posted
Greatest movie going experience? Mine? Hmmmmm.
Being a huge Star Wars fan and only seven or eight at the time it debuted, you'd think I'd say something about that, but in all honesty, I don't remember seeing it at the theaters.
I'm surprised that I haven't seen this movie mentioned yet, but a midnight showing (early 1990s) of The Rocky Horror Picture Show has to have been the most fun I've ever had at the movies. The interactivities of throwing toast, frankfurters, running down the aisle to do the Time Warp.... <chandler voice> again </chandler voice>... yelling at the screen and throwing rice.... Man I can't remember ever having so much fun at the movies.
The movie itself if pretty hard to watch without all of the outside frivolty, but you get the right group at that movie and I dare you not to have fun. On the other hand, if you went with a group that had no idea of how to make the movie fun (I've been there too), then you probably had trouble staying awake.
Other great movie going experiences that I remember... Ghostbusters and Bill Murray's act had me rolling. Mr. Mom was great (saw it on my 13th birthday with my family). Saw T2 at a midnight preview before its actual opening. Forest Gump and Saving Private Ryan are the movies that got to me on a purely emotional level. Somebody showed up at Episode III dressed as Darth Vader and sat in the front row. All of the sudden from the very back of the theater a "Jedi" turns on his light saber and runs all the way down to the front to fight Darth. That was great... the funny part was that ol' Darth had forgotten his lightsaber, but quickly and deftly put the "Jedi" in a force choke. The whole theater appreciated the little show.
-------------------- Something Filthy!
From: NOVA by way of NOIN | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by minesurfer: I'm surprised that I haven't seen this movie mentioned yet, but a midnight showing (early 1990s) of The Rocky Horror Picture Show has to have been the most fun I've ever had at the movies.
That's because Caroline hasn't found this thread yet.
From: Utah | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
BSing my way into see a Double Bill of 'Death Race 2000' and the original 'Rollerball' when I was 15. "Are you 18?" "No, I'm 19."
God alone knows how I got away with it. DR2000 was kinda fun, however the game sequences in Rollerball are, I believe still unsurpassed in any brutal futuristic sport film.
LotR - all three movies were brilliant - if arse-numbing.
Seeing Aliens on its first day of release (still my favourite ever movie - watched it again on DVD just the other night). Was rewarded with an 'Aliens Survivor!' badge that Keith nicked off me - I'll have it back any time you like Keith, the sooner the better!
And I suppose I'd better add getting dressed up as Frank, complete with a set of doctors greens and marigolds to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
[ April 17, 2006, 12:06 AM: Message edited by: Ghost of Numf El ]
From: Scatland | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I was going to write a long thing about my best moviegoing experience, and then I suddenly thought to use the search feature of the site to dig up the old thread from 3 years ago in which I chronicled it as it was going on. Good memories!
posted
Seeing Cicade de Deus on its opening night at the Tivoli in St Louis. I cannot explain that experience.
Second would be seeing a restored copy of Lawrence of Arabia complete with overature, intermission, exit music and end credits. In the cinema. All 227 minutes of it.
-------------------- -Nick-
Is Civil War over with yet?
From: Texas | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Kid Prime: That's awesome about Rocky Horror there, Numf!
Complete with a fake 'kiss / lips' tattoo on my left butt cheek, and size 9 1/2 high heeled shoes. We also went into the theatre to see it at one point, sort of an organised audience partici-say it!-pation. And heading down to the pub afterwards bumped into my dad. I don't know which one of us was more embarassed! Very funny.
I'm sure I've got a photo somewhere ......
[ April 17, 2006, 12:05 AM: Message edited by: Ghost of Numf El ]
From: Scatland | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Dressing up for "Rocky Horror" as the late Charles Gray (The Criminologist) once, long ago, at least didn't call for my getting high-heeled shoes
Never did nail his accent, though *sigh*
From: Starhaven Consulate, City of Angels | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
One that sticks in my mind, not so much for the film as for the theater experience itself, was seeing the first Timothy Dalton Bond film "The Living Daylights" in a true old Cinerama type theater on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. I can't even remember the name of it now, because it closed not too long after. In the days before Imax, it was mindboggling to see such an immense screen, with speakers set up to deliver true stereo sound.
I also saw the Costner/Connery "Untouchables" there and I vividly remember the sound of a typewriter coming from far behind me in a scene when the typing was well away from the main action of the scene. It was really immersing.
posted
Not completley on-topic, but I figure this would be as good a place to post this as anywhere...
Ever see EXECUTIVE SUITE ? TCM just ran it, and even thought it was the furthest thing my "my" kind of movie, I decided to sit down and watch it. (I do this a lot with TCM. There's something about seeing movies uncut uninterrupted in widesceeen that's really hypnotic.)
Robert Wise directed it, and it's got an all-star cast including William Holden, June Allyson, Walter Pidgeon, Barbara Stanwyck, Dean Jagger, and Frederic March. It's a drama focusing on, of all things, a corporation that makes furniture, whose president suddenly DROPS DEAD, and what happens afterwards.
A little ways in, I found myself thinking, this is a world I really can't relate to-- and would never want to. But all the technical stuff and then all the personal relationships eventually lead up to a very surprising climax.
At a board meeting to elect a new president, William Holden stands up and starts talking about WHY someone runs a company in the first place. He talks about how "pride" often drives someone, and for a company to work, it can't be the pride of one man-- it has to be the pride of EVERY person who works there. That making people work ONLY for money destroys the SOUL. That people making and selling INFERIOR merchandise hurts them as well as the customers. That a company who makes inferior merchandise just to raise the profits for the stockholders is a result of lack of faith in the future and short-term vision.
Here I am watching something so foreign to my type of movie, and it's striking so much deep in my soul that as I type this I'm completely overhwelmed by emotion, because so much of what he said relates in so many ways to so MANY things I've had ideas and feelings and beliefs about over the last several DECADES. My God, I think this may be William Holden's best movie-- if not the best scene he ever acted in. There's SO MUCH wrong with this country right now, and this film talks about it MORE now than when it was made! I think EVERY person in this country should see this film, and really let its message sink in.
Among other things, accountants, while they serve a very important function, should NEVER, EVER run things. Just like lawyers should NOT be allowed to run the government.
Registered: Aug 2003
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Star Wars - 1977. Changed the way I looked at movies forever. Saw it a few weeks after opening, but saw the rest of them on opening day.
Aliens - I wanna say '86. Saw it opening night with a group of my friends. That movie is always a great ride...but watching it with a theatre of people that had never seen iut was awsome.
Superman - I looooved this movie. Still do.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Ghost of Numf El: Seeing Aliens on its first day of release (still my favourite ever movie - watched it again on DVD just the other night). Was rewarded with an 'Aliens Survivor!' badge that Keith nicked off me - I'll have it back any time you like Keith, the sooner the better!
Just saw this...after I posted my picks. Seeing it opening night was sooo great. Me and my best friend planned the outing with our friends for weeks.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I think I'll have to go for the Star Wars option as well. I was seven when it came out and I can remember my mum and dad blackmailing me with this all week. I eat my greens, did all my homework as soon as I got in from school, hell, I even cleaned my bedroom. Then came the big day and the queue to get in went all the way down the street. We waited about forty minutes,(my dad is a puncuality freak which means we're always, at least, half an hour early where ever we go...still are) and they put the rope barrier up for full house when we were only four from the front. If we had been right at the front it would have been a total nightmare but at least we weren't the poor sods that got "sorry son, not you". My mum was all for going home and if we had, I promise, I would have had a stroke right there on the spot. But my dad (thank god) talked her into waiting for the next showing - two hours later. When we finally got in I had to admit I missed the opening shot of "the biggest space ship ever"(TM) I was to busy trying to eat my cola flavoured Star Wars ice lolly through my free C3PO mask. The thing I remember most was Han Solo shooting some guy when they were in the bar, surrounded by the coolest monsters ever. I remember going into school next day and getting to sit with the rest of the cool kids, the ones who had got to see Star Wars. The ones who were all wearing their free C3PO masks.
posted
That period from 1977 to 1979 was amazing for a scifi/comics geek movie experience.
-- Star Wars (already covered)
-- Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind: mothersip rising over Devil's Tower
-- Superman: the whole thing
-- Star Trek - TMP: Kirk (and us) seeing the Enterprise in wide-screen glory
I can think of a couple other wonderful, life-changing experiences with non-first run films. In my teen years, an old theater on Greenville in Dallas showed old movies. Sitting in the balcony with my high school girlfriend watching "A Hard Day's Night" -- I just couldn't believe the energy and charisma that the Beatles had in their prime. They were so cheeky, so smart, so sarcastic, so certain they were better than anyone older than them, I knew precisely how they felt. What a joy that film is. Oh, my three-year old loves it, too.
Same theater, same girlfriend, Hitchcock's "Rear Window." Jimmy Stewart, wheelchair-bound with a broken leg, doses in the hot summer evening. He wakes up, and from his point of view Grace Kelly is leaning down to kiss him. Cut to the two in profile, filling the screen, as Grace plants an angelic kiss on ol' Jimmy. An angel descended from heaven. I normally don't have much interest in blondes, but after that scene I had a difficult time remembering my girlfriend's name for awhile. I know Hitch DID have a thing for blondes (DUH!) and what's amazing about this scene is that he puts all that longing, desire, idealization, and fantasy into a few seconds of film that leave the viewer feeling EXACTLY the same way. What WAS your name again, dear?
-------------------- ...but you don't have a moment where you're sitting there staring at a table full of twenty-five characters with little name signs that say, "Hi, my superpower is confusing you!"
From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Jul 2004
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"Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" - aside from the fact that I wasn't expecting much, I laughed my ass off, and part of that had to do with the communal experience of laughing with a theater full of people. It made me really appreciate seeing a comedy as much as seeing "big" films on a big screen.
"Jaws" - I'm not even talking about seeing it the first time. I saw it on the big screen years later after having seen it many times on the small screen, but something about seeing it big really made it feel like seeing it again for the first time. Speilberg is a genius when it comes to taking an audience for a ride - there were even a couple of scenes that still provided a good fright despite knowing what was going to happen.
From: New York, NY | Registered: Jul 2003
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