I won't miss the bloated Hollywood movie that is style over substance, excitement over story and star-power over character. I welcome the demise of the current movie system.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
You got me there.The sound levels are deafening. And there's rarely more than five of us in the theatre, whenever I venture out. Might as well stay home where there's more people... Cost a pretty penny too
I've barely been inside a movie theatre in the last 15 years. I stopped when I realised I was paying $30 for two people to share a living room with a couple of hundred noisy, restless people who couldn't put their phones down or even sit still long enough to actually watch a movie. They seemed to be there to hang out while a movie played in the background on a really big TV.
If we waited until the DVD hit the bargain bin, we'd get a better experience at half the price - and be able to watch it as many times as we wanted. And that's how we wound up with a ridiculous collection of DVDs.
Cue old man waving his walking-frame at the kids on the lawn: when I were a lad, the theatre doors were closed when the trailers finished and the main credits started, and they opened again for intermission. It was a big thing when they skipped intermission and played the movie all the way through - this change I did like.
I could actually enjoy the movie I was there to experience, because anybody who talked was thrown out. Tickets also cost 50 cents, so we're going back to 1980 or so, here
The current situation is a business decision by the theatre chains to allow that behaviour, so I have no sympathy for them at all. Overcharging for a bad experience, and relying on a studio system that's only just started trying to compete with other forms of entertainment, then wondering why your business model is going away? How about that.
So I think all that the pandemic did here was accelerate what was already happening, in the same way it forced businesses all over the world to realise that most white-collar workers no longer need to be co-located in expensive office buildings.
Malls and multiplexes are just a subset; the entire commercial real-estate sector is about to be transformed. I don't know what's going to replace the existing use-cases, but we may be about to see a thousand flowers bloom.
Nicely put
I can't derive much joy from that scenario anymore. I hate to be the one disrupting the course of a good show. Some people clearly thrive on it and like to behave, hopefully, in a manner that they never would at home — chardonnay-sipping dingbats, self-confessed trolls, all over the shop
That's okay. I don't mind. But those sessions are for a different audience. I've been in that crowd. Without going overboard, it can be fun being boisterous, sharing a movie that way. They can have it.I'm with you, in that I get much more mileage these days, from really getting my teeth into a movie. Ownership necessarily sorts all that out. Keeps the ball rolling too. They love it when we buy their discs. It's a feelgood thing, in both directions.
If I can't go back and look again at something, to see what makes it tick, I start tail-spinning and lose all my motivation
I recently got back on the airwaves with a new telly. Soon came to terms with the loss, in that regard. It's a basic set. All I need.Being a student of these things, I'll find a way, sometimes, to recapture the magic — press rewind. And, if I can't, if I can get away with it, the poet kicks in. So all's not lost — it all filters through, in the end
My walking-frame's a well camouflaged Cone of Silence. They can have their fun. And, when they do, I'm oblivious to it. The story towers over the distraction
— those confounded sound levels see to that. This is why, in an almost empty theatre, it can be almost deafening. Sound plays a big part. Always has 
They're (over)compensating unnecessarily. Fair enough
These cinema complexes are cookie-cutter scenarios — overly optimistic, insensitive number-crunchers at the helm. Where's the massage, the attention to detail, with these people? Beats me My foolproof plan is to leave the earbuds in, firmly 
But you won't see me doing that in the foreseeable future. we're staying put … You may find us, however, at a Drive-in.Me too. I especially loved being ushered in, just before the curtains part
Before I was out of the starting blocks — free to do as I pleased, so-to-speak — I'd have probably been to the opera more times than to the picture theatre. All sorts of rituals going down there: hob-knobbing, shoulder-rubbing, chortling, chardie sipping, virtue-signalling; bell-ringing, shuffling to and fro — on cue, like sedated, hypnotised sheep dressed as penguins and divas, in and out of the hall. Hee hee. There, you invariably get almost total silence, except when some clown decides to start coughing up a fur-ball. There's one in every crowd Silence is golden, I tell ya.Softened the blow. Too right it did. But we're a good bunch here. We all just resolved, the majority of us, that that would be the wisest thing to do. I think it may have been AIDS HIV that set us up for this. The brains-trust has some runs on the board. All of that happened when most of my peers and I were just blossoming. We, the Xmen, all learnt how to curve our impulses, find a better way, tout de suite.
And, there's a certain pliability here, no doubt — not always such a good thing. Not always the case
But, for the time-being, just what the doctor ordered. We count our blessings, and our expanding movie collections What happens now depends entirely upon us. We'll find a way. We always do
The theater business was headed this way even before the pandemic. The only thing attracting customers was superhero movies and kids' movies. Superhero fans want to be there on opening weekend to say they saw it first, and with kids' movies, parents sometimes need a family activity outside the house for a couple hours.
Once the smoke clears from the pandemic, most theater chains won't have survived. I know there's still a demographic that enjoys buying a tub of popcorn and meeting their friends for a movie, but you can't sustain a business off that. And young people don't care. They're content to watch on a device of their choosing.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
You're right - it's not the same. But with all the affordable advances in home theater tech, it's definitely enough to hurt the theater business.
The new Bill and Ted movie dropped down to six bucks for the rental from the original $20. I’m gonna watch it later. That’s probably gonna happen a lot with direct to streaming releases. I can’t fathom the math on that. Plenty of people will probably pay full price when the movie comes out but then plenty of people will wait so there’ll still be sales later on.
The news definitely made me glad I scooped up a bunch of AT&T shares a few months ago!
I personally will love having the option of streaming at home or going to see more imax or big-screen worthy movies out, once it’s safe to go so again.
I personally will love having the option of streaming at home or going to see more imax or big-screen worthy movies out, once it’s safe to go so again.
Then I'm guessing you won't agree with the recent New York Times article The 25 Greatest Actors Of The 21st Century (So Far) in which they had the audacity to write "Can you name one film that has not been improved by [Keanu Reeves'] presence?"
LOL. Seriously, NYT? Did you never watch Dangerous Liaisons?!?!
Alkali Ike
Gold Supporting Member
- Jan 1, 2011
- 2,854
- 15,665
- Disclosures
- I never actually learned to play very well
This is not all that different from the days when there were first-run theaters, and dollar theaters. After a movie sold as many full-price tickets as possible in first-run venues, it would be moved to the dollar theater, where it would attract a whole nother value-conscious audience. SOP. The difference now is the $6 streaming version of Bill & Ted isn't a beat-to-hell worn out film print that was shown 1000 times before it was moved to the dollar theater.
Last edited:
Alkali Ike
Gold Supporting Member
- Jan 1, 2011
- 2,854
- 15,665
- Disclosures
- I never actually learned to play very well
AMC warns it’ll run out of cash in January, calls out Warner Bros.’ shift to HBO Max
AMC Theatres is warning its investors that if it doesn’t find $750 million, it will run out of cash by the middle of January 2021.
The company issued new public documents today announcing that because executives can’t predict what the supply of movies will be like, and it’s unclear if people will even file into theaters again soon, the company is unsure of how much money it can make. Specifically, AMC’s documents note that executives can’t know with “certainty the impact of the Warner Bros. announcement or any similar announcements regarding the release of movie titles concurrently to the home video or streaming markets.” Conversations with studios like Warner Bros. and Disney have yet to take place, the documents add.
Now, AMC is facing challenges that “have been exacerbated” by Warner Bros.’ move. Last week, WarnerMedia announced that Warner Bros. will release its movies on HBO Max on the same day they premiere in theaters. At the time, AMC CEO Adam Aron blasted the decision — one he only heard about an hour before WarnerMedia announced it publicly. In a statement, Aron said that WarnerMedia “intends to sacrifice a considerable portion of the profitability” in order to subsidize HBO Max.
“As for AMC, we will do all in our power to ensure that Warner does not do so at our expense. We will aggressively pursue economic terms that preserve our business,” Aron said.
AMC Theatres is warning its investors that if it doesn’t find $750 million, it will run out of cash by the middle of January 2021.
The company issued new public documents today announcing that because executives can’t predict what the supply of movies will be like, and it’s unclear if people will even file into theaters again soon, the company is unsure of how much money it can make. Specifically, AMC’s documents note that executives can’t know with “certainty the impact of the Warner Bros. announcement or any similar announcements regarding the release of movie titles concurrently to the home video or streaming markets.” Conversations with studios like Warner Bros. and Disney have yet to take place, the documents add.
Now, AMC is facing challenges that “have been exacerbated” by Warner Bros.’ move. Last week, WarnerMedia announced that Warner Bros. will release its movies on HBO Max on the same day they premiere in theaters. At the time, AMC CEO Adam Aron blasted the decision — one he only heard about an hour before WarnerMedia announced it publicly. In a statement, Aron said that WarnerMedia “intends to sacrifice a considerable portion of the profitability” in order to subsidize HBO Max.
“As for AMC, we will do all in our power to ensure that Warner does not do so at our expense. We will aggressively pursue economic terms that preserve our business,” Aron said.
