Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! Before we begin this post, I just want to let you know that I saw a movie recently, you may have heard of it, it’s called “Snatched,” and I gotta say, don’t waste your time. If you want to see my review for the film, go to the bottom of this post and you’ll either find that post or you might find an icon that will send you to that post, so go check it out! I go through a number of things in that post, but one thing I don’t go through is my experience of watching the movie itself. It was less than satisfactory, my recliner wouldn’t work and people were being annoying. This did however get me thinking, maybe I should do something related to this. That’s why I’m counting down my top 10 things I hate about going to the cinema. Now I’m not saying you have to hate all of this, the stuff on this list is just things I personally hate, so let’s get going! Let’s get counting down my top 10 things I hate about going to the cinema!

10: Fake IMAX

I love IMAX, it is my absolute favorite way to see a film. Seeing “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in that format may have been one of the absolute best decisions I ever made. However, one problem I have with the company is their digital projection. Several people, including director Quentin Tarantino says that seeing a movie on film is the best way to experience it. Digital projection has been around for awhile at the time, but IMAX has only released movies on film until the year of 2008. When “Speed Racer” came out, it became the first IMAX digital release ever. The average person may or may not notice a difference between traditional IMAX and IMAX digital, but you know who did notice? Aziz Ansari! He went to see the 2009 “Star Trek” reboot and he was disappointed with how it looked on this fake IMAX screen. The IMAX digital projector is not as clear as the traditional one, not to mention the seats aren’t curved to the center of each row as opposed to how they are in a traditional IMAX theater. The sound system is similar however, which is as sick as ever. One thing that’s unfortunate about this is that I have multiple fake IMAXes around me and they are actually more expensive than a realistic IMAX theater I live near, we’ll get to that in a second. My preferred IMAX is $12 per ticket if you’re an adult seeing a movie in 2D. One lie-MAX near me has adult tickets going for $10.49 per ticket, but that is if you see any show before noon. Any ticket after that time is more expensive with the maximum amount coming out to $17.49. Also, another theater near me with a fake IMAX has EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR TICKET OPTIONS at a higher price than a traditional IMAX! Another drawback is how certain movies are displayed on the screen. Let’s take a movie like “The Dark Knight,” the first IMAX DMR film partially shot with an actual IMAX camera. There are certain sequences that this film has that cover the entire screen. What would it look like in each theater? Here’s an image exemplifying that!

By the way, I mentioned I’d talk about my local realistic IMAX, which brings up something I feel is worth saying. This theater started out with a film projector, which plays films in a 15perf/70mm format, but that got replaced in 2012. This made the theater able to play more movies, but it made them unable to play movies at the highest quality. I actually went to see “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” at this theater and I had no idea IMAX cameras were used to film this movie because at the time I wasn’t looking all that much towards technical aspects on IMDb. In real IMAXes, when the official Hunger Games begin, the image on the screen would expand on the top and bottom and the screen would be full. Like seriously, you can actually see that happening on the Blu-Ray! In fake IMAXes, the image would stay in the same aspect ratio throughout the entire presentation. So basically, everything in the IMAX I went to made it a real IMAX theater, except for the projector. However, I was really happy when I heard this projector was getting replaced. So when it comes to digital projection, IMAX has improved over the years. My local IMAX currently has a laser projector which has similar capabilities to IMAX’s film projectors. A new sound system was installed too, which has 12 channels as opposed to the traditional 6. Even though this happened, fake IMAX is still out there, so if theaters want to improve on this, I would like them to drop some admission prices, and not call it “IMAX,” they can call it something else but still have IMAX in the name. This isn’t higher on the list because the fake IMAX experience, isn’t necessarily terrible, it’s just less than satisfactory because it’s lying to you. Not to mention, I love IMAX as a company and I consider them to be one of my biggest inspirations towards my love of film. Why am I still talking about this? Let’s move on!

9: Everlasting Trailers

When I go to the movie theater, one thing I often look forward to happen to be the trailers. Despite how I look forward to them, I will say that there are times where there are A LOT of trailers played before a show and it gets annoying after a while. Maybe if they’re all trailers I like I wouldn’t be as peeved, but still, while the trailers are entertaining and gives you some movies to look forward to, you’re mainly at the theater to see one movie that you paid a ticket to see, not the trailers. If I remember correctly, when I went to see “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” I believe there were eight trailers before the film began, I don’t remember if that’s true, but it sounds like it is. I enjoy watching trailers, I really do, and sometimes, I might find one trailer I really like and I hope to see it again in the theater, but I’m ultimately at the theater to watch a MOVIE.

8: Pricey Food Options

I get food pretty much every single time I go to the movies. It’s a fact that I haven’t been to the movies too many times and opted out on getting a popcorn and soda. Nowadays when it comes to price, it’s a little bit more than what the average person would be willing to pay for them. I go to the movies often, usually multiple times a month, so that’s a lot of popcorn and soda. I will admit, sometimes it’s likable, because AMC allows you to pay extra for a large popcorn and get free refills on it. One reason why this isn’t higher on the list is because knowing how the movie theater isn’t as popular as it was back in the day, I’d be willing to pay extra just to support the industry. Speaking of which, bringing in outside food and drinks is not on this list.

7: Talking

I’ve been known to talk every once in a while watching a movie in the theater, but I make an effort to do two things as I talk: Keep it quiet and don’t talk too much. For some people, they just can’t keep their mouths shut. I mean, if a kid continuously talked throughout a movie, I might be lenient on that sort of behavior because some kids might not know better. Depending on the incident, I might blame the kid’s parents or have to let the kid know what they’re doing is wrong, but since they’re a kid I’d have to go easy on them. Although if you’re one of those people that just so happens to be the biggest chatterbox in the world, I’d be REALLY annoyed. Your talking is something that is gonna distract viewers from the movie so SHUT THE HELL UP!

6: Pricey Movie Tickets

Next on this list is something a lot of modern day moviegoers bring up, going back to the topic of expensive things, I have to say tickets to see movies are also unnecessarily expensive. I actually live near a couple of theaters by my house owned by a company called National Amusements, the actual names of the theaters I live near go by the name of Showcase. Their lowest price for a movie in terms of adult tickets (except on Tuesdays) in one of their locations is $10.50. Their other location isn’t that great either for prices, because their cheapest option right now is $11.25. Let’s also dive a little more into one of these locations, specifically, their Revere, MA location, the one with $11.25 as the lowest option. I actually went to see a movie there, specifically “Independence Day: Resurgence,” which was a summer flopbuster. The price per ticket one guy and I paid was $20.50, adding up to a total of $41. I will remind you that this was in MX4D, and if you went to see a movie now in this format, an adult ticket around this time frame would be around $21.25. Sometimes, paying quite a bit to see a movie can be tedious enough, but sometimes when you add gimmicks into the mix it becomes a tad more stressful. This is why I’m glad, and I’ll say this again, my local IMAX theater is only $12 per ticket if you’re paying the adult price, and when you go see a movie there at night, it’s actually CHEAPER than most of the standard movie theaters in my area.

5: Reserved Seating

One trend I’ve been noticing in a lot of movie theaters lately is reserved seating. In some ways, this is actually rather convenient, you can buy your tickets in advance and not worry about having to find your preferred seat or rushing to the theater to get an excellent seat, but that’s pretty much where the fun stops in my book. There are so many circumstances which reserved seating sucks on ice. For example, you’re getting tickets for a popular movie, just about every seat is taken except for that one row you can’t stand, for me, that’s the front row. I mean, I’ll sit in the front row if I really have to, but’s kind of an inconvenience. Also, in my book, this makes rushing to the theater to get your seat a slice of Heaven. Why is that? Because depending on what you’re seeing, you’re probably gonna want to get your tickets online or go to the theater in advance, maybe days before the showtime you’re searching after starts. This isn’t really the best situation for you if you’re anti technology or if you use physical cash for every purchase you make.

4: Bringing Babies/Young Kids

This doesn’t happen to me often but I feel it is something worth bringing up. Babies may be considered cute in a number of circumstances, but they may be considered insanely annoying at the movie theater. I mean, if you bring a baby or young child to an animation or kids movie or something along those lines, I can probably live with that as long as they behave, but if they start acting immature or if a baby continuously cries throughout the presentation and the parents don’t do anything about it, then we’re gonna have a problem. Also, if you bring a kid to a more mature film, depending on the child’s age or maturity level, I may as well have the very right to question you as a human being along with every single one of your life choices.

3: Spoilers

This entry is also something that doesn’t happen that often to me, but it is also worth bringing up. There have been times when people have gone into movies, super excited for whatever they are about to see, then all of sudden, somebody in the theater who has already seen the movie, someone who had a spoiler revealed to them, or someone walking out of a theater might shout a spoiler for someone to hear. This was an epidemic when “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens” came out. I think I remember someone I used to be close with tell me they had part of the movie spoiled for them before seeing it. By the way, if I’m thinking of the right person, I actually went to see that movie with them. Speaking of that movie, I actually was in school the Friday it came out, I’ve yet to see the movie, to avoid spoilers, I said in pretty much every room I set foot in, “If anyone spoils the new “Star Wars” movie, that person owes me $1,000 per spoiler.” While I was successful in avoiding any spoilers, I did notice some students I was in class with actually got spoilers thrown at them, which is rather unfortunate. Also, I’ll bring up a story from my Twitter experiences. There’s one user I’m close with who has the handle name @ladyotl, they once had someone send spoilers for the movie, she didn’t ask for them, they sent pretty much everything. I don’t understand why people spoil movies for others, it’s as if the people who spoil get turned on by it in secret and it’s a sexual fetish they have. It’s the movie equivalent to BDSM only the one being tortured isn’t somehow turned on much like the one torturing them.

2: Reclined Seating

If you have been to a number of movie theaters in the past few years, chances are you may have seen one with reclined seating in it, well guess what? Sorry guys, I’m not on that bandwagon. I really don’t care if you want to kill me over it, I’m just not into the whole reclined seating cinema concept! Recliners in movie theaters is one of those things that works on paper but happens to be terrible once you put that idea into action. I live near a movie theater that has recliners, the auditorium in that theater with the largest capacity is a total of 146. Good job guys! Sure, recliners are comfortable, but out of all the gimmicks cinemas provide right now like 3D, 4D, infinity-d, whatever, this is probably the least preferable gimmick in my mind. If I want to go see a movie and it is a sold out show, I kind of feel more comfortable having more people around me. Well, unless the movie I’m seeing is a “Fifty Shades” movie, then I probably want less people, unless we’re all making fun of the movie “Mystery Science Theater” style. But the point is that I want to go to a premiere for “Star Wars” and hang out with MY PEOPLE, and the bigger the capacity of the theater, the more likely it is to find my people. Also on the subject of people, another reason this pisses me off is because if the capacity of a theater is small due to these recliners, shows could potentially sell out quicker and keep me from seeing that one movie I want to see. By the way, remember reserved seating? Every single theater I’ve been to with recliners has reserved seating, I can only remember one time I’ve been to a theater with recliners and didn’t have to reserve my seats.

1: People Using Cell Phones

My #1 entry is probably something a number of you saw coming, and it is something I can’t believe I continue to experience in cinemas to this day, that my friends, is cell phone use. Now before we dive into this, let me just say, I would be tolerant if you use it in the theater before the movie starts, but you may use your phone UNTIL THAT POINT UNLESS THERE IS SOME SORT OF EMERGENCY! It’s unsurprising that people use their phones at the movie theater while the presentation is going on, but at the same time, it’s pretty tragic. When I went to see “Snatched,” which is the movie theater experience that inspired me to do this countdown, there was a guy sitting next to me, who was there with a bunch of talkers, wonderful, I know. He had his phone out, checking his messages at a point, and I actually noticed him PLAYING A GAME! Granted, I believe I’ve done that too in a cinema. When I was 7 I went to see “Night at the Museum,” if I remember correctly, I brought my Game Boy Advance SP and I was playing a game, but once again I’ll mention, I was 7. Cell phone screens, or any screen you can carry into a movie theater for that matter, is distracting! I think there was only one time I can recall someone using a screen (looked like a cell phone) for good reason in the theater. When I went to see “Moonlight,” someone had a device in their hand, and they had it there for the entire runtime. I was looking at it occasionally throughout the film and based on what I could gather, it looked like that person needed subtitles throughout the film and this would help them. But if you’re gonna call people, play a game, Snapchat, or check info such as messages or text or something along those friggin lines (I would tolerate those things as long as you hide the screen), I would get angry and hulk smash you! Oh and one more thing, if you do leave your phone on during the movie, make sure your ringer is off. I had a bad experience during a sad scene of “Manchester by the Sea” recently. Want to know what happened? Well, there was one character in the movie that was dead, Casey Affleck’s character was looking at the dead body and it almost felt like an emotional scene, I wasn’t gonna tear up or anything, but still, it was emotional. Then all of a sudden, some prick’s phone goes off. This is what my mother and I paid for, to hear a phone in a somewhat crowded theater. Isn’t that great?! Long story short, regulate your phone! Capiche?!

Alright folks, countdown is over, if you liked this post, check out some of my other ones. I also gotta ask, what are some things you hate about going to the movies? Also, what are some your unfortunate movie theater experiences? And speaking of posts, tomorrow I’ll be seeing “Wonder Woman,” I CANNOT WAIT! I will have a review for you guys soon and be sure to look forward to that! Stay tuned for more posts! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!