Honestly, this has been standard at every chain theatre I've been to for a decade or more. Once reserved seating became the norm, we just show up fifteen minutes after the 'start' time and walk in to the house lights dimming.
Agree with your review of Dune though.
I stopped going to movies after covid, but i was at one movie whereca fight broke out in that exact scinario. A group showed up right as the previews were ending to find other people had taken their seats. Its escalated where the girls were physically fighting and the manager had to break them up.
AMC restarted the movie and gave everyone a free ticket to another movie after this 2 girls were escorted out.
I'll take random throw downs over a Twister reboot trailer.
I generally only go to matinees when I go, so if someone's in my seat it's no big deal to just take another one, thankfully.
This is the way.
I probably won't be back until Dune 3, but by then 3 years will have passed and I'll have learned nothing.
reserved seating
I'm so out of touch what the hell is this?
Pretty much every theater does assigned/reserved seating nowadays. You choose your seat numbers when you buy the ticket. No need to show up early to try to scout the best seat or score 5 in a row or whatever. They’re just saying they go to their ticketed seat.
Huh. Do you have to pay more for some seats?
Did they at least start selling beer and having decent food?
No, all the seats are the same price, at least at my theater.
My theater also has a full bar and really good food. Actual handmade wood-fired pizzas, wraps, sandwiches, burgers, fries, pretzel bites, etc. All made fresh after you order; it’s not sitting under a heat lamp. I think they have reasonable prices.
Even better, you can carry just your popcorn and drink into the theater, and they’ll deliver the rest of your food to your seat when it’s ready. Pretty awesome, especially with kids, to not have to figure out how to transport all of it.
Do you eat while watching the movie? Isn't that super disturbing to everyone else?
I assume you mean that you can eat before the movie right?
Good questions—
Yes, eat while watching. It’s no louder than eating popcorn. All the food is served in paper trays or cardboard, so the sound is still relatively quiet. In fact I think candy, especially the bagged kinds, are far louder from the bag crinkling. Lots of people around me have eaten food and it doesn’t disturb the movie. The movie itself is far louder.
There is seating in the bar area if you’d prefer to eat before or after the movie, but it’s not required.
I think I would also annoyed at the smells of different foods, but... I don't know. It's one of those things I would have to experience myself. :)
I would tend to agree, but none of the food is really offensive smelling (I guess that’s subjective) but the other thing is that you’re pretty far away, unless they’re sitting right next to you, which is rare these days in all but the most popular opening weekend shows. From row to row (front to back) you’re separated by roughly 5-6 feet horizontally and maybe 3 feet vertically. Enough that I can recline fully (another awesome feature of most modern theaters) and there’s still room for someone to walk through in front of me without turning aside for my feet. And then when standing in your row, your feet are just above the heads of those seated in front of you. It works really well.
Honestly, if you haven’t been In a while, it might be worth checking out. Of course each theater can vary in quality and guest experience — I once went to a theater where their “fresh cooked pizza” was a cheap frozen pizza put through a fancy pizza oven and never went back — but in my opinion theaters are, on average, drastically improved from the 80s/90s/00s era theaters of old. Even if they are more expensive now, a good theater makes a nice occasional outing if you can find a good one. I wouldn’t go back to the old style.
And make sure you find one with a good rewards program if you become a regular. It can really cut down on the cost of tickets and concessions.
Depends where you live, I guess. Before moving out of state, I used to occasionally go to a place in Wheaton, Illinois called Studio Movie Grill. It's like a normal theater but each seat has a tray and you can order food like in a normal restaurant. Each row of seats is elevated over the rows in front so that the servers for rows in front of yours don't block your view of the movie. I did find it a little distracting but I still enjoyed it.
As for beer, every chain movie house I've been to for years has sold beer and in many cases, mixed drinks too.
Assigned seats
Assigned seatings basically. You pay for specific seats when you buy your ticket, kinda like when you purchase theater tickets.
20-30 minutes of previews/ads has been standard for at least a decade now. That's not an AMC thing - that's just what most theaters do.
More than a decade... particularly with tentpole films like Dune.
I don't see any ads at all anymore so I kinda like it.
That is insane. I know i fidlike ads way more than the average joe, but how is that acceptable?
This is intentional, it's to give the edibles time to kick in.
AMC Mountain High, with CBD Jujyfruits and Indica Caramel Popcorn!
Shit. I did mine hours too late.
Unpopular take, but I like theatrical previews. They're like bonus mini-movies, similar to the shorts before Pixar films. (I hate spoilers so this opinion only applies to movies I wasn't planning on seeing anyway, however I'm not much of a cinephile so that ends up being most of them.) Also it's nice having a buffer for any latecomers to get settled before the feature film starts.
I liked them until they became so full of spoilers, now I actively avoid them. It would have been so much cooler if I hadn't known Spider-Man was going to make an appearance in Civil War.
Trailers have been full of spoilers since at least the 1930s.
That's why it's a mini-movie, you probably don't need to see most of them if the plot can be fully developed and resolved in 2 - 4 minutes.
It's not so much the trailers that people complain about, but all the ads.
They're basically all the same. I also saw dune IMAX yesterday and was very annoyed at sitting through 30+ minutes of ads.
They all have the exact same "epic" music, tone and pace. Non of it was creative and bored the hell out of me.
Dune pt 2 was amazing through, I recommend.
I like trailers and previews, but at home while wearing overly revealing shorts. That's the ideal clothing.
Don’t worry they’ll be out of business. They’re a billion in debt. Their stock has lost like 98% of its value. Their ceo is a dickhead. They’re diluting shares like crazy.
The previews are part of the experience in my opinion. We can def do without the Nicole Kidman so many years celebration. This probably belongs more in unpopular opinion more than anything else. Some home setups even preroll future trailers. It’s an option in Plex.
Upvoted for your opinion, but also
No.
That's how all cinemas near me have done it for ages, and the main reason I don't go, apart from it costing more than a 4K blu ray for the both of us to go.
Only 10 minutes of ads? I think it's normally more than that. And there's always a Kevin Bacon one in there.
Look for a theater in your area that serves food (not just snacks). They generally have a better clientele, they usually kick people out who don’t behave, and they don’t waste time on corporate rah rah nonsense like ten minutes of Nicole Kidman commercials.
I'll take 10 minutes of Kidman fever dream over the trailers for every fuckin movie in existence.
I generally prefer Regal for the screening options but the one thing AMC do better is the seating. Way more comfortable.
The seat was very comfortable, I sat in it for 30+ extra minutes.
Hey, at least you can recline while you sit through the third pickup commercial!
Why do people go to theaters? My home is nicer
My home doesn't have Dune 2 playing and I got water coolers to talk around.
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