Going to the movies should be a fun experience, but day by day, it is becoming less and less enjoyable. Photo: MixMedia.
Going to the cinema should be an enjoyable experience where you and your family and friends can enjoy the newest movies on the biggest screen possible.
But let’s be real for a second, it genuinely sucks, and it’s got nothing to do with actually watching the movie.
As an avid movie watcher, I go to the cinema every week, sometimes up to three times. It’s an experience I know well, but it’s also changed a lot for the worse recently.
At its best, seeing a movie on the big screen can be a group experience of excitement with other eager watchers; at its worst, it’s a place for bored people to send Snapchat messages, throw popcorn, make stupid practical jokes and bother those who have paid a fair chunk of change to be there.
Some of the things that I’ve seen from moviegoers have been horrendous.
There have been the usual things, like people using cameras and taking phone calls during the movie, which is less than ideal but, unfortunately, common.
When I saw Backrooms at Hoyts Woden, kids were sneaking into the front of the cinema, three or four people to a seat, FaceTiming their mates in the middle of the movie.
While seeing The Devil Wears Prada 2 in Belconnen, 45 minutes into the movie, a group of women in the row behind me were watching Pauline Hanson’s most recent rant.
While seeing Hoppers at Dendy, I had teenagers put their bare feet on the back of my neck, and when I told them off, I was approached by their parents, whose response was, “they’re kids being kids”.
While at Disclosure Day, I was caught in the crossfire of two friend groups throwing popcorn at each other, while another older man decided to give a running commentary to everyone in the auditorium about how ‘shit’ the entire thing was. (For the record, he was correct.)
These are just some of the most noticeable examples since April!
For a standard Friday evening session for an adult in Canberra (Hoyts, Dendy, Limelight and Palace cinemas), the damage is almost $30. If you’re paying that much for a ticket, you deserve, at the very least, to have your experience unimpeaded by that kind of rubbish.
It’s extremely disappointing that this is what going to the movies has become because everyone has at least one memory of seeing something at the cinema.
For my generation, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t remember the time they saw Avengers at the movies, remembering when Thanos snapped Marvel’s biggest heroes out of existence.
While Marvel movies aren’t for everyone, that movie was a cultural event, and the silence of hundreds of people leaving a packed cinema was something that can’t be replicated. It’s the best example of how fantastic the movies can be when audiences respect one another while also being excited about the experience.
Ultimately, going to the movies should be an escape. It should be a chance to travel to another world and enjoy a good story by some great filmmakers. It’s only getting more expensive to enjoy it, and it shouldn’t be ruined by people who treat it like their own lounge room.
We can do better.
