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Psycho and the end of the continuously showing movie
- tzs 3y agoIf movie theaters ever go back to that M. Night Shyamalan is going to need a new career.
- loloquwowndueo 3y agoIf After Earth didn’t compel him to switch, nothing will.
- tux1968 3y agoI'm guessing we'll return to the continuously showing movie. Well, more like the starting-any-time-you-want movie. As individual VR headsets are available in every seat, you could start the movie synchronized with just the people in your own party. Of course, there will have to be technological and/or social advantages over doing the same thing in your own home.
- codetrotter 3y agoIdk man. On one hand it seems like a neat idea. On another hand, it’d be kind of jarring to have one group of people laughing because they are at a fun scene in the movie while me and my friends are in a suspenseful part of the movie. Or worse yet, me and my friends are watching a scary horror movie, but another group of people are watching a comedy and they are constantly laughing.
- tux1968 3y agoLol, indeed. But I doubt the same form factor of a common theatre hall, would endure. More likely there'd be individual showing rooms, with concession items delivered to the seat after order, etc.
- eru 3y agoI very much doubt that will happen. Mostly, because if you want that experience, you can already have it in the comfort of your own home. Why go to a cinema for that?
- tux1968 3y agoAs is the case today, movies can be released in stages, where early access is provided to businesses like these. Also, there may be technological innovations in AR/VR that don't make sense for every home owner to buy. And the cherry on top is the social occasion that can be cultivated, where everyone meets out of the home, for a shared event.
- majewsky 3y ago> where everyone meets out of the home, for a shared event Yet almost all of the shared experience is removed. Some of the most interesting experiences I had in a movie were when the entire audience reacts to something happening on screen. Can't have that if each group is desynced inside their metaphorical fishbowls.
- RugnirViking 3y ago> the entire audience reacts to something happening on screen I've always been surprised by this sort of anecdote. Is it a thing that happens a lot in america maybe? Here living across a few places in northern europe, people are just deathly quiet in the cinema. I think its seen as nobody wants to be inconsiderate to one another
- bonoboTP 3y agoYes, apparently in some places in America (I'm told not everywhere) it's acceptable to cheer or even clap during movies. In the places I know in Europe, this is seen as very rude and you're supposed to be fully quiet, or maybe whisper to your neighbor at most. It's also similar in public transportation. American tourists are often quite loud while locals speak more quietly in buses, trams etc.
- xattt 3y ago> As individual VR headsets are available in every seat, you could start the movie synchronized with just the people in your own party. I’m very put off by the idea of feeling the moisture of the previous user’s sweaty brow or having residual eye crusts flake into mine (think pinkeye).
- tux1968 3y ago> I’m very put off by the idea of feeling the moisture of the previous user’s sweaty brow Already today, each movie goer gets their own pair of complimentary 3d glasses for movies that need it. They ask you to kindly return them, so they can be recycled. It wont likely be much more of a problem to have a per-viewer covering fitted over the AR glasses and earbuds.
- xattt 3y agoAt the very least, they put those 3D glasses through a dishwasher. That’s not possible with a VR set, and the turnaround to replace one-time liners on 100 sets would be unfeasible in an in-out setting of a movie theatre.
- scelerat 3y agoThe continuously showing movie was a vestige of early 20th century nickelodeons where you might see a some newsreel and then a series of relatively short movies. It was effectively a constraint imposed by the format rather than an aesthetic choice. I think live virtual worlds, mmrpgs, etc are the closest analogue we have now to drop-in-anytime communal entertainment
- tux1968 3y agoYeah, that's all I was saying, really. And that I can see community centers for such events being the movie theaters of tomorrow.
- reneherse 3y agoThis could work if you base the format on something other than theaters: make it an experience similar to a karaoke room, escape room, or even Top Golf. You'd have a private or semi-private space to share with a group of friends, get food and beverage service, and view/participate in the VR experience simultaneously as a group. The price point would be higher than a typical movie, but would support the greater hardware, facility, and service costs.
- verve_rat 3y agoHuh. I've wondered where the "No one will be seated after the X" meme came from.
- techsupporter 3y agoThe recent version of it is from Spider-Man 2, I believe. The snooty usher says to Peter, who's raced to get to a theatre show performed by Mary Jane, that "no one will be seated after the doors are closed; it helps maintain the illusion." Our poor hero, of course, has been off Doing Good Deeds and as a result his double-life has yet again foiled his chance to win MJ's affections.
- quickthrower2 3y agoCinemas don’t really enforce this (although seats need to be reserved) but the Opera is another matter.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agohow often though did this happen? I watch a lot of old movies, I don't feel that generally I would have liked to walk in halfway through - I would have preferred asking when does the movie start and coming in at that time. that the setup of the business allowed the practice I don't doubt, that the practice was really widespread I do doubt.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoThe Hollywood Reporter article linked how's into much more detail, and makes it sound widespread. Also, remember that there were thousands of films released every year, and the ones still being watched are mostly the best of the lot. Many of them don't have strong narratives, and watching the jokes/action scenes/smut out of context won't detract a ton.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoI guess you're right, even some of the good ones (especially in comedy genres) it didn't matter too much when you came in - for example Marx Brothers movies.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago>how's into much more detail, Goes into. Odd autocorrect I noticed too late to edit, but will annoy me if I don't address it.
- harywilke 3y agoI remember seeing exactly one movie like this. I was with my friends family in the early 1980's. It was terrible. I do remember that they all got up 3/4 through the 2nd screening and we walked out just when it was getting good.
- FearNotDaniel 3y agoIt was still pretty normal in Britain in the 70s. As a kid I remember watching the end of some disaster movie before it went back to the beginning - most likely Airport '77 or '79/'80. It started to change in my (relatively) small town with Star Wars, Superman and Raiders, when at least some performances required standing in line on the street and waiting to be let in at the right time (nobody had dreamed of pre-booking, or seat reservations, at this point). During the transition period newspaper listings would specify "cont.perf." for continuous performance to indicate when the old system was still in play, which carried on well into the 80s. Edit to clarify: they did generally list the times that each showing would start, so you could choose to arrive at the beginning and leave at the end. But nobody was forced to do either. You could arrive in the morning and watch the same film five times in a row, if you wanted. Or two films alternating, if it had a B-movie showing between the main film... ah yes, fond memories of strange B-movies like a documentary around offshore oil production - perhaps due to the time period when movie studios became just one part of massive industrial conglomerates, perhaps because they wanted to bore the audience into leaving and freeing up seats... also the combination of Airplane! with the execrable Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Beatles jukebox-musical starring the Bee Gees).
- jaimebuelta 3y agoI remember when I was a kid in Spain (in the late 80s, perhaps up to early 90s) cinemas where this was still possible. You could enter at any time, watch the movie, and even remain and watch it a second time if you want. It was also only advertised when the first pass started, but not any other one. Available movies will be slightly older ones, like 6-months after premier or something like that. And they were a few particular theatres, that only run movies in that way. I remember watching Return of the Jedi that way, arriving right before the fleet meets and they brief the Endor mission, so it was a good point to get into the movie anyway.
- harperlee 3y agoIn Spain at least there were also for some time pairings of films, continuously reproduced in alternation, so you would enter whenever and not spoil the end of the complete film you would see starting next.
- yankput 3y agoNowadays people randomly start watching TikTok and YouTube on their phones in the theatre, we are looping back
- ilamont 3y agoI managed a small movie theater in the 1980s (and was also the projectionist, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35887809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35887809). By that time, audiences were conditioned to follow the posted schedules in the lobby and newspapers. The businesses (many of them parts of corporate chains) were structured to not deviate from the schedules - booth staffing, employees' work schedules, theater cleanings, and other tasks were keyed to it. Customers were expected to show up within 15 minutes before the starting time, and leave when the house lights came up. If a customer came really late and asked to stay to see the start of the next showing we would have let them but it would be regarded as weird. It's a linear story - what's the point of watching the beginning if you already know what happens at the end? And who wants to sit around for 15 minutes while the theater is cleaned? Tangential: When we first got Hunt For Red October another projectionist spliced the reels wrong. Each film came in octagonal cans, typically six 20 minute sections, before they were manually spliced together on two bigger reels of about an hour apiece. IIRC sections 5 and 6 were switched. People complained ... but no one wanted to stay to watch it again in the proper order. ETA: Come to think of it, there was an audience segment which seldom followed posted movie schedules: porn. In the 80s, there were still porn theaters in the seedier parts of town (for Boston, it was the "Combat Zone" on the edge of Chinatown) with films running all day and night and people could come and go as they pleased. Not many were interested in linear stories. I didn't work in that part of the business, but the old guy who licensed me for the state indicated that the bulk of his licensing work was down there. This was pre-WWW and not everyone had VCRs, and even if you did the only way to get tapes was via specialty stores in the Zone or sketchy mail order operations.
- pjc50 3y agoI remember watching a student film society showing of Schindler's List, where about halfway through one of the reels came in upside down and backwards. They took a while to fix it and it was very immersion-breaking.
- rob74 3y agoI once had a showing of Pirates of the Caribbean in English where they mistakenly inserted the second reel from the German version - that was also a bit strange...
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoI uh, don't understand why this isn't a thing anymore though; the cinemas over here have multiple rooms, they could have one room just show short films, making-ofs, documentaries, etc on a loop, even better if they have it near the entrance so people can just come in and watch for a bit for free (with the intent being that they buy food / drink, buy a ticket for a full film, or use it to wait for their own film.) I'd argue more time spent at the cinema is good, if not from a business, then from a social point of view. But then I'm sure it wouldn't be sustainable because teenage kids would take the piss in between or after classes, make a mess, etc.
- twic 3y agoMaybe we don't watch films like this any more, but this is akin to how one consumes an immersive theatre experience like the ones Punchdrunk puts on. The structure of those is quite different, and designed to be engaged with like this, though.
- kej 3y agoThe continuous movie was the source of one of my dad's favorite movie experiences. He and his friends arrived late to The Manchurian Candidate and missed an important scene, so they spent the rest of the time trying to piece together what had happened until the "big reveal" on the next showing. It turned a suspense movie into a full on mystery. Before streaming you used to get a similar experience on basic cable channels where they would play the same movie a few times in a row. I remember first seeing The Shawshank Redemption that way.
- edgarvaldes 3y agoPretty common in Mexico in the 80s and early 90s. It was called "Permanencia voluntaria". I remember a showing with the new Robocop 1 and 2, and another one with Hot Shots 1 and Deux.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoA few years ago, I kind of wondered about this, and mused whether I could stay for a second showing in a theater, or if I'd be shown the door. It would've mattered years ago, when I was homeless, and sometimes purchased a ticket to see a good film, and sometimes missed most of that film because I just wanted to sleep instead. But a recent change has definitively killed this idea: reserved seating. Reserved seating was never a thing in these United States, not in the major cities where I lived. You showed up at the box office and it was General Admission for any seats you could take, first-come, first-served. But a few years ago, I became aware of an independent theater nearby which had reserved seating. And sometime in the past 12 months, reserved seating has been introduced as standard to both major chains that dominate my hometown. So if your ticket is purchased for a specific seat at a specific showing, there's no way you could argue that you could stay in that seat, or any other, for the next showing, or show up early for the prior showing. You won't necessarily get challenged, but now there's an extra risk of someone else who belongs to that seat, especially in a popular film. Movie theaters are currently struggling to reinvent themselves, and they're risking obsolescence as more blockbusters go straight-to-streaming, and direct-to-video isn't such a dirty word anymore. It's a miracle that they bounced back after the pandemic. They are now hosting live video-game events, a live Taylor Swift concert, classic films on a weekly basis, and other creative auditorium uses: I believe that your company can have a teleconference in there, too. My local theater recently added a full bar. Alcohol at the movies wasn't a thing when I grew up. The first time I had a beer and a movie, it was in Barcelona. So far, I have not been subjected to any drunken disruptions, but the floors remain sticky as always.