Does it matter to you wether you watch a movie in a theatre on the big screen or you watch it at home on DVD? I like DVDs a lot, they offer amazing possibilities to every cinephile, but they simply can't be compared to the clarity (should I say purity?) of the projected image. I think both possibilities consist in a different approach to the art of film in general.
For me, a movie theatre is something like a temple, a cathedral, a sacred place so to say, whereas films you watch on DVD, VHS, or worse: on TV just seem to be far more ephemeral.
Does this difference also occur to you?
sure there are differences, but they each have their own pros and cons.
everyones always talking about the "theatre experience." the home video experience can be great too. i love watching dvds at like 2 in the morning alone.
Part of the reason I love making movies is because seeing them projected on a big screen with a lot of people watching is such an incredible experience. I love going to see movies in a theater. I love watching DVDs too, but there's something that's just...transporting...about going to the cinema. Watching movies at home puts me more in a scrutinizing mode, which is why DVDs are wonderful (you can learn everything you want to know about a film on one disc).
Love your new avatar, Kris. La Jetee is a masterpiece.
It depends on the film. Most films are enhanced on a big screen, but I don't mind watching Office Space, for example, at home. I can't bring myself to watch 2001: ASO and Apocalypse Now on DVD after watching them on the big screen (It certainly doesn't help that both AN DVDs are cropped).
I think I often prefer the home viewing experience. I like watching movies on my computer because I get a better picture than the tv and you can pause, rewind, etc. And if you stick your nose three inches from the screen it's just like the big screen!
But...you can pause and rewind on your TV too! Provided you have a DVD player/VCR.
Doesn't watching movies on your computer screen hurt your eyes?
I really love DVD's. I know I'm not the only one that sometimes worries about people talking or ruining the potentially amazing experience going to a movie theatre can be. It doesn't happen often for me but when it does happen, it can be devestating. So, I guess I'm more at peace when I watch DVD's...I have nothing to worry about. I still will always love going to the theatre though. Especially the local art house, it's all middle aged-older people that never talk...I have never had a problem with anything like that there, I'm very calm there. So I guess I can't say which one I prefer...I love them both. I watch DVD's a lot more than I go to the theatre of course.
Definitely, there are pros and cons between the two main options of watching a movie. Truffaut said that he was a video fanatic, because was a cinema fanatic, but that he wouldn't like to watch a film for the first time on video. For him, a film in theatre was like a book you read for the first time, and a film on video like a book you take out of the shelve whenever you want to. I think that is a great comparison.
But is also a queston of availability: there are some films that probably will never be released on DVD because hardly anybody is interested in them. Yesterday, I watched Antonioni's "Il grido" in a theatre. Whereas you can get "L'avventura" without greater problems (except for the price of the Criterion disc :) ), I don't think you could find his earlier films on DVD.
Quote from: Ghostboy
Love your new avatar, Kris. La Jetee is a masterpiece.
Thanks, Ghostboy, I agree completely :). I'm somehow obsessed with this picture. I think that is a good example for a film I prefer watching alone at home. It's just more...shall I say "intimate"?
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstarcinema.bendigo.net.au%2Fimages%2Fcinema.jpg&hash=2b24e56710b45b6f8d7d7d737b5c3663e3ab4ed7)
cool.
Quote from: chriskelvin
Does this difference also occur to you?
Sometimes! But then i just give my bigscreen-tv a nice big hog! :twisted:
Quote from: Sigur Rósa nice big hog
ha ha.
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Quote from: chriskelvinDefinitely, there are pros and cons between the two main options of watching a movie. Truffaut said that he was a video fanatic, because was a cinema fanatic, but that he wouldn't like to watch a film for the first time on video. For him, a film in theatre was like a book you read for the first time, and a film on video like a book you take out of the shelve whenever you want to. I think that is a great comparison.
That is a great way to put it...Truffaut seemed like a really cool guy. I keep telling myself I need to see more of his stuff.
Quote from: ebeaman69
That is a great way to put it...Truffaut seemed like a really cool guy. I keep telling myself I need to see more of his stuff.
In that case, you should watch "La nuit américaine" ("Day to Night"). I just love that movie.
Movie Theaters Try an Upgrade in Ambience
Going to the movies no longer has to feel like you're riding in coach or sitting in the bleachers. But do moviegoers care?
At about a dozen National Amusements Inc. theaters around the country, some auditoriums have been fitted with extra-wide, VIP leather seats no arm-rest sharing here and private concession stands. Some other theater chains offer valet parking and fine dining all at a higher price.
"If you're going to a football game, you can sit in a luxury box. If you're flying, you can sit in first class," National Amusements spokesman Brian Callahan said. "At the movies it had been always one level of service."
Because movie houses make little money from ticket sales, they must profit from popcorn, candy and soda sales.
Selling glasses of wine and higher-priced seats in an atmosphere that has a country club feel is another way to increase earnings and give people a reason to leave their homes for a night.
The number of movie tickets sold dropped from 1.63 billion in 2002 to 1.57 billion in 2003 to 1.53 billion last year as the availability of home entertainment options soared.
The theater extras add from $2 to double the price of a regular ticket. The average cost of a ticket was $6.21 in 2004.
It's all about giving the moviegoer more choices, said Jason Squire, editor of the book "The Movie Business" and an instructor at the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television.
"You don't have to choose the deluxe environment," he said, adding that the industry deserves credit for trying to enhance the experience of going to the movies.
The National Association of Theater Owners doesn't track how many cinemas offer VIP seating. But interviews with theater operators indicate the number is just a fraction of the 37,000 movie screens nationwide.
They realize that most customers, like Will Norris of Toledo, are satisfied enough to opt against the extras.
"Movie theater seats are so comfortable now anyway," Norris said after catching "Be Cool" at the Maumee 18 Cinema De Lux in suburban Toledo.
Four auditoriums at the National Amusements cinema were transformed from the standard stadium seating to wider aisles and seats. It costs $3 more to watch a movie in those theaters.
The added charge would be worth it, said Mike Day of Toledo, just so he could avoid crowds and some people's constant commentary during the film.
Matthew Harrigan, a movie industry analyst with suburban Denver-based Janco Partners Inc., said he's doubtful that VIP seating will take off even though it's worked in Britain.
"Americans are too unruly for that," said Harrigan, laughing.
Loews Cineplex Theaters, the nation's fifth-largest movie chain, has tried a couple of approaches to VIP seating.
Some of its theaters offer first-class seats that are sectioned off and reserved inside the traditional theater and allow those customers to order snacks from their seats.
The more exclusive Loews Club at a theater in West Homestead, Pa., offers free coat check, lounge chairs to watch the show and a restaurant.
Sitting in those stuffed leather chairs costs $5.50 more per ticket.
At the Muvico Palace 20 in Boca Raton, Fla., there's a separate entrance to the premier seating area. An escalator takes moviegoers to a bistro and bar where they can eat dinner, have a drink or walk down a hallway to one of six balcony seating areas.
There are love seats in the balconies, and the popcorn is free. Tickets cost $18 for evening shows, double the normal price.
"We patterned it after club level seating at sporting complexes," said Jim Lee, a spokesman for Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Muvico Theaters Inc.
It opened five years and is still packed on weekends, Lee said.
The Palace 20 is the only one of the company's 12 theaters with premier seating. Another under construction in New Jersey next to the Meadowlands Sports Complex will offer it.
Cleveland Cinemas President Jonathan Foreman decided against adding VIP seating at the chain's seven sites but did add coffee and fresh baked muffins along with beer and wine at some theaters.
"Anytime you can do something to enhance the viewing experience, it's certainly worth trying," Foreman said. "It's the one way of making the moviegoing experience different."
I know a lot of people on this board who have argued for watching movies on DVD than theater, but i'm sure if everyone had their own big screen to themselves they would prefer the big screen. Its just hard to find the perfect audience - or even no audience.
Americans Prefer Watching Movies at Home
The parking's easy and there are no lines at the concession stand: Most Americans would now rather watch films at home than in theaters, according to an AP-AOL poll. At the same time, almost half think movies are getting worse.
Hollywood is in the midst of its longest box-office slump in 20 years, and 2005 is shaping up as the worst year for movie attendance in nearly a decade if theater business continues at the same lackluster rate.
In the poll released Thursday, 73 percent of adults said they preferred watching movies at home on DVD, videotape or pay-per-view. With more than two-thirds also saying movie stars are poor role models Russell Crowe's phone-throwing being the latest example it may take more than a blockbuster or two to reverse Hollywood's slide.
Just 22 percent said they would rather see films in a theater, according to the poll conducted by Ipsos for The Associated Press and AOL News. One-fourth said they had not been to a movie theater in the past year.
"I just prefer to stay home and watch movies," said Mark Gil, 34, a mortgage broker in Central Square, N.Y. "It's cheaper. You can go rent a movie for three bucks. By the time you're done at the movie theater with sodas and stuff, it's 20 bucks."
Films are getting worse, said 47 percent in the AP-AOL poll. A third said they were getting better.
"I don't like movies as much as I used to," said Tracy Drane, 38, a computer-technology worker who lives outside Dallas. "I'm a fan of old musicals and old AMC channel stuff. I could watch movies without thinking I'm going to see people in bed together and a lot of cussing. It has gotten much worse."
Many of this year's big films "Kingdom of Heaven," "The Honeymooners," "XXX: State of the Union," Crowe's "Cinderella Man" have fizzled.
Those in the poll were most likely to be fond of comedies, followed by dramas and action-adventure movies.
Some in Hollywood think the slump 16 straight weekends of declining revenue compared to last year is a momentary blip due to so-so movies. They maintain the box office will rebound when better films arrive.
Others view the slide as a sign that theaters are losing ground to home-entertainment options, particularly DVDs available just months after films debut in cinemas.
But the poll found that people who use DVDs, watch pay-per-view movies on cable, download movies from the Internet and play computer games actually go to movies in theaters more than people at the same income levels who don't use those technologies. That suggests the technology may be complementing rather than competing with theatergoing. Eight in 10 in the poll said they use DVD players at home.
Through last weekend, Hollywood's domestic revenues totaled $3.85 billion, down 6.4 percent from 2004. Factoring in higher ticket prices, the number of people who have gone to theaters is down 9 percent, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
If that pace holds through year's end, admissions for 2005 would total 1.345 billion, the lowest since 1996.
The wild card from 2004 was Mel Gibson's unexpected blockbuster, "The Passion of the Christ." That film drew a huge Christian audience, many of them not regular movie-goers. Taking "The Passion" out of the mix, 2005 revenues would be up 2.9 percent over 2004, and ticket sales would be virtually unchanged.
While 2005 has produced its share of hits among them the final "Star Wars" flick, the romance "Hitch" and the animated tales "Madagascar" and "Robots" audiences have found Hollywood's recent offerings generally humdrum.
"I think this slump is product-driven," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations. "That to me is a much less chilling problem than some sort of cultural shift in people's moviegoing habits. A cultural shift takes longer than 16 weekends of down box office."
Box office revenues have been down every weekend since late February. "Batman Begins," which opened Wednesday, could snap the streak this weekend. But if business is off again, Hollywood would match a 1985 downturn of 17 weekends, the longest recorded slump since analysts began keeping detailed box-office figures.
The 1985 slide came with similar dire predictions that movies on videocassette would devastate the theater business, Dergarabedian said. Box-office grosses were stagnant into the late 1980s, then rebounded strongly.
In the 1950s, some analysts foresaw the demise of movie theaters as people stayed home to watch television. While business plummeted from 4 billion or more admissions a year in Hollywood's glory days, movies remained a prime entertainment choice.
"Going to the movies is a social event, like going to a football game, like going to the ballet, like going to a play," said George Lucas, whose "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith" is this year's biggest hit. "Something you do to be social with other people. I don't think that's ever going to go away."
From the early 1990s through 2002, box-office grosses climbed steadily as studios perfected their blockbuster marketing machines and cinema chains built new theaters with improved seating, sound systems and other amenities.
But ticket sales reached a modern peak of 1.63 billion in 2002 and have fallen since, down to 1.51 billion in 2004.
"There's certainly more competition now for entertainment dollars than there ever was before. No question there's more choices," said Bruce Snyder, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, which released "Revenge of the Sith." "That may splinter the audience a little bit."
A handful of big hits could salvage Hollywood's year. Still to come this summer are Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise's "War of the Worlds," Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the superhero adventure "Fantastic Four."
Even if theater business continues to erode, DVD profits could more than compensate Hollywood, a movie's theatrical run becoming something of an extended trailer for the home-video release.
DVD sales and rentals totaled $21.2 billion in 2004, more than double the domestic revenues at movie theaters, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, a trade outfit.
"Star Wars" creator Lucas figures that with digital piracy of movies a growing threat, studios eventually will release films in theaters, on DVD and online at the same time. Homebodies could watch on their big-screen systems, while fans craving a mammoth screen and a communal experience could hit the theaters.
"You'll rent it for two dollars or buy it for 10 or see it on a giant screen in a social environment and have a good time," Lucas said. "I think there will be room for all of it altogether."
The AP-AOL News poll of 1,000 adults was taken June 13-15 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Whenever I go to a mainstream movie at the multiplex or the dollar theater, I see many people jump out of their seats as soon as they think the movie is over. As if it was torture to sit through the movie.
Thomson lands $1.5 billion digital-movie role
France's Thomson on Thursday unveiled a deal with Hollywood studios to accelerate the deployment of digital cinema systems in North America.
Thomson will install at least 15,000 digitally equipped screens in the United States and Canada over the next 10 years, generating some $1.5 billion in revenue.
"It's a deal with seven studios that make (up) over 75 percent of the American box office," Thomson Chief Financial Officer Julian Waldron said during a conference call. It opens many opportunities for Thomson's three divisions, he added.
Thomson said in a statement that its services division had reached digital-cinema usage agreements with DreamWorks, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros.
In addition, Thomson said it is in late-stage negotiations with Twentieth Century Fox, New Line Cinema and Weinstein, and that it expects these studios to be part of the initial deployment.
Thomson shares rose 2.5 percent after the news but later retreated. At 2:50 a.m. PST, they were down 1.0 percent at 16.35 euros ($19.25), while the Dow Jones Stoxx European technology sector index was up 0.3 percent.
DreamWorks, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. have already agreed to use digital projection systems from Thomson's technicolor digital cinema on 5,000 screens in the United States and Canada as early as the first quarter of 2006.
Thomson estimates that opportunities from the market for digital-cinema services would be at least $1.5 billion per year, and it aims for a 40 percent to 45 percent share of that market, Waldron said.
Analysts took a positive view of the deal.
"It's good, and it confirms they are right with their repositioning strategy," said CM-CIC Securities analyst Quentin Philippe.
Thomson has transformed itself from a low-margin consumer electronics firm into a provider of high-margin services to the media and entertainment industries.
The media and entertainment business, which includes DVD replication, film post-production, professional broadcasting equipment and TV set-top boxes, has become the group's main growth driver.
Digital cinema systems will replace current light projection systems, which trace their roots back to a system used by France's Lumiere brothers in 1895, in the basement of the Grand Cafe in Paris.
Surprise! People Prefer Movies at Home
A new poll conducted by The L.A. Times and Bloomberg has revealed the obvious: people prefer to watch movies at home rather than at the theater. The poll, which surveyed males and females aged 12 to 24, showed that in one demographic, 21-24-year-olds, less than 10-percent prefer the theater (the percent increases somewhat the younger the person). Aside from that old news, the poll did have some interesting results. The main attraction for going out to the movies, for instance, appears to be either the bigger screen or the chance to go with a group of friends. Most people could care less about seeing a movie when it first comes out. The factors that turn people off the most are the cost, either of concessions or tickets, and then rude/talkative moviegoers. As it turns out, bad movies aren't a deterrent, which means that people will see any old crap if the price is right. The last question in the poll asked about the time it takes for moviegoers to tell their friends about the movie they've seen. As far as word-of-mouth buzz is concerned, the results seem to show that studios should let it take its time to generate.
Other findings in the poll: Teens are interested in watching movies on a PC but not so much a cell phone or a video iPod (or similar); Only 10-percent of teens consult movie reviews; Young people in general are seeing fewer movies per year as they grow older; Pre-teens are offended by sex and nudity; Few young people are offended by violence, gross-out humor or bad language; Dan Glickman believes, "you can't have a thriving movie industry without having a thriving theatrical business." Okay that last one was in response to the poll, not a part of it. Anyway, I love when Glickman says such things while he does nothing to actually aid the theatrical business. If he has indeed looked at the poll results, he should currently be talking to studios about lowering ticket prices, since it is Hollywood that forces the price-increases upon the cinemas in the first place.
yes, i'd like to add a big FUCK YOU to theatres for charging so much to see a movie and doing nothing/very little to insure your experience is free from other people ruining it. these factors have singlehandedly led to me seeing more and more movies on dvd. i prefer the theatre but not with those inconvienences.
but that's the chance you take whenver you goto any event where there are people you don't know--they might be assholes. I don't think the theater is responsible for raising a culture of assholes who act like they are entitled to everything everywhere. it's the shift of culture in general, I'm not flippant enough to say that it's for the worse, but people definitely think that they have less and less in common with each other and therefore nobody cares about a shared experience that is going to the movies. though going to a sporting event or a concert are still as ritualistic as ever.
Sometimes the other people in the audience is really half the fun. As I wrote in my response to Scoop, we as an audience were totally into it and that itself made it fun. Every other time I've seen it I felt kind of awkward because the audience consisted of mostly old farts that weren't really laughing much, and at the time it hurt my impression of the film. I suppose if you want a "pure" viewing experience then by-yourself is the way to go, where your opinion won't be influenced by audience reactions.
Seeing mainstream movies is a little different, where you're more likely to have retards in the same audience as you.
Anyway, as a whole I love the theater experience except they overcharge for both food and the movies. If they could lower prices I'd go a lot more often; the audience doesn't generally irritate me too much.