How Often Do You Visit The Movie Theatre?

[Jimmu]

Upon the release of new movies they are usually shown in theatres/cinemas before making the move to other distributions such as DVD/Blu Ray or iTunes. How often do you see movies at the theatre? Do you enjoy the experience or would you rather wait until you can purchase and own the movie?

I see a movie at the theatre once every few months with friends and I think that it is a good activity to do together, especially if you're big fans of the movie franchise which you are seeing. I hope to be able to start seeing movies at the theatre on a more regular basis now that I have finished school as I enjoy the big screen and the sound system that gives me an experience I just can't get at home.

 

[Mamono101]

I fall into the "once or twice a year" category. Usually I can wait the few months it takes for it to come to pay TV, but occasionally there'll be a movie that really takes my fancy and I'll make a concerted effort to go and see it if I can.

I definitely prefer seeing films in a cinema for very much the same reasons as the OP. Sometimes the "cinema experience" has even tainted my view on some movies. What I mean by this is after seeing it again moths later at home, I find that the movie was not as good as I remembered it to be and usually I can't remember why it was I even liked it so much in the first place.

 

[Emma]

I almost thought I won't be able to in a long while as the one in my town closed. But on seeing this thread, I did some research, and the website for my city's development commission says that it was closed to do some work on it and that it'll re-open sometime this month. I don't have a regular pattern to go to it. I go if there is something I want to watch, and that they have it. That sometimes means once every few months, or a couple times in one month. Depends. But on average I'd say maybe seven times a year or so.

 

[Djinn]

It actually used to be almost every weekend at least. Now I have moved into the once or so a month or less these days. I hardly ever find the time to go to the theater any longer plus half the time I'll look at a poster and just consider it not worth my money at all.

 

[Terminus]

Every few months. Only if there's something I really want to see. Although when I was in NZ I'd go if I had time to kill. Saw HTTYD2 three times.

 

[Azure Sage]

I haven't been to the movies in several years. I think the last movie I ever saw in theaters was Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, so... yeah, it's been a while. I'm honestly not that interested in movies these days. I used to like them when I was younger, but now I just don't care about them. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie commercial on TV and thought "Hey, I'd like to see that." It almost never happens anymore. So, I haven't been anywhere near a movie theater in years.

 

[Princess Niki]

Um I practically live at one because I work at a Regal Cinemas. Though I only see movies when I feel like it, I don't see one every week. The novelty of working there wore off 2 years ago.

 

[misskitten]

I'm more into TV-shows than I am movies, so I don't really get all that hopped up about most of the movies coming to the cinema, so it's only when it's a movie series I'm invested in/anticipating that I care enough to go see it in the cinema. So it generally ends up being once or twice a year for me. Three times this year in particular with Divergent, Mockingjay Part 1 and the final Hobbit movie.

 

[A Link In Time]

I usually go the movie theater once or twice per year. The last movie I saw in theaters was last year's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. I'll see the third film in the trilogy and maybe one more film this year if there's anything interesting on the horizon.

 

[Garo]

This year? Some 30 times and counting, which averages out to a little less than once a week so far. Roughly half of those were steeply discounted tickets thanks to my penchant for attending at weird hours of the day (10:00 AM on a Sunday is a great time for movies; $5 is not an uncommon price at that time). Another five or six were pre-screenings that were free. The rest are a mix of standard evening prices and added premium tickets like IMAX or 3D. Yeah, going to the movies is expensive. But I budget for it, because it is never not worth it.

Even a bad film is worth seeing in a theater because the experience is profound. The goal of a film is to elicit an emotional reaction, be it laughter, tears, or screams. A good film will do that, and you get to be part of a room filled with people having that same emotional reaction with you. A bad film will fail to do that, but at the end of it, you're still in a room surrounded by other human beings who were seeking the same thing as you. It's a beautiful unifying thing, the theater. Roger Ebert used to call it "a machine for generating empathy," and that's as apt a description as I've ever heard. I love going to the movies more than anything else in the world, even if I go alone. It's as close to a religious experience as I ever get.

I am also one of those people who stays for the credits, and will applaud at the end of a film that I really loved. When I saw The Wind Rises in theaters earlier this year, I gave a two minute standing ovation. The theater was empty, of course, and nobody from the film would ever know that I did that. But I did it anyway, out of respect for the craftsmen who created that work of art that moved me so much. The theater is a miraculous place where the anxieties of the outside world can be banished for a while, and through the work of amazing craftsmen the world over, you can be connected to other human beings on a powerful level.

So yeah: I go to the movies a lot.

 

[Salem]

Almost once every weekend, sometimes twice if I'm really bored.

 

[Mask-Salesman]

I go once every 2 months I think. Depends on what movies are being released. Actually just came back from watching Fury in the cinemas this evening. That movie was awesome. Had to see it in IMAX.

 

[octorok74]

Once a year, twice if I'm lucky. I only go with my family and we only go when we get gift cards. We only get gift cards to the movies on Christmas so usually sometime in January or February we go to see a movie that everyone agrees on. Sometimes if my mother feels like gifting my brothers and I then we go to a movie during the summer.

 

[Heroine of Winds]

Once or twice a year for me anymore. If it's a movie I'm really interested in, then I'd go see it. Sometimes if there's a movie that I want to see, but don't feel like seeing it in theaters, I just wait for it to either be on Netflix or on DVD. It just depends on my mood.

 

[Hanyou]

Seems like most of the big event films nowadays are either superhero movies or poorly-written Transformers-type garbage.

Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Gladiator--these represent the types of movies that are really worth going to the movies for. I don't really care about superheroes and whatnot, so I have few reasons to go to the movies more than twice a year.

I am not claiming good movies are no longer coming out, by the way. I badly want to see Gone Girl (big fan of Fincher's stuff), for example. But I don't feel like I need to see these types of movies on the big screen. I don't respond to them much differently in a theater, and I actually prefer the solitude of my own house in some cases.

Interstellar is a recent example of the type of movie I'll go to the theater for. More movies like that and I won't object to spending my money, even for IMAX. Really, most of what Nolan puts out falls into this category. Also might be worth watching Paul Thomas Anderson films on the big screen, even though they're not "event pictures."