Muse: NZIFF Rant: A Diva's Place Is On The Screen, Not The Audience
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And just to get it on the record, I'm going to be gushing at great length about what a brilliant job Bill Gosden and everyone else connected with the Auckland Festival have done. I can understand why they're extremely reluctant to turn people away, and the practical problems involved when a good chunk of the audience think they can just show up five minutes before show time. But really... the majority who do make an effort -- and often at considerable inconvenience -- deserve some consideration too.
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I know this sounds like vintage white whine (a.k.a. First World Problems)
In a nutshell, yes. Fact is, you don't know why this person was late, you don't know why they got up twice during the film. I can see a number of scenarios in which it could have happened to me. And short of the person being rude about it, I'd say that people with bladder problems or various kinds of shit going on in their lives are entitled to go to the cinema too.
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Toby,
I wished the ushers (or I) had a Taser to hand when pockets of (half-pissed?) audience chatted through Taxi Driver and whooped at the Famous Bits, as if they were watching Grease
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... are walking out of another bloody screening that started ten minutes late to make the next one
For a few years the Gothenburg Film Festival had a policy that the ushers would not let anyone leave till all the credits had rolled.
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The Austin Drafthouse Cinema were in the news a little while back for their new warning spot before films
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Am astonished that people carry out such vitally important and pivotal work that they cannot bear to leave their big glowing phones un-consulted during the movie. You sir: you with the iPhone or Android beacon-strength glare - turn your stupid toy off!
And while I'm on a grump gallivant, what's up with the clapping at the end of festival films? Unless the director or someone else involved with the project is actually present, surely it's just self-gratulatory smugness?
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
That's brilliant. Absolutely genius.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
The Austin Drafthouse Cinema were in the news a little while back for their new warning spot before films
They've been the Magnited States of America to me ever since.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
The Austin Drafthouse Cinema were in the news a little while back for their new warning spot before films
Sir, I just have to drop my to add my +1 to Jackie.
And here's John Waters' ever-so-slightly perverse 'No Smoking" warning...
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Fact is, you don't know why this person was late
In my own defence, I'd have asked but the elderly lady who was expressing her extreme displeasure to the gent concerned at the repeated booty bumping and having to stand to let him pass was scary. (The Civic is a wonderful old picture palace, but leg-room most definitely wasn't in the design brief.) Decided discretion, and not impeding the flow of traffic, was the better part of journalistic valour.
And, really, what's a night out without a little light frottage between strangers?
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Danielle, in reply to
whooped at the Famous Bits
Or laughed merrily along with Travis Bickle's descent into madness. Yes, he's such an endearing character. The fuck is wrong with you people?
OTOH, I am pro-clapping if the film is amazing. I'm not entirely sure why - it just gives the festival experience a bit of gloss.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
OTOH, I am pro-clapping if the film is amazing. I'm not entirely sure why - it just gives the festival experience a bit of gloss.
Clapping for films at festivals is a convention. It's got nothing to do with the director or the cast being there.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Yes, he's such an endearing character. The fuck is wrong with you people?
Quite possibly the same thing as seeing Kill Bill in a cinema in Sydney surrounded by downright gleeful teenage Asian girls. The whooping every time Uma Thurman went medieval on someone's ass was downright emasculating.
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Taxi Driver ... whooped at the Famous Bits
laugh...merrily along with Travis Bickle's descent into madness. Yes, he's such an endearing character. The fuck is wrong with you people?
Oh, I dunno. 'Rocky Horror' dress-up and audience participation is getting a bit stale. We could update it to 'Taxi Driver'. Throw condoms and sick bags at the screen when he's cleaning his taxi, squirt waterpistols at each other during the climactic shootout. That sort of thing.
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Danielle, in reply to
Everyone has to slowdance creepily along with Harvey Keitel and Jodie Foster. Bring your own 13-year-old hooker. Yes, this is promising.
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Sacha, in reply to
That's brilliant. Absolutely genius.
Reckon. I want to go there already.
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Anyone old enough to see The Warriors on first release in 1979? In the States at least, it reputedly provoked random violence amongst patrons.
And it wasn't a new thing - when Blackboard Jungle was released in Britain, it had the effect of egging on the teddy boy movement.
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Sue,
since when dad was alive sitting through and entire film was impossible for him, we always used to make sure to book aisle seats. But that's not something you can easily do if you want to book your tickets early the only way to 'choose' your seats is if you wait till counter bookings open and even then you have to be really organized at the ticket counter.
On the late starting films and needing to leave early. Festival used to (and I'm sure they still) do go out of their way to try and hold a screening if they know loads of people have booked to another film that for some reason has run late. It does create a bit of a domino sometimes but they do that so people don't miss out. -
Everyone gets caught short, but if you're actually incapable of watching a film without disrupting others, watch at home or (in the case of normal release films) go to a quiet screening.
I'd say that people with bladder problems or various kinds of shit going on in their lives are entitled to go to the cinema too.
They can. Just like people with blood-gushing head wounds can, and people who like to recreationally take huge shits in their pants can. But should they?
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Islander, in reply to
Very understanding and compassionate Morgan Nichol-
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
But should they?
Charming.
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Morgan Nichol, in reply to
Very understanding and compassionate Morgan Nichol-
I don't go to the movies in order to show compassion to disruptive people, I go to the movies in order to watch a movie.
Given that I'm now paying $40 for seats when I go to the movies, what kind of shit should I as a reasonable peaceful movie goer be forced to endure?
Am I also meant to be understanding of people who apparently only go to the movies because they like to get a lot of texting done in very large dark rooms full of people trying to focus on something that is very easily and specifically intruded on by bright rectangles of light?
I'm actually quite sympathetic of people who need to piss. Especially if I've met friends at a bar before the film, and tapped the seal already, it makes me a bit anxious - so I use a highly sophisticated strategy called 'taking a last minute piss before going into the theatre, even if I barely need to', it seems to work most of the time.
If your bladder can't make it two hours, get a seat on the aisle. Festival aside, this is a problem in normal screenings. Every popular session at normal cinemas in my area appears to have easily user selectable seating. Sit at the side, sit at the back. You won't need to be anxious, and you won't need to intrude on other movie goers experience. No more problem.
Anyway, pissers aren't a very big problem most of the time, it's the talkers and the texters that fuck me off the most.
Oh my god, and people who translate the entire movie for their non-English speaking friend? It happens all the time at my local theatres (Queen St, Auckland). Watch it at home where you can either have subtitles or change to a different language, or try to follow along in the theatre, just shut up.
/rant
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Islander, in reply to
yeah, rant was right.
There are all kinds of people who have paid for their tickets and go to movies- you sound quite - not only lacking in compassion & understanding - a candidate for the dvds when they come out, so you can watch them all in your controlled space. -
giovanni tiso, in reply to
Given that I'm now paying $40 for seats when I go to the movies, what kind of shit should I as a reasonable peaceful movie goer be forced to endure?
Don't know. Then again, I also don't care.
That was genuinely quite unpleasant.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
But that's not something you can easily do if you want to book your tickets early the only way to 'choose' your seats is if you wait till counter bookings open and even then you have to be really organized at the ticket counter.
Quite - one year, I booked through the Ticketek website. Never again - it was expensive and not so much user-unfriendly as user-contemptuous. I know the Festival gets complaints every year, but I don't know if they've really got any better options. (Though the Ticketek agency we used this year was bloody good. Nice young chap who didn't treat us like shit on the heel of a new pair of Louboutin pumps.)
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