Most Memorable Movie Theater Experiences!

[sirgallahad2]

Sarahnot...

you haven't LIVED until you have done the scream in a movie theater. I was going to do it after that final jolt in the movie "The Descent". Some dingle-dorks brought their 3 year old to the movie. I couldn't do it because I don't like traumatizing the kiddies.

[eurotrashman]

I used to have a girlfriend who was a total sexjunkie, wich made going to the movie theater always a memorable experience... Actually, taking her anywhere usually turned into a memorable experience :-)
There's a whole bunch of movies I remember seeing with her in the theater, though I can't seem to be able to recall a single image from them, as my attention was constantly fixed on her... and her hands...
Yeah, those were pretty memorable movie theater experiences...
PS: 'Sexjunkie' is song from the artist called 'Stijn', if you can find out wich country he's from you will also know where I'm from. I sure hope I'm the first person from my country to stumble upon this magnificent site.

[irish]

My first movie experience was seeing "Star Wars" with my Dad. They had re-released the film in 1980 to coincide with the release of "ESB"....for the longest time I thought it was completely normal for people to give a standing ovation at the end of a movie. Thank you, Mr Lucas

[starwenn]

Supposedly, the first movies I ever saw in a theater were "Annie" and "Return of the Jedi," neither of which I have any memory of...but certainly seem to have shaped my future. (I'm a big musical fan and a big Star Wars geek.)

I got up and danced in the middle of the "Everybody Wants To Be A Cat" number during a mid-80s revival of "The Aristocats." My mother was mortified.

Towards the end of the 80s, my sisters, a close friend, and I used the fact that we looked older than our ages to get into a lot of PG and PG-13 movies, most memorably "Ghostbusters II" and "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids." My sister and her best friend saw "Batman" this way as well.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was the first movie I ever saw twice at the theater, once with my siblings and again with a girlfriend and her brothers.

"Beauty and the Beast" was the first time I ever saw a standing ovation for anything outside of award shows on TV.

I still love taking my brother to the movies. The first movie I took him to see was "Muppet Treasure Island." He couldn't have been more than three. It was a cold day, and I remember us being bundled like a pair of Eskimos as I pulled him in his little red wagon. My sister and I took him to see the first "Toy Story" a year or so later; some of the scarier parts upset him a little, but he mostly seemed to like it.

My brother and I had the theater completely to ourselves when we went to see "Atlantis: The Lost Empire." We put our feet on the backs of seats, threw popcorn, spoke loudly over the movie, and had a whale of a time. (We had a similar experience with "Lilo and Stitch."

He didn't get why I cried during the "When She Loved Me" number in "Toy Story 2."

One of my sisters and I went to see "Batman and Robin" together. Talk about your big mistakes. When the movie was over, we turned to each other and said in unison "What in the HECK did we just see?"

The "Hellfire" sequence in the Disney "Hunchback of Notre Dame" definitely freaked me out...and if a then-16-year-old was scared, you can only imagine how the thirty or so kids in the audience who was expecting this to be your average cute Disney film reacted.

My ex-boyfriend and I had a couple of memorable theater experiences. I squeezed his arm so hard during "The Others," I wouldn't be surprised if he had bruises for weeks. Neither of us were impressed with "The World Is Not Enough"; his response to "James Bond Will Be Back" was "Is that a threat?" (That wasn't the only memorable experience that night, either; he got lost going home and we ended up half-way to the Jersey Shore before we realized where we were going.)

I went to see "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Dreamgirls" with two older friends last year.

[DarthShady]

My two most memorable movie experiences might be two of the times I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Hard to say that they'll be all that memorable later, as one was a week ago and the other was last night. But I can't remember ever having more fun!

Last week, I went to the midnight premiere with 15 friends. Most of us were dressed up, and I was Dumbledore. It was just really fun because the audience was pretty much all die-hard Potter-heads and we all shouted stuff at the screen and such. And before the movie started it was like a big Harry Potter themed party in the theatre.

Last night two of my best friends and I drove to Atlantic City to watch it in 3-D Imax. We went to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner, but we were running late for the movie so we ran all the way down the boardwalk. When we finally got to the hotel, we accidentally got in the wrong entrance, so we ended up in the casino and were immediately kicked out for failing to provide proper ID. The next entrance we got to was on the complete opposite side of the building as the theatre, but we couldn't run so we had to walk briskly. We only missed the first five minutes, and we ended up with an epic tale of our quest to get out of the parking lot. It was quite the adventure.

[sarahbot]

The first movie I ever saw in theatres was The Little Mermaid, and accordingly to some fairly reputable sources I WAILED when Ursula transformed (wouldn't you?). I'm still not completely comfortable watching that scene, so I can't imagine what it felt like to a three year old seeing eighty feet high.

[pfrsue]

One of mine isn't an actual in-theater experience, but it probably counts anyway.

The year was... okay, a long time ago. I was a kid. My folks decided to take my sister and I to see The Black Stallion. For whatever reason, we did this even though we had to drive through a horrible sleet storm to get to the movie theater. When we came out, the parking lot was a sheet of ice and there was a hearse parked next to our car.

The date was... oh yes... Friday the 13th.

It's really no wonder I turned out a little warped. Good movie though!

[CheshireKat]

Ok, I remember this vividly, as it's my proudest moment. Or at least one of them.

This was when a group of my friends and I went to see Scream 2. All of my friends had gone into the theater and I had stayed behind getting dinner from the sub shop in the mall. So it was right before the lights dimmed to show the previews that I walked into the theater, to the middle row where my friends were sitting, and scooted over to the middle seat where they had held the chair for me. Before I sat down I proceeded to pull a bag of chips out my left pants pocket and tossed it to my friend who had lent me the money to eat. This got a few peoples attention. I then pulled a 32 ounce drink out if my right pants pocket. At this point most of the theater-goers were looking in my direction. I then reached under my hockey jersey, into the pouch of my hooded sweatshirt and removed...a foot-long meatball sub.

The theater applauded openly.

[LadyStarblade]

Oh wow...there's so many tales...I just have to remember which ones I'm allowed to tell.

Top 5 Movie/Theater Moments....

5. Before a local midnight showing of Serenity, a fan broke out his guitar and led the audience in a rousing rendition of "Hero of Canton." ("Jayne...the man they call Jayyyyne...") The volume was such that the Rocky Horror cast from next door came over to investigate.

4. A die-hard Godzilla fan, I went to check out Godzilla 2000 in theaters. It was myself, my father, my aunt, and four other guys. Three minutes in, by unspoken consent, we were loudly MST-3King the movie.

Japanese military officer: "We've covered the spaceship with an electromagnetic net."

Audience: "Which will do absolutely nothing!"

3. The day Star Wars: Episode III premiered, I spent the day working an event dressed as the classic Princess Leia (white dress/bun wig), then went to the theater still in costume. I was sitting through the previews when I leaned over to my friend and muttered, "Is it just me, or does the sound seem off?" He leaned over, pulled flipped the bun of my wig up to expose my ear, and said very loudly, "It's just you."

2. A group I was with was putting on a showing of Star Trek II for a Boy Scouts fundraiser at a local historic theater. It turned into a mini-convention, but we had no guests. It turned out that the mounted police officer assigned to the event was riding a horse bred by William Shatner. The horse became our "guest," and somehow consent was obtained to bring the horse into the theater for an introduction and much applause.

1. When I lived in Indianapolis, my family was a regular sight at the local film festivals. One was the "Head Festival" at the old Emerson Theater. Featured movies were "The Brain that Wouldn't Die!," "The Head," and "The Monster With Two Heads." The flyer for the event read "All two-headed monsters admitted free." So upon arrival, my father had my younger sister leap up on my back, wrapping her legs around my waist and her arms around my chest. Then the huge winter coat went over us both, my arms going through the sleeves and both heads through the appropriate opening. After zipping it up, all that was visible of my sister was her head and I had grown a hunched back.

We trooped loudly into the theater, and the ticket counter guy looked at us with wide eyes and dropped jaw. "We didn't think anyone would actually do it." All three of us cackled in unison...and we got in free.

Honorable mentions to: the Apollo 13 blackout, the melting film, the Master and Commander dubbing, the spraying popcorn machine, and the "Eowyn Cheer"

Told ya there were many tales....

(Oh hi, by the way...I'm new. I don't bite. And if I seem a little clueless, have mercy. For now. )

[Head Mutant]

Hi, Lady, btw! Don't worry, we're all clueless here.

[LadyStarblade]

admin said:

Hi, Lady, btw! Don't worry, we're all clueless here.

Hiya!

Oh good. It's always more fun in a crowd.

[drew]

Not my own experience, but still one worth sharing.

I had a film/television professor who was, in his own words "not particularly religious". Thus, on Christmas afternoon in 1993, he went down to his local theater to see "Schindler's List". To his surprise, the theater was absolutely packed. He commented to a woman sitting near him, "why is the theater so full on Christmas?" Her reply: "We're all Jewish". I can only imagine watching that film with that crowd... heartbreakingly powerful.