Best/Worst Cinema Experience

[BFTD]

I just saw a terrible film and I'm struggling to remember having seen a worse one in the cinema - plenty on video/streaming, but that's not quite the same as when you make the effort to go out and pay over the odds for cinema popcorn. I figure I must have seen between 500 and 1000 films in the cinema by now, so that's quite impressive. Well done, The First Omen.

So, what's the worst/best time P&B has had in a cinema? Did anyone have their worldview forever altered by Freddy Got Fingered? Perhaps the screen burned down during a good war film and terrorists shot up the place? Did you turn up to a packed showing to discover that the previous occupant had exploded from at least one end in the seat you'd been allocated? Or maybe you just went to see one of these.

(we're not including times you got your hole at the movies, or that Hibernian teenager and his "girlfriend" would be all over this thread, and I'd be nominating a midnight showing of Disney's Dinosaur. Unless it turned out to be your worst cinema experience; we need to hear about that)

[scottsdad]

The Wrath of Khan in cinema, September 2022. 

Best experience by far. 

Worst - seeing The Phantom Menace with my dad, who was ill at the time. Terrible film, miserable experience for him.  Just before the final fight scene the fire alarm went off and we had to leave. The ushers asked if we wanted new tickets to come back and see it again. "No thanks!" dad replied. He never did see the whole film. 

[coprolite]

Lord of the Rings.

Was quite excited, as a massive fan of Bad Taste and Brain Dead (less so The Frighteners but still) , to see what Peter Jackson would do with a budget.

Was up the front which gave the numerous scenes of those troll things running about an unpleasant stroby quality. Three fucking hours of slow, episodic rambling about elves and dwarves and wizards. Not in a fun way like labyrinth or krull. 

Finally got out and my mates were all like “wow that was brilliant!”.  Then the public was all like “ wow that was brilliant.” I think it was then I decided I hated everyone.

[pozbaird]

I’ve only been to the cinema once in goodness knows how long, and that was on a trip to London where the opportunity arose to see the Bond movie ‘Spectre’ at The Odeon on Leicester Square when it was just out. The reason I stopped going to the cinema isn’t because of a particularly shite experience with a guff movie, it was because of endless shite experiences caused by some members of Joe Public. I seem to attract them… the loud slurping popcorn crunching, talking all the way though the film, snottery sniffing types… maybe it’s me, because at gigs, I seem to end up these days with a gaggle of lassies near me who just shout at each other throughout the gig. I was a baw’ hair away once from just saying to them ‘what’s the fcuking point of you gobby shites buying tickets for this? Fcuk off to the pub’… but I didn’t, I thought it mind you, but I just moved away to another bit of the venue.

Don’t want to come over as a killjoy auld kunt, I’m really not. Not looking for absolute silence or anything, just getting a low tolerance level these days for the loud gobshite concert shouters, or the snottery sniffers sat next to me anywhere. Hurrumph x 2.

Anyway, the cinema, aye, so, will never forget back in the day, going to a screening of Led Zeppelin’s concert movie ‘The Song Remains The Same’ when I’d not seen them live yet, and was before videos never mind DVD or BluRay… it was in the Classic Grand porn cinema in Glasgow. Just thinking back while typing this gives me the boak… the venue that is, not the movie, even if it is self indulgent and wanky 1970’s excess… in fact, the perfect cinema for wanky 1970s excess, when you think about it.

Edited April 19 by pozbaird

[ICTChris]

I went to see 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' at Cineworld in Edinburgh.  Near the start of the film there is a long scene with the main character, the eponomymous girl, is brutally raped by her state-appointed guardian.  It's a pretty hard watch, especially in a fairly mainstream movie, and there was a palpable sense of relief when the scene ended.  Just at that moment, the fire alarm in the cinema went off and the movie stopped.  We didn't have to leave the cinema but everyone stood around for a few minutes.  The staff came in and told us it was all fine, film would restart but they'd rewind it a few minutes so we didn't miss anything.  The film then restarted literally at the start of the rape scene - a couple of people actually walked out so they didn't have to see it again.

[BFTD]

4 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Lord of the Rings.

Was quite excited, as a massive fan of Bad Taste and Brain Dead (less so The Frighteners but still) , to see what Peter Jackson would do with a budget.

Was up the front which gave the numerous scenes of those troll things running about an unpleasant stroby quality. Three fucking hours of slow, episodic rambling about elves and dwarves and wizards. Not in a fun way like labyrinth or krull. 

Finally got out and my mates were all like “wow that was brilliant!”.  Then the public was all like “ wow that was brilliant.” I think it was then I decided I hated everyone.

This was me also. We got decent seats though, and I was with people who were massive LotR fans - I'd heard of the books and nothing more, but had seen Peter Jackson's early films and was impressed by his imagination and humour. My arse was absolutely aching by the end of it, but they just seemed delighted to have seen Gandalf and were completely oblivious to how tedious the whole affair had been. Being a total idiot, I let them drag me along to the sequels, and would later believe my mother when she told me that the 12-hour DVD editions were definitive and would change my mind - what was I expecting, that they'd cut out all the interesting stuff for the cinema?  

I saw Attack of the Clones with some of the same group - also big Star Wars nerds - and the most entertaining part was listening to them trying to manufacture positives from what had been a crushingly dull and poorly-advised film. Yoda hopping about like a frog on crack, FFS.

Worst seat I've had for a film was with the same group for Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake. One of them was late, so the others insisted we wait outside rather than doing the sensible thing and letting them find us inside. They finally arrived after the film had started, so when we marched in there were only single seats left dotted about the theatre and a line of seats in the front row off to the side. My idea was that we just get the single seats and meet up afterwards, but the geniuses insisted we stay together.

It was a huge theatre, and the available front row seats were so close and far over that you had to turn 90° to the right to see a sliver of the screen, so all I saw for two hours was a blurry mess. I had to go back and watch it again at a later date, as I'd no idea what was going on. There were muttered oaths to the first Mrs BFTD that, if her mates pulled this shit again, she was on her own and I'd be doing my own thing. Frankly, I was mortified enough that we'd disturbed the screening by walking in late.

[BFTD]

33 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

I’ve only been to the cinema once in goodness knows how long, and that was on a trip to London where the opportunity arose to see the Bond movie ‘Spectre’ at The Odeon on Leicester Square when it was just out. The reason I stopped going to the cinema isn’t because of a particularly shite experience with a guff movie, it was because of endless shite experiences caused by some members of Joe Public. I seem to attract them… the loud slurping popcorn crunching, talking all the way though the film, snottery sniffing types… maybe it’s me, because at gigs, I seem to end up these days with a gaggle of lassies near me who just shout at each other throughout the gig. I was a baw’ hair away once from just saying to them ‘what’s the fcuking point of you gobby shites buying tickets for this? Fcuk off to the pub’… but I didn’t, I thought it mind you, but I just moved away to another bit of the venue.

Don’t want to come over as a killjoy auld kunt, I’m really not. Not looking for absolute silence or anything, just getting a low tolerance level these days for the loud gobshite concert shouters, or the snottery sniffers sat next to me anywhere. Hurrumph x 2.

Anyway, the cinema, aye, so, will never forget back in the day, going to a screening of Led Zeppelin’s concert movie ‘The Song Remains The Same’ when I’d not seen them live yet, and was before videos never mind DVD or BluRay… it was in the Classic Grand porn cinema in Glasgow. Just thinking back while typing this gives me the boak… the venue that is, not the movie, even if it is self indulgent and wanky 1970’s excess… in fact, the perfect cinema for wanky 1970s excess, when you think about it.

I've been lucky with this lately, as maybe fifteen years ago it seemed like every screening would have some group of knobs ignoring their film and cackling away about moronic shite on their phones. There was a spike in this after lockdown, as some people genuinely seemed to forget how to act in public and were positively giddy about being out of the house again, but it seems to have calmed down again. Then again, I have a tendency to end up in screenings with only a handful of other people, and sometimes nobody else at all, so perhaps that's the secret - avoid Friday/Saturday nights.

Regarding the porn cinema, a friend once told me that she'd gone to see Caligula in a "private club" in Edinburgh with a group of mates back when it was new out and she was still a schoolgirl. She was horrified when one of her mates whipped his cock out and started ripping the heid aff at one point, only to look around and realise that's what everyone else was doing  

[scottsdad]

2 hours ago, BFTD said:

Regarding the porn cinema, a friend once told me that she'd gone to see Caligula in a "private club" in Edinburgh with a group of mates back when it was new out and she was still a schoolgirl. She was horrified when one of her mates whipped his cock out and started ripping the heid aff at one point, only to look around and realise that's what everyone else was doing  

Imagine trying to eat popcorn with splooge flying about everywhere. 

[BFTD]

45 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Imagine trying to eat popcorn with splooge flying about everywhere. 

Popcorn? The owners probably expected her to be busy eating something else.

It was the Seventies, after all.

[accies1874]

I wrote about my Worst Ever Cinema Experience last year. Now that @CraigFowler is One of Us it would be good to know if he remembers this:

On 07/09/2023 at 22:23, accies1874 said:

36. The Blackening (kinda) - Cinema

Well, this is it: the worst cinema experience of my entire life. Hell, maybe the worst night of my life, full stop. 

I've got a few days off and there a bunch of films in the cinema that I want to see atm so I had a nice schedule of what to see this weekend. The first trip of which was tonight, so I finished work, got in my car, fired up a lower league special of @TerracePodcast and headed to Glasgow to see... Scrapper! Things got off to a bad start as I left the Concert Square car park and realised that my ticket was still in the car and I needed it to get back in, but I just decided to f**k it and continue to the cinema. That went smoothly, and before long I was settled in my seat with my bottle of water and brownie, waiting for the GFT's last showing of Scrapper, a film that I've been wanting to watch since I first saw the trailer. It was scheduled to start at 6.30pm, but the ticket attendant informed us at around 6.35pm that there was a slight delay due to an issue with the projector. 10 minutes later, the manager came back in with the bad news: showing cancelled! This is the second time in a few weeks that they've cancelled the last showing of a film very late on (first was Paris Memories), but I dusted myself down and rushed to collect my refund at the box office. While waiting in the queue, I checked to see if anything else was showing nearby and found that The Blackening was playing just along the road at the Renfrew Street Cineworld at 6.40pm - ongoing but enough time to make it before the trailers end. "Perfect," I thought, "that was on the list, anyway, so at least my trip wasn't in vain." So I bought a ticket for that, got a refund for Scrapper and headed to the Cineworld. Little did I know that there was yet more pain to come. 

Just as I made it to the front door of the tallest cinema in the world, I realised that I'd left my trusty water bottle in the GFT, however I knew that I had no time to turn back to collect it as the trailers preceding The Blackening were no doubt coming to a close. I abandoned the bottle and, perhaps for the first time in my life, took the elevator up the many floors of the aforementioned gigantic cinema and made do with getting a cup of tap water at the snack desk. Perhaps the last thing I expected to see when I got to that desk was Craig Fowler, founder of the podcast currently playing in my ear, occupying the sole staff member by buying a ticket for the film I was trying to rush into. I considered going without water but came to my senses quickly. I eventually got my drink - and credit to the worker who delivered it promptly - and, for the second time within the hour, sat down to watch a film, thankfully just before it began. 

I could tell that something was up with this screening straight away. It seemed like they hadn't turned all of the speakers on or something. I was a couple of rows from the back - and a couple behind Craig Fowler - but all of the audio appeared to be coming from speakers at the front. This meant that it was really hard to make out certain lines of dialogue, the needle drops and jumpscares didn't pack a punch and, importantly, I just wasn't immersed in The Blackening whatsoever, despite finding its characters endearing and some of the post-modernism quite funny. "How could this night get any worse," was my thinking. Enter the Awful Elderly Couple...

30 minutes into The Blackening, an hour after the showing was scheduled to begin, this old couple waltzed in. I wondered if they'd perhaps got the wrong film or something had gone wrong, but hey, I too was almost late for this (yeah, not 30 minutes late, but still) so I let it slide. I knew they'd be trouble when they did the typically stupid thing that latecomers do of shining their torch throughout the screening room just in case being late wasn't distracting enough, however, again, I just wanted to enjoy the film so tried to ignore them. They sat down, a couple of rows in front of me and across from Craig Fowler. And they continued to use their phone, and the woman continued to use it with her torch on. I don't know if she thought it was off or not, but see if you're going to be a complete and utter c**t and use your phone in the cinema, don't keep your fucking torch on. While she eventually turned the light off, but not before she used it to light up their oversized ice cream cone until she and her filmgoing buddy finished it, the texting persisted. Less frequently, granted, but annoying enough to be distracting. As the distractions eased up, although the sound quality never improved, and we made it to the final act, I realised something was missing from my pocket - my goddamn bank card. I knew I'd used it at the GFT, but, with some of the characters kicking about Glasgow, combined with the briskness of my walk from cinema to cinema, I was facing the very real crisis that it might have been nicked. Then the elderly woman started texting again. Then her partner for the evening started making a noise that sounded like the persistent clicking of a pen until the very end of the film. This was the climax of both my story and the story of The Blackening and they were both equally as horrifying. The loss of the card, the flashing screen in a darkened cinema, and this goddamn clicking. I couldn't concentrate and have no idea what the big reveal was at the end of The Blackening. I watched the twist but have no idea why or how it happened. I get the feeling that Craig Fowler felt the same way as he got up and moved a few rows in front to presumably escape the distractions. It's enough to put you off going to the cinema. 

Thankfully there's a happy ending as I found my card in between the seat and retrieved my water bottle from the GFT. I did have to go round the long way to get back into the car park and had to park in an electric bay while frantically paying my £4 fee, so I hope that my refund from the GFT isn't negated by a fine from Glasgow City Council, however I was just desperate to see the back of this sorry ordeal. 

I might return to The Blackening at some point, but I certainly won't be setting foot in Glasgow's Cineworld ever again. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more shenanigans soon as I brave Scotland's worst cinemas. 

Cheers

accies1874

I'm tempted to say that the best ever was the second time I saw Past Lives last year as I watched a wonderful film in the cinema with no one else there, but I'm gonna go with when I saw The Lighthouse in 2020. It just seemed to be everything I love about cinema wrapped up in one screening where I forgot where I even was for a couple of hours.

You Were Never Really Here in 2018 was also a brilliant experience, but I think I'll be speaking about that film soon so I'll leave it for another time...

[Darren]

My best cinema experience was seeing Heather Graham in the flesh at a film premiere. Worst was probably the disappointment of The Phantom Menace.

[Squalor Vic]

Interstellar was amazing...ticks every box for me and was blown away by it and it's still a film I love.

The first Avengers film, me and my mate took his wee boy, packed cinema, and the wee guy came out buzzing. 

Jurassic Park. 12 year old and id never seen anything like it. Only film I've went and seen multiple times in a cinema 

Worst cinema experience (not film I've seen as there's plenty) was Black Panther 2. I work away and go to the cinema solo quite a bit and decided to try the Everyman cinema in Newcastle. Comfy seats, get a beer etc. What I didn't realise was that pretty much all through the film there'd be people getting food and drink delivered to them, staff constantly walking up and down the aisles. Really annoying tbh and I doubt I'd go back there. 

Edited April 19 by Squalor Vic

[Bert Raccoon]

I went to watch 9 Songs (look it up) in the cinema with my then girlfriend. There was a fella down the front, alone, with a large coat on. He was the last to leave the cinema despite being on the front row. Given the content of the film I dread to think what he was up to tbh

[Miguel Sanchez]

3 hours ago, Bert Raccoon said:

I went to watch 9 Songs (look it up) in the cinema with my then girlfriend. There was a fella down the front, alone, with a large coat on. He was the last to leave the cinema despite being on the front row. Given the content of the film I dread to think what he was up to tbh

oh no

 

[velo army]

Worst was a theoretical comedy starring Sandra Bullock and the boy Tatum. Was going ok with some decent laughs from Brad Pitt's character (and some utterly boring scenes with Daniel Radcliffe who had no charisma at all) until out of absolutely nowhere Pitt's character gets shot in the head. Kennedy style. Blood and brains everywhere, like I was watching Evil fucking Dead. Except it wasn't Evil fucking Dead it was a gentle parody of Romancing the Stone and Indiana Jones type films. It was genuinely shocking and I couldn't settle into the film afterwards. The tone shifts in the whole movie were psychopathic. I walked out.

The best was watching Skyfall with my mates from halls. We all wore suits and bow ties and they were kind enough not to talk about the trailers on the way there as I'd deliberately avoided them. Thoroughly enjoyable.

There was also the time I watched Castaway with a girlfriend and we were the only ones in the back row. We were 18 at the time and were banned from returning to that particular cinema for a while. Worth it iirc . Shite film though.

 

Edited April 20 by velo army

[BFTD]

12 hours ago, Bert Raccoon said:

I went to watch 9 Songs (look it up) in the cinema with my then girlfriend. There was a fella down the front, alone, with a large coat on. He was the last to leave the cinema despite being on the front row. Given the content of the film I dread to think what he was up to tbh

It was cold out, and I always sit through the credits out of respect.

14 minutes ago, velo army said:

There was also the time I watched Castaway with a girlfriend and we were the only ones in the back row. We were 18 at the time and were banned from returning to that particular cinema for a while. Worth it iirc . Shite film though.

The Tom Hanks film, or the naked Amanda Donohoe one?

(hope you're ready to be judged if it was the former)

[velo army]

2 minutes ago, BFTD said:

It was cold out, and I always sit through the credits out of respect.

The Tom Hanks film, or the naked Amanda Donohoe one?

(hope you're ready to be judged if it was the former)

Sadly it was the Hanks one. Crap. 

[BFTD]

5 minutes ago, velo army said:

Sadly it was the Hanks one. Crap. 

Your poor companion likely still wonders if it was her or hairy naked Hanks that stoked your ardour.

[CraigFowler]

On 19/04/2024 at 15:21, accies1874 said:

I wrote about my Worst Ever Cinema Experience last year. Now that @CraigFowler is One of Us it would be good to know if he remembers this:

I'm tempted to say that the best ever was the second time I saw Past Lives last year as I watched a wonderful film in the cinema with no one else there, but I'm gonna go with when I saw The Lighthouse in 2020. It just seemed to be everything I love about cinema wrapped up in one screening where I forgot where I even was for a couple of hours.

You Were Never Really Here in 2018 was also a brilliant experience, but I think I'll be speaking about that film soon so I'll leave it for another time...

Oh my god, I do remember that! I forgot about the clicking. They were doing my tits in. I should've just moved seats earlier. They kept taking me out of the movie and it really irritates me when that happens.

To contribute to the thread, last year I went to see Teenage Turtles Ninja Mayhem at the Vue in Edinburgh. It was during the festival and I was killing a couple of hours before meeting friends. Now, obviously as it's a family movie, you expect going in that you might not always get the ideal behaviour from your fellow cinema-goers, but this really took the biscuit.

There was a couple who sitting a row behind me to the right. They had a child with them who was clearly too young to be in a cinema. When the lights went dark before the film was about to start she shouted out "is it bed time mommy?" Which was quite sweet and funny, but she continued to speak consistently as the film went on.

Worse still, they just let her roam about the place. Considering there are stairs in the cinema and it would be quite easy for her to fall and hurt herself, I though this was incredibly poor from the parents. And, for further distraction, she had on trainers which lit up every time she took a step. Mercifully, a Vue employee checking in saw what was going on about 2/3rds of the way into the movie and went up towards the couple. He didn't even say anything before the woman got up, retrieved her daughter and got her to stay still for the rest of the screening, which suggested she knew all along that her daughter was distracting for the rest of the cinema but just didn't bother her arse to do anything about it. Thankfully, although she did still speak at times, she was a lot more settled after that and I was able to enjoy the rest of the film, but jesus christ. What a couple of selfish p***ks. I don't blame the wee girl, she was just doing as so many would at that age.

[carpetmonster]

Worst: going in to see The Sixth Sense at the midnight showing, pished, and falling asleep after 20 minutes. Woke up at the end credits to be told by my mate 'c**t wiz deed'. Still never got round to seeing it, didn't seem to be much point after that spoiler.