... I had a similar experience a few weeks back watching The Time Travelers Wife - three young girls making comments all the way through what wasn't a particularly noisy film.
Added to this my local Vue has started charging extra for "VIP" seats, which happen to be in the middle of the cinema, just where I like to sit.

Ironic that as the quality of projection and sound has improved, the actual experience of watching a film at a mainstream cinema has crashed. Has anyone seen this malaise start to creep into the art-house cinemas?

It's definitely not just you. Not wanting to sound like an old fogey myself, it's about upbringing, the lack of teaching of manners/etiquette, the general 'couldn't care' mindset which increasingly prevails. It's evident at concerts, on public transport (feet on seats etc.), litter-strewn city centres...(oh boy, you've got me started now!).

It's also about cinemas trying to make the biggest buck by minimising customer service, the removal of the usher/usherette system being perhaps the most significant development. In my local multiplex they even seem to be doing away with the box office; now you have to buy your tickets at the concessions stand, amongst the mountains of popcorn. This is probably a marketing ruse to encourage people to spend their remaining salary on extortionate food, but it also means that they can reduce staff numbers even further.

It's part of the phenomenon that's been discussed on here before - i.e. people not being 'in the moment'.

I agree that it's highly annoying.

I frequently ask people to stop talking or switch off their mobiles in the cinema. I'm usually met with icy hostility from the perpetrators but gratefulness from other people around me. I have, however, admitted defeat in trying to stop the rustling of sweet wrappers, pop-corn boxes etc.; though I did ask a group to give us all a break in the theatre recently when their rustling was loud enough for everyone, including the actors, to be disturbed.

A colleague went to see Up on Tuesday and some idiot had taken a baby in with them. She says the baby was under 6 months old. Why should having a baby stop them doing whatever it is they want to do at everyone else's expense!?! When the baby started crying did the parent do the sensible thing and take him/her out of the cinema? Of course not. So one selfish git (the parent, not the baby who was only doing what babies do) spoiled the film for everyone else. My friend had the common sense to ask for - and get - a refund, but I bet very few others did the same.

...it's a sad fact that the cinema is no longer the best place to see a film.

I've got so tired of knobheads kicking the back of my seat, taking calls, easting at length and at volume that I've given up going to any film unless it looks likely to be half empty.

As a life long pacifist who has only ever been provoked to violence by DIY projects, the turning point for me came some years ago when I found myself in a cinema threatening bodily harm to a gang of spotty yoof - almost an out of body experience really. I was as bored with "Plant Of The Apes" as they were, but they seemed unable or unwilling to to cut out the noise and wrestling that they had decided to fill the void with. No idea how the film ended - all I could hear was the sound of my heart beating at around 180 bpm.

There days I'd rather watch the DVD; my GLW argues that this just robs the whole thing of any sense of event or occasion and she's right. We risk the occasional trip to the Oxford Picturehouse on Sunday afternoons - the munchers and slurpers are still in evidence but not in enough numbers to make it too bad.

my cinema experience is fantabulous and you're all a load of cranky old gits... but that would be a lie. (Well, you might be cranky old gits but this thread certainly doesn't prove it.) I do still like to go to the cinema myself, despite there inevitably being at least one socially retarded twerp present: maybe cinemas have some kind of "Care in the community" obligation we're overlooking.

Anyway, Mrs F and I also went to see The Time Travelers Wife recently and saw a world record set when 3 giggling, texting, chatting young girls were thrown out before the starting credits had completed! I suppose we ought to be glad someone had the courage to tackle them, although even as we speak the cinema is probably being tried under human rights legislation for psychologically devasting said girls for life. Or until the compo is in the bank.

mainly in Central London, and I know I'm lucky to have that choice. Going to movies in most multiplexes elsewhere is sheer misery. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of movie, or what kind of audience. And the yoof aren't the only offenders. People - and it's usually the old folks - who discuss the plot and characters in stage whispers are a particular nuisance. I saw "March of the Penguins" at the Chelsea Cinema (which used to be an arthouse, but is now mainstream) and was astonished to hear them discussing the plot in voices just loud enough to be annoying. There is a clue in the title.

During the holidays I got through quite a few audiobooks. I can't remember exactly which one but it was either "Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt or "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris in which the author tells us about his visit to the cinema in New York(and I'm assuming this was some time in the '80s)where there was a bloke in the audience listening to a football game on a portable radio(no headphones either). The author complained to someone in authority who asked the bloke to turn the radio off. The bloke replied something like "I want to watch the movie and listen to the game at the same time. It's a free country. Show me the law where it says I can't do both things at once".

I'll just wait for the DVD to come out and enjoy it at home with a bottle of plonk.

another year of no jobs and no hope of a job and you might see some change. or not. little bit of politics there. My name's Elton Ben. Good night.

At the Renoir recently a refreshed group of fiftysomethings talked loudly from the start of the film to some time in, before they were told to shut up. People think they're at home.

I stick to a tiny arthouse cinema in my home town (Hastings), where the only likely annoyance is the sheer poshness of most of the patrons.

Luckily, most mainstream films ceased to interest me a long time ago - the last film I saw in a multiplex was "In The Loop" in a small annexe screen, with only about twenty people in the audience, so no disruption.

In future, how about dressing as Edward Hyde, carrying a swordstick, and using it to soundly chastise anyone who offends you, while bellowing Edwardian imprecations at them... works for me (8-)

We've found that early shows on Sunday afternoons tend to be about the best time to avoid the munchers / talkers / mishavers. I just found it too stressful going to the cinema and being the only one who would ask people to quieten down, but thsi time is generally free of those who don't understand the meaning of good manners.
Trying to argue when someone says "I bought a ticket, I've got a right..." that they also have responsibilities is futile.
The worst I've heard about was from a friend who had to leave because there was a guy on his mobile loudly telling the other person what was happening on screen.

But I very rarely talk through a film at home. Once I'm watching it I'm watching it and the part of my brain that governs speech seems to switch off. But so do my ears to anything but the film. So I can actually get through a film and ignore background noise.

One of my best friends however, who is female, 5 foot 2 and slight cannot stand people talking on the phone and has risked violence by grabbing peoples' phones and throwing them across the cinema. A bit worrying when you're with her watching a film...

We should upbraid others in public if their behaviour offends us and we think it inappropriate. They in turn have the right to do likewise to us. It will cause communication and awareness of others. This is a good thing. It may not however be advisable in the Holloway Odeon when surrounded by a posse of yoot with no meaning in their lives. In which case call the cops.

There seems to have been a slow depletion in the teaching of manners, consideration for others and general good behaviour.

As has been noted elsewhere there is an element of risk in confronting this, but in my experience if you do so in company others will rally behind you.

I have fumed for ages in the flicks before bursting out with, "If you don't want to watch the film, fine, go somewhere else. Can you just keep quiet please as the rest of us would like to pay attention". I got a smattering of applause, was not attacked with knives, and the culprits went mostly quiet and had in fact left by the close of play. The British way is to tut but not to intervene. We need more moral fibre and some good old fashioned grumpy bastard backbone.

That's not the only problem in watching a film at the cinema. Even when I text the projection room they don't pause it so that I can get another cold drink!

.. the QFT in Belfast flashes up Please Do Not Talk During The Film on screen just before the film starts, which seems to be mostly successful.

spying on the audience with infra-red night vision watching for illegal screen-filmers, we should have bouncers watching and listening for annoying selfish morons and unceremoniously throwing them out when detected.

It might even be one of the secrets to reversing the decline of cinema audiences. Who'd have thought it; make the cinema a great experience for families and film enthusiasts and they will actually pay money to watch films there. Who'd have guessed they'd be less inclined to pay for crappy knock-off DVDs if the cinema was the choice place to watch a movie without having to put up with other people behaving like single celled organisms.

but I've only been to a cinema twice in the last 15 years. I won't repeat what others have said before me, but all I will add is that I would much rather watch a DVD than suffer the idiocy of many cinema goers.

been to the cinema since Casino Royale was out. On that occasion there were several noisy youths behind, who after being told to be quiet several times, just responded by giggling to themselves. Add onto that the noise of eating and mobiles made it a truly soul destroying place to be. I have never felt the need to visit the Cinema since.

A few months before this experience, we visited Toulouse, where we went to a local cinema a few times. The difference in attitude within the audience was very noticeable. The people there seemed capable of sitting for two hours watching a film without getting up every 30mins, texing/phoning someone, screaming/talking, making daft noises, eating something noisy or generally being an imbecile.

Wouldn't it be great if we could just pay for new release films via some pay for view, and watch them in the comfort of our homes...ah to dream

makes me feel nauseous. I think it's ridiculously affected when people buy huge pots of it. I can quite happily watch things on TV without eating at the same time.

It amazes me that someone will fork out 5-6 quid and then ignore the film while they witter on into their mobile. That is assuming they paid of course, I remember most screenings at Cine City in Manchester were presaged by the sound of a dozen local scallies dashing into the cinema via the fire exits. They usually stayed for about 10 minutes then ambled off to again.

It's not just cinema is it? A lack of respect for others is everywhere. I'm sure that in most cases, the 'offenders' believe they are acting normally and do not intend to upset people around them. Remember that Thatcher during her reign encouraged greed and the I'm alright Jack attitude and everything wrong with our society today stems from Thatcher's incompetence. This woman has ruined the country I love and no longer recognise. Luckily for her, she will die soon (hopefully)leaving the rest of us to live in the mess she has created.
At least Hitler left the German people a reliable car.

who said that "Hell is other people." I suspect this was said after an evening attempting to watch a film at the Odeon in Salisbury. Pointless. You may as well pay a couple of strangers twelve quid to stand either side of you and blather in your ear about Tony & Jane's new baby/work appraisals/the new loft conversion/last week's x factor etc. It's pretty much the same effect.

Fortunately, the time lapsed between a film leaving the cinemas and hitting DVD has now been reduced to a number of weeks in many cases, unlike in the 80s and 90s when you might have to wait a year or more for a film to make it out on VHS.

These are loathsome people, who are simply so thick skinned and unable to empathise with anyone. It's not the fact that people talk/text/phone during films that annoys me, it's the fact that they are utterly oblivious to the distress they are causing others. In my cinema going days, I would regularly ask people to keep the noise down, only to receive a look of such shock and outrage, you'd think I'd just informed them that I'd had sex with their mother.

It's not just restricted to cinema, either. It also happens in the theatre. I took Mrs Futurenoir to see David Tennant in Hamlet at the beginning of this year. Behind me was a man who coughed throughout the whole three hour play. Not just a tickle mind, a huge hacking cough. At one point, I actually felt his spittle hit the back of my neck. I turned and suggested to him that he might want to leave the auditorium for a while and maybe have a glass of water. He told me to fuck off and mind my own business. Well, at forty quid a ticket, it was my business.

Still it was great fun to see the look on the faces of the modern parent types, who had brought along young tarquin and Philomena to see Dr Who in real life when Tennant used the C-word halfway through the second act. The gasps were hilarious. I even saw a couple of yummy mummies complain to the theatre staff afterwards that the play wasn't suitable for children. It's fecking Hamlet you stupid, thick idiots. A play about a man driven slowly mad by innapropriate feelings for his mother and the knowledge that his father was bumped off by the bloke who is now rogering her who just happens to be his uncle. What do they want? Cut it down from three hours to one? Have Hamlet arrive onstage in the Tardis and revive Yorick with his sonic screwdriver? Utter idiots.

Give me my ipod touch and my decent pair of sound islolating headphones any day. It may not have the same effect and excitement as watching a film at the cinema, but it's a hell of a lot less stressful.

This is squarely in Grumpy Old (Wo)Men territory isn't it? Nothing wrong with that, just an observation ;-)

rarely visits the cinema these days for all of the above reasons. The theatre's not as bad yet but it's getting there slowly but surely. All part of the 'I'll do what I like' society we live in - or as Thatcher once said 'there's no such thing as society.'

I think there is a need to lighten up a bit. My sister in law was recently taken to task for bringing her 7 year old daughter to see a cinematic version of Swan Lake. The little girl loves ballet (she was even be-tutud for the film) and was shushed/tutted at by two senior patrons when she expressed occasional child-like yelps of delight. She was even confronted by them in the foyer afterwards, which made her mother cry. Happily, she was comforted by others who had witnessed this treatment.

For my part, I abhor rudeness and bad manners but there seem to be people that take things too far and have unrealistic expectations. Allow for the fact that there might not be absolute, respectful silence (because there are other people in the room) and the experience will be more relaxing. And one day your phone will go off during the film because you forgot to turn it off. It happens. So, like, chill.

Up with a cinema full of families. It was nice to see the 3D and the film in general with the context of the children who enjoyed it. That was a lovely crowd experience.

I hated seeing The Simpsons Movie with a crowd as I laughed at all the jokes that the main audience didn't laugh at and they laughed at the stuff I didn't laugh at and I just felt very isolated and out of touch.

Seeing antichrist with an audience was ridiculous as some people made stupid disgusted noises and were very dramatic about how much it upset them, talking loudly about how disgusted they were etc... whilst on the other side the pretentious brigade bridled at this attitude and ridiculously clapped at the end of the film. Since the film was mediocre it didn't in my opinion deserve either respect or loud interjections.

Generally I find theatre audiences good when the film needs a communal response and you are in sync with it. And its rubbish when you want to respond privately to the film or you have a very different view of it to the rest of the audience.

I think to draw any kind of consistent theory about audiences is to ignore the unpredictable alchemy of audiences... that's what makes being a member of one so exciting and also often disappointing. It's the risk that we take and sometimes it pays off.

Huge TV at home, some A/V thing underneath it pushing sound through all sorts of speakers, bluray player, microwave popcorn, nice bottle of red, toilet breaks without missing the film, no phone calls of any sort. No-brainer. Broke with tradition and went to see Up at the weekend, but there was some half-term pressure involved.

Since our little one came along a few years ago my wife and I haven't really had the chance to head out to the pictures of an evening and see a newly released film on the big screen, so I've rarely endured such bad behaviour in cinemas.

Though I have been aware of it creeping in. We went to see 'The Aviator' on its release some time ago. It had Leonardo DiCaprio in it. Which as far as I could tell was the only reason a gaggle of mid-teen harpies were in attendance in seats in the middle of the auditorium. They were relatively fine until about an hour in when they mutually agreed it 'was borin' innit' and that their adored Leonardo was not going to strip off or sport a trendy gelled haircut.

With that, seats were laid across horizontally and much texting, giggling and shreiking ensued. I'd like to say I marched down and told them to get the hell out but of course I didn't. Even though he was young, spotty and evidently mightily embarrased the cinema 'manager' (or the oldest lad working there) eventually did his duty and evicted them but only just before the credits rolled. They were seen milling about in the foyer as the audience left shortly after where one furious woman marched over to them and gave them a tremendous bollocking. They had the wit to look suitably chastised.

Talking throughout, obscuring your view with their arm/mobilephone/camera, shoving, plopping their mate/girlfriend/wife on their shoulders so you get a faceful of bum....

Very individualistic, none of the same sense of 'community' in audiences that there used to be.

...if you want a hassle-free movie experience. I've heard loads of horror stories about this place due to the gangs of local chavs that frequent the cinema, regardless of the film. A few years ago at a showing of Supersize Me, a row of teen chav girls were being a general nusiance by nattering, texting and easting noisily. When a burly rugby-player type bloke went over to complain, one of the little darlings broke his jaw. You don't really expect this at a screening of a documentary about the effects of Fast Food and Globalization.

Mind you, the middle classes can be as annoying. I had my only experience at an Imax cinema watching the documentary Shackleton ruined by a family sat behind me containing some noisy little bastard called Laurence. The kid was too small to see the screen properly in his special Imax seat, so kept asking "WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW, DADDY?" every 5 minutes. It was pretty dumb bringing such a young kid to a doc about an early 20th century polar explorer and expect him to be transfixed. The worst thing was the parents made no attempt to shoosh the little sod up to stop him ruining everyone else's cinemagoing experience , and eventually the dad let the kid sit on his lap so he could see the movie better. This allowed the soon-bored kid to repeatedly kick the back of my seat throughout the film, until I couldn't take anymore. I stood up and turned around to the blank-faced dad, and said "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR RUINING THE MOVIE FOR ME", and walked off to another seat. To my delight, the other people sat in my row who'd had enough of the family all got up and left too, one middle-aged woman chiding the selfish idiotic dad with " THIS WAS NO MOVIE TO BRING A 6 YEAR OLD TO!"

Wonderful stuff.

to the cinema on Wednesday. For the youngest (coming 3) it was his first time and initial portents were not good with the afore-mentioned queue for the extravagantly priced popcorn buckets. Family before us were more or less re-mortgaging their house to buy everything on offer and (as is always their wont) continually changing their order before being, as usual, totally underprepared to pay.

However, despite being stressed to the eyeballs by the time we entered the "theatre" our experience was salvaged by the film - "Up" - being so good, that everybody watched in old-fashioned silence.
Maybe we were just lucky that there weren't any anti-social phone abusers and that the quality of the movie persuaded the audience to be quiet but on the whole it was still a rewarding experience.

The end credits are often part of the film.

I saw Up last night. The end credits are a photo album of the subsequent lives of the main characters. And what's happening in each photograph is a witty comment on the job of the person whose name is credited.

Well worth sitting through.

Thought the scenes showing the young couple marrying and their life story until she died was as moving a piece of cinema as I have seen for a long while.

... went ot see a film in a quiet arthouse cinema, and was surprised to see there were subtitles despite the film being in English.

They were subsequently infuriated with the noise of eating & slurping by the people behind them, and remonstrated with them at the end. Only to be met with blank stares and sign language: it was a special screening for the deaf.

Possibly an urban myth, mind you.

What is it with Cinema Goers today? Probably the same the thing that allowed three women to talk all the way through Woody Allen's Alice at the Brighton arthouse cinema Duke of Yorks in 1990, and the same thing that allowed several big mouthed arseholes to spoil Sea of Love at the Portsmouth Odeon in 1989. Not that I hold a grudge about these sort of things of course...

This blog is very tetchy in place isn't it?

What happened to the old Word website where we could exchange views and indulge in harmless banter without being needlessly criticised?

.. you confine yourself to foreign language films and go in the afternoons (preferably on a bright summer's day) or when "Engerland" are playing. Avoid blockbusters or family films like the plague. Small, independent cinemas are worth seeking out, even if they incur extra travel. I wish noisy sweets, popcorn etc could be banned though.

I took my Mum to see Lions For Lambs a while back - was it last year? Year before?

We sat on the second to back row so that we could both see the screen very clearly, in a Tuesday night provincial cinema with approximately seven-and-a-half other people. A couple came in a few minutes before the film started, and looked like they had wandered into the wrong film. Despite the surfeit of seating, they sat right behind Mum and I, and began talking at the normal conversational volume. The girl, sitting directly behind Mum, was kicking her feet against the back of Mum's seat. The pair of them were rattling sweets really loudly,slurping drinks, mobiles jingling and jangling etc - the whole gamut of cinema sins.

Mum and I looked at each other and both did the old "eyes to the ceiling" thing - expecting that she would stop, and that the pair of them would stop talking once the film began. But they didn't stop any of it.

I'm a fairly reserved and patient and controlled kind of a man, and I really don't know where this came from, as I would normally ask politely, but I exploded: "Will you shut the FUCK up, or do you want me to go and get the manager to throw you out? It's not the chimps fucking tea party!".

The guy stood up and - I kid you not - had it not already been dark in there he would have blocked out the entire sun in my hometown. He threatened to put me "through the fucking screen" and his girlfriend began screaming about how rude some people are.

Eventually he sat down, and when they talked and noised it up again I turned round and gave him the stare. He made the knife across the throat gesture. After the film they had a go about how bad some people's behaviour is in cinemas when all folks want to do is go and enjoy a film together.

I find it remarkable that people have absolutely no concept of the correct etiquette. The rise of "home cinema" / DVDs has a lot to answer for here, I feel. The cinema is NOT a living room.

are my preferred solution to people who talk loudly or use their mobile phones in the cinema. More realistically though, couldn't the cinemas could put some kind of block on phone signals?

this was always going to be.

It seems to be another signifier of a general shift in behaviour. People are just more selfish in this age. In this mass-consumption, advert-overkill world we have become the centre of our own self-created universe. In the cinema we mostly only care about ourselves and behave accordingly. It's conditioning.

Having said that, there are some occasions where a big, filled cinema creates a special atmosphere of collective enjoyment. It's telling that it's LOUD films that work best. I've had a ball watching Total Recall, Terminator 2 (even the Coen's Intolerable Cruelty) and their ilk in a capacity cinema with surround sound at full blast to mask the munching and conversations. Nothing quite like it.

The introduction of special Baby Sessions at my local cinema (in Melbourne, Cinema City, - do they have them in the UK too?) was a life-saver on my days with my little one. Being special early sessions for parents & babes it told everyone what to expect before investing in a ticket and gave parents an opportunity to enjoy new releases in an appropriate environment. Can you believe Kill Bill was one of the films? It was for the parents anyway and babies are oblivious.

Certain cinemas seem to be multiple offenders where bad behaviour is concerned and it's mostly suburban it would seem. The old Streatham Odeon was a shocker and even Brixton's Ritzy seemed to have an open door policy for the street-drinkers & homeless - I once had to leave when the person in front soiled themselves. Sure, they have as much right to be there if they buy a ticket but we should all have a collective responsibility to behave ourselves too.

And yes, the absolute worst are Art House Cinemas filled with more knowledgeable than thou pontificators. And the social catching up that goes on? Why go to the cinema to have a conversation?

Here in Melbourne there's a lovely pre-feature ad featuring two guys called The Bazura Project -

check out their brilliant parodies: http://www.bazuraproject.com/

and this specific one on appropriate cinema etiquette -

http://www.bazuraproject.com/season-one/104-feature-story

(how do I imbed these damn things?)

who remind us to switch off our mobiles, pagers, laptops, guitars, amps, synths and pacemakers.

Wise words.

Which is a shame, as I used to enjoy the whole experience of going to see a film.
Years ago, my then-girlfriend took me to see 'Festen', in a tiny Copenhagen cinema. I remember how diverse the audience was (especially considering it wasn't a *mainstream* film) - there were families, kids, older folks, couples. (Not sure how tough the Danes are on age classifications). Throughout the film, there was a lovely collective sense of enjoyment and afterwards, everyone mingled in the lobby bar drinking cocoa and eating buns and talking about the film.

That has always stuck in my memory as just about the best possible cinematic experience (the fact that the seats were thoughtfully equipped with generous beer mats and ashtrays only added to the general bonhomie).

But, to agree with many posts, I reckon nowadays, the average multiplex cinema is just about the worst possible place to watch a film. I can't remember it being this bad when I was younger, the Odeons of my childhood were full of kids but we went to watch films. Today, cineplexes the equivalent of a desolate shopping precinct late on a Sunday afternoon, when you've nothing to do and can't be bothered with anything, a place to hang out with your mates, be a berk and annoy everyone else. Throw in stupid ticket prices, overpriced synthetic snacks, bored staff and wall-to-wall weird smells and really, well, forget about it. And its the same all over the place. I remember the cineplexes in Dubai being just as described here, with the added misery of brutally edited films and the weird smell of chicken hot dogs.