rarely go to the megaplexes..too many rude people, too damned much to shell out for a mediocre viewing experience,

[NRaleighLiberal]

9. Less and less due to mostly awful releases and the pre movie ads!

We are big Netflix users - about 10 per month, focusing on lots of older PBS stuff (Upstairs Downstairs, jewel in the Crown), lots of great foreign films....

[tulsakatz]

11. it all depends on how badly I want to see a movie......

If I really want to see a film and can't wait until it comes out on video, I'll go see it in a theater. The last film I saw in a theater was Shanghai Knights. Dolores Claiborne was another one that I couldn't wait for the video (I love Stephen King)!

I watch several movies on cable.........or if there's nothing on, I'll watch a video.

Right now, I'm wishing Good Night and Good Luck was still at the theater because I would go see it right now!!

[darkism]

18. If it's any consolation...

Good Night, and Good Luck comes out next Tuesday (the 14th) on DVD. :D

[DemInDistress]

12. the last movie I saw...was close encounters of the third kind...

so do the math...

[Ilsa]

14. It's hard for us to get sitters for our boys.

Our oldest is autistic. We rarely get to go to the show.

[Skittles]

15. every week

yes INDEED

[Cassandra]

16. I try to go to those...

where the large screen makes a difference. Smaller scaled films I tend to wait for.

[yorkiemommie1]

19. only saw Fahrenheit 9/11 and ' Good Night / Good Luck

n/t

[drhilarius]

20. Why put up with assholes on cellphones, obnoxious teenagers,...

and screaming children when I have 6.1 surround and a large widescreen tv at home? The only movies I'll watch at the theaters are, frankly, ones I know those groups of people won't be at (like a screening of Citizen Kane, The Godfather, or Bladerunner, etc.).

[question everything]

21. Yes, we do. There are good movies and we often miss many

especially in the summer... we see movies during the weekends on matinee.. half the price and not surrounded by obnoxious crowd.

We did not see Brokeback Mountain, but we did see Crash - my favorite to win and was so glad that it did - TransAmerica, The Constant Gardner, The World Fastest Indian (that's a motorcycle), Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, Munich and just last week: Match Point.

These are good, solid movies that we were talking about after we left. Not simple feel good ones that you soon forget. Though I do like to see some of them on occasions, My Big Fat Greek Wedding from several years ago come to mind, and spouse hollered at the Aristocrats..

If you watched the Oscars tonight, they showed several clips of film noir and of other oldies with a message and you know what I've noticed? None had major special effects a-la Lord of the Ring or Titanic; none had obnoxious kids with dumb parents, none had "dumb and dumber" or any of the Farley brothers.

[catmother]

22. i said this on another thread. i have not been inside a movie

theater since 1975 (exorcist). i have netflix, pay per view, homebox, showtime and about 200 other channels. don't want to sit in a theater with strangers smelling of too much perfume, or cigarettes and not knowing what's crawling around on the floor.

i'm chemically sensitive and i'm also kind of claustrophobic so i avoid crowds too.

[sandnsea]

30. What's crawling around on the floor???

I've never seen anything crawling around on a movie theater floor in my life. Between someone else talking about being bit, and now your creepy-crawlies, I'm wondering if my theater experiences have been a naive fantasyland in more ways than one. :scared:

[liveoaktx]

23. I noticed that 2 separate people at the Awards brought up going to

the movies, and saying that you can't get the benefit of them through DVD. Well, heck, in the second example, they were showing old classic movies-you can't watch them at the theatre anyway.

The second to the last time I went to the movies was to see The Two Towers. The theatre couldn't keep the film on track, it looked like a copy of a copy of a copy and while there something bit me. heh.

So we got a pull down screen and a projector and we watch movies on a BIG screen... at home.

[flygal]

25. I just watched trailers for upcoming releases on imdb.com

and I don't know any of the actors - and most of the movies seem catered to teens. Hollywood hates middle-aged women - I'm only 38 but guess I qualify.

[Nicole]

26. Rarely

I prefer to watch pay-per-view movies in the comfort of my home. I can watch 8-10 ppv a month for about the price of 4 movies at the theater.

[yorgatron]

27. my most recent trips to the theater,working backwards,

are;
"the world's fastest indian"
"wallace&gromit,curse of the wererabbit" and
"ray"

[wickerwoman]

28. Never.

This is why intellectual property rights can't get a toehold in China:

I tried to do the right thing when I first moved here. I'd walk past the rows and rows of pirated DVD shops. I searched all over for a legitimate retailer. The fact is there aren't any. Going to a cinema in Shanghai costs 80RMB- $10 to see a movie *once*. Adjust that for the local standard of living and that's like asking an American to pay $80-100 to see a movie.

How many people are going to keep walking past DVD shops selling the movie- to keep and watch as many times as you like in the comfort of your own home for 5RMB- about 60 cents?

I want to support artists- I do, I do, I do. Build a Virgin megastore that sells legit copies in the $4-5 range and I would walk the straight and narrow. But since my options are 1.) buy a pirated DVD 2.) go to the cinema and pay insane prices 3.) import DVDs from amazon and pay $20 for shipping per DVD or 4.) never watch movies ever, I'm afraid I've slipped. More than once.

But I mostly buy TV shows which they show for free on TV anyway.

[sandnsea]

29. I watch almost everything on satellite

And my daughter just joined Netflix, so that'll be cool. I love watching movies. If my local theater owner wasn't such a fundie putz, I'd probably go more often now that the kids are grown and I can go to a matinee. But if you didn't like Silence of the Lambs, I can see how movies might not be your thang.

[Hardrada]

31. I know I am never going to see anything really good

in our little town theater (save an occasional blockbuster that accidentally happens to have artistic merit). And the little art house brew and view theater 40 minutes away just shut down (where we saw Bowling For Columbine) so I just buy foreign and film noir and other fine films off of eBay or get them at library friends sales or church bazaars. I have got a nice collection of flicks I can show to friends (but no one ever has time). So I watch them with my wife or by myself in the wee hours.

[DemonGoddess]

32. only rarely

it's too damn expensive

[fujiyama]

33. I enjoy going to see movies

I generally go to see maybe one or two every month.

But recently, I just purchased an inexpensive home theater projector and am setting up a theater in my basement. I don't like dealing with the ringing cell phones and stupid people talking in theaters. Not to mention sticky floors! How nasty!

[LWolf]

34. I prefer DVD.

Despite the blatant commercials for the "big screen" experience aired at last night's awards show. I don't have to sit with strangers, and I can press pause to use the restroom.

I see 3-4 movies a year. Now that I live with a 6 year-old, they tend to be "family" fare. I went to a movie last weekend; I had to drive into to town (40 minutes one way) to an emergency vet clinic for a household pet. They wanted to keep her for 2 hours. Instead of driving home and back, I went to see a movie. "8 under" or something...the one about the dogs in antarctica. It was appealing, at least to animal lovers. My first movie of 2006.

[supernova]

35. A couple of times a month - I love movies

And I think there are certain movies (LOTR, for example) that should be experienced in a theatre first. So that's when I go to the movies, when I know I wouldn't be satisified to watch it on my TV screen on first viewing.

I usually stop by the new mall with the new movie theatre on Friday afternoons on my way home from work. It's cheaper and less crowded, which I couldn't tolerate that well anyway. That way I get to sit where I want.

I enjoy movies as opposed to TV shows because I can be entertained for a couple of hours without having to listen to commercials.

[Earth_First]

36. Rarely...

However if we do go, it's usually to the small independant theater here in town. Alot of the reason that we stay home for movies lately is the "scene" at the large-scale movie houses on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Never a problem at the small independant theater.

[Tesha]

37. Most movies today are crap. Pure, unadulterated crap.

Most movies today are crap. Pure, unadulterated crap. As
Ebert puts it, the principal attraction of most of them
seems to be that they "blow stuff up good". About 2-3
per year catch our attention enough for us to be willing
to plunk down our money.

So we mostly watch our DVD collection or wait for this year's
not-quite-crap movies to show up demi-free on the satellite.

Tesha

[mwb970]

38. Going to the movie theater is just not worth it.

Most movies aren't that good.
They'll be out on DVD soon and I can watch in my living room.
Ticket prices are too high.
Snack prices are too high.
You have to sit through commercials after paying to get in.
Too many trailers. These are commercials too, mostly involving explosions, shooting, fire, and death. They are LOUD.
Too many trailers for violent and/or pathetic movies coming "in 2007".
Frequent technical problems with focus and sound.
People sitting near you talk throughout the movie as if they were watching a DVD in their living room.
Small children running amok.
Cell phones ringing constantly.

In short, it is a thoroughly unpleasant experience and one which I don't care to have. The last movie I saw in a theater was F911 in 2004. (I just couldn't wait for the DVD of that one!) I can't remember the one before that. I think it was a Pokemon movie I saw with my niece.

[foreverdem]

41. Almost never

I'd have to really want to see something badly. It's just too expensive and the multiplex by me is so small it has you feel like you're sitting on the lap of the person next to you. I watch everything on satellite.