Muse: NZIFF Rant: A Diva's Place Is On The Screen, Not The Audience
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Ant Timpson has kicked off a Facebook page to campaign for an end to the use of cellphones in cinemas.
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Some people really must get a life at their earliest possible convenience. He also gets free arsehole points for the use of "ADHD kids" as a slur.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Some people really must get a life at their earliest possible convenience. He also gets free arsehole points for the use of “ADHD kids” as a slur.
I didn't notice that until you mentioned it. Could've done without it, but why is his actual point -- that people using cellphones during screenings is rude and contemptuous of others -- so "get a life" awful?
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Some people really must get a life at their earliest possible convenience.
I’m sorry this whole thread is pissing you off, but cover your eyes. Pina: A Film for Pina Bausch last night was a wonderful mash up of cinema, music, dance-theatre and intelligent use of 3D. Full house.
But, again, the screening started ten minutes late.
And it was really fucking wonderful when one of the most intense moments in the film was punctuated by someone taking a phone call behind me. And, no Gio, it wasn’t an emergency but arranging a hook up for drinks after the film. You know, something that could have been done fifteen minutes later when the film was finished.
Hell, if someone really can't deal with the psychic trauma of turning their damn phone off for 100 minutes I'll show them how to set it to silent mode and dim the backlight.
I'm just damn sick of the narcissism of people who think their phone trumps any consideration for the people around them.
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As a professional fence-sitter, my argument is that there's clearly a difference between someone causing a necessary or emergency disturbance in a film and someone who's just being an inconsiderate jerk. Answering a phone *within the theatre* is clearly jerkwad territory.
(Full disclosure: I forgot to mute my cellphone only once - in Fantastic Mr Fox, as I recall - and it rang. Mea culpa. I turned it off instantly though.)
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
I’m sorry this whole thread is pissing you off, but cover your eyes.
It is, and I will freely admit I’m bringing some baggage into it. And I know, there are genuine dicks out there – but it still doesn’t excuse the blanket assumptions, or the ableist language, or the total loss of one’s grip.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
that people using cellphones during screenings is rude and contemptuous of others – so “get a life” awful?
The reaction seems a tad over the top. Seriously, is Auckland located in a different country from Wellington? I go to the cinema a bit, and you get the odd person who forgets to switch the phone off or checks a text during a movie, but honestly I wouldn't call it a scourge. Sometimes people even - gasp! - talk during movies. They did so before cellphones were invented. And it's, you know, okay.
If you demand total silence and perfect bodily composure from the people around you in order to enjoy a film maybe a crowded theatre is not for you. (He says, provocatively.)
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Martin Lindberg, in reply to
If you demand total silence and perfect bodily composure from the people around you in order to enjoy a film maybe a crowded theatre is not for you.
As much as some people can be annoying, it's not a big deal for me either. One of the points of going to the movies (for me anyway) is the collective experience. And, yes, that collective includes people I would prefer not to be there. But until I can buy every seat in the theatre for myself, that's not going to happen.
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I guess it just goes to show that high art like Space Battleship Yamato demands more of its audience than Macbeth did during its first run at The Globe :-)
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
I want to go back to people openly screwing in the audience. And the selling of oranges. Let's see how texting is going to bother you people then.
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Martin Lindberg, in reply to
I want to go back to people openly screwing in the audience.
Umm, I can probably do without that, but I want my intermission back. And smoking in the theatre. Only on the left though.
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merc,
Bring back singing God Save The Queen pre-film?
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Sacha, in reply to
only if people openly screw to it
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Jolisa, in reply to
While standing up, natch.
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Martin Lindberg, in reply to
While standing up, natch.
and can have a smoke after.
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Rageaholic, in reply to
Actually, I wonder if an intermission would solve a lot of these problems. Bring back the intermission so that people know that half way through they can use the loo, check their messages, arrange afterparties, have a smoke, have a shag, whatever - instead of just doing these things at a whim during the film since there is no other opportunity to until it is over.
I don't go to the movies because of a lot of these reasons. I know that I would be much more likely to pay $20 a ticket if I knew I wouldn't miss anything by having to pee halfway through, and that I wouldn't disturb anyone by doing it.
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merc,
This may result in Smith's lyrics.
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Jolisa, in reply to
God, movie-going used to be so civilised.
Sorry Craig, I'm with Gio on this one, and not just because I've watched Cinema Paradiso a few million times. If a film's good enough, it casts its own spell of engagement - sometimes a silent spell, and sometimes a noisy, reactive one. And if it's not good, then how much more fun it is to be part of an audience that registers its feelings. Random annoying people are annoying, to be sure, but random annoying people are just people.
You will find me amongst the groundlings.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Jolisa:
OK. I'll sit in the front row at the Great Blend on Thursday and work through my call list while Emma's doing her thing. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Mary Potter Hospice.
And the next person who really wants to bring up the norms of Tudor theatricals better be ready to tell Robyn Malcolm et. al. why they're being replaced with teenage cross-dressers.
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Martin Lindberg, in reply to
And the next person who really wants to bring up the norms of Tudor theatricals better be ready to tell Robyn Malcolm et. al. why they’re being replaced with teenage cross-dressers.
umm, what?
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Jolisa, in reply to
OK. I’ll sit in the front row at the Great Blend on Thursday and work through my call list while Emma’s doing her thing.
Good lord, man, don't give yourself a nose job just to spite your face. I assume that you'll be whooping and hollering with the rest of them, thus proving my point, that an engaging performance will engage the vast majority of the audience.
And the next person who really wants to bring up the norms of Tudor theatricals better be ready to tell Robyn Malcolm et. al. why they’re being replaced with teenage cross-dressers.
That would be this Robyn Malcolm, who says of live theatre:
"You have to get dressed, put your shoes on, get a babysitter, pay in advance, find a park, sit in a dark room with strangers, wait till interval to take a pee or have a drink. Theatre requires effort on behalf of an audience. Huge effort. I think you have to assume these days that most people don't want to make that kind of effort. The stakes are that much higher right from the get-go. And, as a performer, if you are sucking badly, you will know instantly. The audience will let you know. That way it is utterly a collective ritual."
Happily, she's on both of our sides.
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Emma Hart, in reply to
that an engaging performance will engage the vast majority of the audience
I am terrified of an unreactive audience. Especially as I am on early enough that people may not have drunk enough enthusiasm yet.
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Sacha, in reply to
While standing up
to attention, as it were
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Jolisa, in reply to
Wot, no PA Story drinking game?
But seriously, you'll have no trouble engaging the audience. Disengaging them, maybe.
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Jolisa, in reply to
Happy and glorious.
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