Mal ,'Ariel'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Are those things that happen when you go to see a movie in a theater?
When you go to the Roxie for the noir fest, it is a social scene as well. There are bars nearby filled with people talking about it before and after the film. Even if you don't engage in conversation with somebody new, the buzz is part of the experience.
However, I've mostly talked about movies with video store clerks.
But things like noir fests at the Roxie seem to me like exactly the kind of media event that WON'T be going away - frankly, I doubt most people are going to such a festival because they really wanted to see one particular movie and that was their only way to see it. Most people are going to the noir fest to experience that exact buzz you're talking about, and that market will always be there. Just like live music survived records and theater survived movies. Yes, the markets diminished, but the more specialized the experience the more likely its market will continue to exist.
And I do think comedies in particular have much more effect and power in a large group viewing
Oh, Magnolia and The Bodyguard were HILARIOUS in a large group. And we were all sober! Also, the only ones laughing. *cough*
When you go to the Roxie for the noir fest, it is a social scene as well. There are bars nearby filled with people talking about it before and after the film. Even if you don't engage in conversation with somebody new, the buzz is part of the experience.
Yeah, that makes me TWITCH. TWITCH.
When you go to the Roxie for the noir fest, it is a social scene as well. There are bars nearby filled with people talking about it before and after the film. Even if you don't engage in conversation with somebody new, the buzz is part of the experience.
Also, the percentage of people who would never go to something like that are the majority of the movie-going audience. So the people who want it are going to make sure it's still available.
H and I had gone to see one of the largish movies of the last ten years or so, a matinee in a nearly empty theatre. I want to say--TTT? Something of that ilk. It was very low-key, and he didn't get into it much at all. I wanted to see it again and coerced him into coming along. The theatre was mostly full, and the electricity in the theatre enhanced the experience four- or five-fold. It was an audience geared for the experience though, and not some thinky dialog-is-important plotty cough-and-you-lose film.
We tend to save the theater experience for Die Hard 4, Avatar, PotC and the like. And The Girl With...etc. for the living room, the big screen, and no interruptions.
Despite my lingering unhappiness with the content of the recent Star Trek movie, it was great fun to see it in the theater opening weekend: the entire theater sparked when we heard Leonard Nimoy's voice for the first time.
I have no idea where to put this, and I want to share. Relevant to the interests of many of us, and movie-derived--
When you go to the Roxie for the noir fest, it is a social scene as well.
But that's not typical. I can see how people probably have unexpected interactions with each other when they're in the audience for a concert or a sporting event. Movies seem like a different kind of experience.
Actually the Roxie events are not maintaining the crowds they once did. As the programmer noted in his interview, he had excellent turnouts for his Pre-Code shows in the 90s, but he doesn't think he can pull that same crowd now. The original viewers are in their 30s and the younger ones aren't interested in anything that's not hardcore noir. (His Neo-Noir, Not Hardly Noir series failed to pull the audiences.)
Anyway, Rep theaters are disappearing too, so this kind of experience is getting more rare.
My friend Theresa used to organize her entire vacation schedule around the San Francisco Film Festival. Two weeks of non-stop movie watching, seeing lots of things which never received a stateside release. She talked fondly of sitting in line with other cineastes from around the world. Kind of a nightmare scenario for Ple.
But I do think the communal aspect of filmgoing is still a draw, and think more places ought to model themselves on the Alamo Drafthouse. Which has some very very cheap movie nights early in the week. I also miss the UC Theater in Berkeley which had a strong program in Hong Kong films that would pull a lot of crowds. And my local rep house, the Red Vic, has started doing a kid-friendly early Sunday matinee with cheaper prices and cheaper popcorn. That drew a full house for The Muppet Movie.
We went to see Win Win last weekend, and at one point the whole theater clapped. I love when things like that happen at the movies. I highly recommend the movie too.