My most interactive movie experience was the smell of burning starting up around the time that she burns their house down in "Betty Blue". The theatre was evacuated shortly afterwards.

I dragged my 2 best friends to Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, I think. It's the one where Bones and Kirk wind up in some kind of prison and Iman comes on to Kirk...it was a packed theater and I think there was a collective silent WTF? happening because the entire audience heard me say :"Oh, Please!" and cracked up.

Trilogy Tuesday. I don't think I'll ever top that one.

Trilogy Tuesday. I don't think I'll ever top that one.

Oh yeah! Although it was good and bad...I made the mistake of stepping out of the theater between TTT and ROTK, and when I came back in, the Wall of Geek Funk hit me like a ton of bricks.

I have actually met people at the movies, but that may be a factor of my friends saying "Hey, let's go see [whatever]" and then arranging it with all their friends to be there.

I met a long-time friend at a movie theater. Of course, it was a sneak preview screening of A.I. that we were attending as part of The Beast, so it was more of a geek meet-up than a moviegoing experience.

A friend of mine once cracked the crowd up at a theater showing the preview to Escape from L.A. by shouting "SNAKE PLISSKEN? I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!" when Kurt Russell first appeared onscreen.

Trilogy Tuesday. I don't think I'll ever top that one.

Hells yeah.

All of my most memorable movie-going experiences seem to have been shared with my sister.

I remember seeing the second Indiana Jones flick in an almost-empty theatre with her by my side. We had our legs hooked over the seats in front of us, and by the end of the insect-filled scene, I was practically in that seat in front of me, I had squirmed so far down.

Also, Poltergeist--only this time, it was my sister who was freaking out and nearly pulling my sweatshirt out of shape by hiding her head in my sleeve. (Yes, we were both in high school at this time.)

We went to see a mid-day matinee of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where we were the only adults in the theatre unaccompanied by kids not out of elementary school or even younger. We were laughing hysterically at so many lines that flew ten feet above the kids' heads that we could hear one child asking, "Mommy, what are those ladies laughing at?"

And then there was the Friday night bargain-theatre showing of Tremors, when the audience went wild. All of the chase scenes with Graboid-cam running along at ground-level or just below had everyone screaming at the screen, "Run, damnit! Ruuuuuuunnnnnn!!!!" That was totally unexpected, and a complete blast.

Oh, there were the college showings:

Ghostbusters, when the theatre stupidly handed out bags of marshmallows beforehand, which we proceeded to toss around. When the Columbia lady appeared on the screen, she got pelted.

On the other end of the spectrum was The Killing Fields, which had a SRO crowd that was dead silent from the very beginning, with only sobs heard at several points until the film ended.

At the midnight opening of Fellowship of the Ring, there was an advertisement for a theater-related charity featuring John Travolta, and at the end someone yelled "Battlefield Earth sucked!"

A friend of mine once cracked the crowd up at a theater showing the preview to Escape from L.A. by shouting "SNAKE PLISSKEN? I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!" when Kurt Russell first appeared onscreen.

That was probably more entertaining than the movie itself.

that may be a factor of my friends saying "Hey, let's go see [whatever]" and then arranging it with all their friends to be there.

But then... that can happen just as easily in an online watch-and-post. It's probably easier, since you aren't limited by geography. I'm not trying to nitpick; I just don't understand what communal experiences are getting lost.

I think I am Plei-ish in my feelings about large groups. I mean, the crowd-response experiences that I think of are things like, worrying I was going to be murdered at Star Wars. Or wanting to murder people after Independence Day.

I do think comedies are better with an audience, but... I can't think of the last comedy I saw, so. The funny bits of Versus were funnier because of the audience reaction. But with anything immersive, other people's reactions are more likely to distract me than enhance my experience. I do get a rush from seeing a good movie on a big screen, but I can get that at a matinee.