+1
Back in my early teens, I worked at the local movie theater, taking tickets on weekends, selling concessions weekday nights, which put me in the theater about 6 days a week. Didn't necessarily see every film all the way through--usually at least the key scenes, however--but I heard them time after time after time. (For younger members not familar with those ancient times, the theater had only one screen and no doors to separate the theater from the lobby.) Sometimes after I got off work at 10 p.m., I'd go out to the drive-in, owned by the same man, and enter through the exit since the entrance was closed and locked by then. The drive-in was primarily the passion pit for teen couples, certainly a safe place to go parking, but again one seldom saw all or even much of the film. My movie-going tended to decline when I got a real job that paid a real salary and, even not of legal age, was big enough to hang out in bars with older, faster women who had their own houses. In the early 1960s when I was in the Army, movies at the base theater was a participatory experience where the mostly young male under-the-influence audience carried on a running commentary about the scenes on the screen. After the Army, poor-boying it through college on the GI bill generally kept me out of the theaters. Then I got married, graduated, had kids, which certainly cuts down on your chances to go to indoor movies and makes it easier to opt out for television. Over the ensuing years, the drive-ins died off, as did my favorite film stars. Of the new stars, I don't know the names of most and am not impressed with many. And too many movies now are highly derivative--or just lousy remakes--of movies or television series or even comic books I saw long, long ago. Besides, I now have on video or DVD all of the old films whose scenes I didn't see in my youth. Since most of the movies out of Hollywood now are aimed at boys of 15-25, there's not much of a movie market for my generation, so I doubt if I go in a movie theater even twice a year. Last time was when I took my grandkids to the 3-D Ice Age when it first came out. As for other films seen on the big screen--Mama Mia!, Ray, the film where Kevin Kline played Cole Porter (can't recall the title), saw Gettysburg on the big screen as well as the Lord of the Rings series--need a big screen for films like that. Saw half of the Harry Potter series in the theater and half on DVD. Big screen didn't help Saving Private Ryan or Gods and Generals. Saw The Notebook in the theater, but Hollywood futz that one up, too. Gladiator also was a bust, but I liked Cinderella Man. I'm sure I've seen other films at the movie theater in the last 5 years or so, but damned if I can remember what. Easier to wait for them to come out on DVD and watch them at home where I can stop, rewind, or turn on the "cutlines" when I can't hear or they can't talk.