4 ms·

I saw Interstellar on a beautiful IMAX screen. There were a couple of teenage boys laughing and cracking jokes behind me most of the movie. Not loud enough yo

I saw Interstellar on a beautiful IMAX screen. There were a couple of teenage boys laughing and cracking jokes behind me most of the movie. Not loud enough you'd kick them out, but still obnoxious, especially in the quiet scenes. They apologized when I said something, but then they started again after 10 minutes. During Rogue One, the guy sitting next to me waited until the end of the opening crawl to unwrap his steaming jalapeño cheese hotdog, which he then slowly ate over the next 15 minutes, relishing every bite and every chug of soda. Add to the fact that the acoustics in theaters are still never quite right (it's often LOUD but doesn't envelop you)... I just don't know why I would ever enjoy the theater experience again, when it's just so damn difficult to enjoy a good film.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago
I'd recommend trying an Alamo Drafthouse - they're super gung-ho about enforcing the rules that lead to an enjoyable movie-watching environment.
- SomeHacker44 9y ago
  This is literally the only cinema I like going to (in NYC) anymore. I sit in the front row, where the seats are big recliners with foot rests that go up. The food is acceptable, the popcorn huge and in a big metal bowl and the beer list extensive. Not exactly cheap but entirely worth it for those few movies I want to see a year.
justin66 9y ago
> Add to the fact that the acoustics in theaters are still never quite right (it's often LOUD but doesn't envelop you)... It's a pet peeve of mine as well - the acoustics tend to be awful. I believe if you're at an IMAX theater they're supposed to meet some important minimum standards. No idea how true that really is, but I know none of the IMAX theaters I've been to had bad audio.
emodendroket 9y ago
It probably makes me sound incredibly crotchety to say so but one of the things I dislike about going to the theaters is that the audio volume is often too high for my liking.
- pasbesoin 9y ago
  I find it painful to the point where it's probably harmful. I bring earplugs. Then, with the earplugs in, the dynamic range of the audio is sometimes so great that I have trouble with quieter conversational passages (low voices, whispering). I also agree with other comments, here. The people who treat the theater like their personal living room (phones, conversation, meals...). And these days, if you follow the news, you have to worry about bedbugs. The only time I find the movie theater worthwhile is for a social experience (viewing with others) that doesn't fit into someone's home. Maybe combined with a nice dinner out or snack afterwards or some other additional social component. Otherwise, the home viewing experience is better.
- vidanay 9y ago
  The problem isn't 100% volume, it's shitty sound engineering. Dialog is mouse fart quiet and background music is 1812 Overture loud.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    True enough, but I'm not compelled to stick my fingers over the ears over hard-to-hear dialogue.
adventured 9y ago
> I just don't know why I would ever enjoy the theater experience again, when it's just so damn difficult to enjoy a good film. I apparently have Misophonia[1]. Movie theaters are nearly a kind of torture chamber for me. I've had to devise an approach for avoiding the super obnoxious popcorn chompers (the kind you can hear from the other side of the theater). After years and years of desperately trying to figure out how to control such a thing bothering me, it was a relief to discover there's not much I can do about it. It's apparently neurologically hard-wired. For me it applies to a very narrow set of noises, one of which just happens to be loud/gross eaters (gulping, slurping, noises from eating with your mouth wide open, etc). The rapid improvement in home theater tech has been particularly welcomed. I only go to theaters now when it's a movie I really want to experience super-sized. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06annoy.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06annoy.html
- anotherevan 9y ago
  My daughter has a similar condition called hyperacusis[1] defined as, "an abnormal intolerance, a heightened sense of volume and physical discomfort from ordinary, everyday sounds, which other people can tolerate well." Because of this, I have become so aware of the sheer amount of noise in everyday environments. I remember sitting in a nice, peaceful environment for twenty minutes waiting for the local coffee shop to open. Come 8am they turned on the loud, thumping music. Why, why, WHY? [1] http://www.dineenwestcottmoore.com.au/specialist-services/hyperacusis-misophonia#what-is-hyperacusis http://www.dineenwestcottmoore.com.au/specialist-services/hy...
  - khazhoux 9y ago
    HOW COULD YOU ENJOY YOUR MEAL WITHOUT MY LOUD MUSIC? Drives me crazy at restaurants too.
anotherevan 9y ago
To be fair though, Interstellar has really awful sound production. You cannot blame the theatre for that movie. Many theatres actually had signs up explicitly saying that the ear-shatteringly loud music drowning out the dialogue is they way the movie was produced, so don't blame them. And what awful music it was. Just a terrible, terrible soundtrack. They really should not have let Hans Zimmer play with his organ.
- jvzr 9y ago
  Opinions. I personally really, really enjoyed that soundtrack. I have chills when I hear the main theme and I'm instantly reminded of the whole plot, and tear up a little. Exquisite soundtrack to my ears. But I agree that Nolan's doing something wrong with sound: the voice of McConaughey is really drowned out in the airplane sequence, as Bane's was in Dark Knight Rises.
  - anotherevan 9y ago
    I get chills when I hear the main theme too, but for different reasons I suspect. Entirely agree that music appreciation is a subjective experience. There were lots of scenes where McConaughey was drowned out. (That was also during the period in his acting career where he seemed to like using a really drawling accent which was really hard to understand even without foreground noise[1], and made me occasionally wonder if he had had a stroke and nobody had noticed.) Funnily enough, I never had a problem understanding Tom Hardy as Bane in Dark Knight Rises, which is odd given I'm one to often have subtitles on so I don't miss dialogue. [1] Ahem, I mean, "music".
    - jvzr 9y ago
      I believe they had to redub some of his lines before the movie's release, as is clearly evident watching the trailer then the movie's exact same scenes http://www.alloy.com/entertainment/tom-hardy-bane-voice-before-and-after-the-dark-knight-rises-320/ http://www.alloy.com/entertainment/tom-hardy-bane-voice-befo...

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

I'd recommend trying an Alamo Drafthouse - they're super gung-ho about enforcing the rules that lead to an enjoyable movie-watching environment.

SomeHacker44 9y ago
This is literally the only cinema I like going to (in NYC) anymore. I sit in the front row, where the seats are big recliners with foot rests that go up. The food is acceptable, the popcorn huge and in a big metal bowl and the beer list extensive. Not exactly cheap but entirely worth it for those few movies I want to see a year.

justin66 9y ago

> Add to the fact that the acoustics in theaters are still never quite right (it's often LOUD but doesn't envelop you)... It's a pet peeve of mine as well - the acoustics tend to be awful. I believe if you're at an IMAX theater they're supposed to meet some important minimum standards. No idea how true that really is, but I know none of the IMAX theaters I've been to had bad audio.

emodendroket 9y ago

It probably makes me sound incredibly crotchety to say so but one of the things I dislike about going to the theaters is that the audio volume is often too high for my liking.

pasbesoin 9y ago
I find it painful to the point where it's probably harmful. I bring earplugs. Then, with the earplugs in, the dynamic range of the audio is sometimes so great that I have trouble with quieter conversational passages (low voices, whispering). I also agree with other comments, here. The people who treat the theater like their personal living room (phones, conversation, meals...). And these days, if you follow the news, you have to worry about bedbugs. The only time I find the movie theater worthwhile is for a social experience (viewing with others) that doesn't fit into someone's home. Maybe combined with a nice dinner out or snack afterwards or some other additional social component. Otherwise, the home viewing experience is better.
vidanay 9y ago
The problem isn't 100% volume, it's shitty sound engineering. Dialog is mouse fart quiet and background music is 1812 Overture loud.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  True enough, but I'm not compelled to stick my fingers over the ears over hard-to-hear dialogue.

adventured 9y ago

> I just don't know why I would ever enjoy the theater experience again, when it's just so damn difficult to enjoy a good film. I apparently have Misophonia[1]. Movie theaters are nearly a kind of torture chamber for me. I've had to devise an approach for avoiding the super obnoxious popcorn chompers (the kind you can hear from the other side of the theater). After years and years of desperately trying to figure out how to control such a thing bothering me, it was a relief to discover there's not much I can do about it. It's apparently neurologically hard-wired. For me it applies to a very narrow set of noises, one of which just happens to be loud/gross eaters (gulping, slurping, noises from eating with your mouth wide open, etc). The rapid improvement in home theater tech has been particularly welcomed. I only go to theaters now when it's a movie I really want to experience super-sized. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06annoy.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06annoy.html

anotherevan 9y ago
My daughter has a similar condition called hyperacusis[1] defined as, "an abnormal intolerance, a heightened sense of volume and physical discomfort from ordinary, everyday sounds, which other people can tolerate well." Because of this, I have become so aware of the sheer amount of noise in everyday environments. I remember sitting in a nice, peaceful environment for twenty minutes waiting for the local coffee shop to open. Come 8am they turned on the loud, thumping music. Why, why, WHY? [1] http://www.dineenwestcottmoore.com.au/specialist-services/hyperacusis-misophonia#what-is-hyperacusis http://www.dineenwestcottmoore.com.au/specialist-services/hy...
- khazhoux 9y ago
  HOW COULD YOU ENJOY YOUR MEAL WITHOUT MY LOUD MUSIC? Drives me crazy at restaurants too.

anotherevan 9y ago

To be fair though, Interstellar has really awful sound production. You cannot blame the theatre for that movie. Many theatres actually had signs up explicitly saying that the ear-shatteringly loud music drowning out the dialogue is they way the movie was produced, so don't blame them. And what awful music it was. Just a terrible, terrible soundtrack. They really should not have let Hans Zimmer play with his organ.

jvzr 9y ago
Opinions. I personally really, really enjoyed that soundtrack. I have chills when I hear the main theme and I'm instantly reminded of the whole plot, and tear up a little. Exquisite soundtrack to my ears. But I agree that Nolan's doing something wrong with sound: the voice of McConaughey is really drowned out in the airplane sequence, as Bane's was in Dark Knight Rises.
- anotherevan 9y ago
  I get chills when I hear the main theme too, but for different reasons I suspect. Entirely agree that music appreciation is a subjective experience. There were lots of scenes where McConaughey was drowned out. (That was also during the period in his acting career where he seemed to like using a really drawling accent which was really hard to understand even without foreground noise[1], and made me occasionally wonder if he had had a stroke and nobody had noticed.) Funnily enough, I never had a problem understanding Tom Hardy as Bane in Dark Knight Rises, which is odd given I'm one to often have subtitles on so I don't miss dialogue. [1] Ahem, I mean, "music".
  - jvzr 9y ago
    I believe they had to redub some of his lines before the movie's release, as is clearly evident watching the trailer then the movie's exact same scenes http://www.alloy.com/entertainment/tom-hardy-bane-voice-before-and-after-the-dark-knight-rises-320/ http://www.alloy.com/entertainment/tom-hardy-bane-voice-befo...