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Salon's Matt Zoller Seitz has asked an array of film writers and filmmakers to share their greatest (most vivid, transporting, surprising, impassioned, absurd) moviegoing memories. Or, as the subhead puts it, "the sights, sounds and feelings that have stayed long after the lights came up."

I'm one of about 14 or 15 contributors. (My story is about a calamitous Manhattan screening of North by Nothwest that happened about...good God, 30 years ago.) The articles are short, nicely edited, illustrated. It seems extra cool that under each movie title the where and when (i.e., which theatre and in what town/city the special experience happened in, and the year) are provided.

Here's mine:

"In 1980 or '81 I attended a weekend showing of Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 thriller North by Northwest at the Regency, an Upper West Side rep house owned by Dan Talbot. It was a late-afternoon screening, which to me indicated that a fair number of hard-core Hitchcockians were in attendance.

"Sometime around the end of the 20th Century Limited train scenes and the crop-duster sequence, the projectionist skipped a reel. Thirteen or 14 minutes' worth bypassed!

"Silence, at first. And then whistles, claps, hoots, 'Yo!'

"The dumb-shit projectionist (whom I instantly envisioned as being a cousin of Pete, the Akim Tamiroff-resembling Greek diner owner played by John Belushi in an old SNL skit) wasn't responding.

"All at once three or four of us got up and walked into the lobby and bounded up the stairs to the projection booth. Knock-knock, bang-bang...hey, man! Which the projectionist completely ignored. He was scared, we later realized, and had called the manager. But our blood was up. Skipping an entire reel of North by Northwest was an outrage...hey! Bang-bang, boom-boom, 'Canary bird, will ya get outta the bathroom?'

"Finally the manager responded, but like a riot policeman. He ran up to the projection booth door and turned toward us, panicked expression, back proverbially arched. 'Get back! Get back!' His eyes and tone of voice were exactly like those of Marcel Bozzuffi, the French assassin in The French Connection who tried to shoot Gene Hackman and was later cornered on a moving subway train by MTA cops.

"Why did the Regency projectionist (aka 'Pete') and the manager go into Defcon 1 mode? Why didn't they simply smile and raise their hands and say, 'Okay, we get it, guys...we made a mistake...we'll fix it right away'? That would have shut us up immediately. Instead were treated as raucous invaders rather than justifiably motivated film buffs, and so we the people got angrier than we should have.

"There's a lesson in civic relations here, but particularly one for theater owners. That lesson is 'film buffs are always right.' If they say the sound is muffled or weak, it probably is. Don't debate it -- fix it!

"The next day I got a call from someone in Talbot's office. I was the bad guy, in their view. I had caused the problem.

"Well...but of course!"

Here's another good one, about a 1996 viewing of Striptease at a Mahattan Cineplex Odeon, written by Daniel McKleinfeld:

"The most memorable movie-theater moments usually happen during bad movies, not good ones. There's something about watching a truly wretched flick that bonds the audience together like a platoon slogging through an infested jungle. Back in the '90s, the best place to do such slogging was the Cineplex Odeon, the last second-run house in NYC, where movies got one last chance to hobble across the stage before collapsing into the video racks. And it was there that I had the most powerful moment of personal validation ever to take place in a movie theater.

"Tickets to the Cineplex Odeon were $2, a price that encouraged teens on cheap dates, and marginally employed artists. So competition was fierce to be the most entertaining thing in the room, not excluding that thing on-screen. But for a while, the Demi Moore vehicle Striptease had us all struck dumb -- the crazy shifts in tone, the tacky costumes, Ving Rhames' Samuel-Jackson-on-codeine act -- there was just nothing to say.

"But then, about a third of the way through, the movie steps out of the strip club. We have a long scene laying out the details of our heroine's custody battle. Moore, refusing to let a little girl see her mom crumble, sends her daughter to play on the beach. The camera pushes slooooowly toward Moore's radiant face, a single tear welling up in her eye. We cut to the little girl, gaily skipping across the beach as the sun sets. We push in toward Moore's welling tear ducts. Closer...closer...the tear begins to fall.

"And I yell: 'MORE STRIPPING!'

"At that very instant, smash-cut to rhinestone-covered ta-tas, flouncing across the stage at the Eager Beaver.

"I at once respond: 'THANK YOU!' And the crowd goes wild.

"I may never be that cool again."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 24, 2010 at 8:58 AM

comment #1

paul_kolas says ...

Now THIS is the kind of post I can get behind. I think the most poetically just experience I've had in the last few years in a movie theater is seeing "Pearl Harbor" at the Showcase North Cinemas in Worcester, MA. Just as the Japanese were dropping the bombs on the ships in Pearl Harbor, the projector over heated and the screen turned into a giant while hole. Amid all the groans and cheers, I yelled, "even God hates you, Michael Bay", and got a huge laugh. Of course we all got comp tickets for another movie on the way out of the theater, and someone came up to me and said, "I wouldn't have been as polite as you".

Posted by paul_kolas at July 24, 2010 11:10 AM

comment #2

paul_kolas says ...

"white hole..."

Posted by paul_kolas at July 24, 2010 11:10 AM

comment #3

K. Bowen says ...

I have bits and pieces of these, but never wholly calamitous.

I do remember that during a screening of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, one of the reels had no subtitles. The funny thing is that no one complained or seemed to lose their place. I think that's a tribute to his skills as a storyteller but also the predictability of his stories.

Posted by K. Bowen at July 24, 2010 12:02 PM

comment #4

Lord Ozark says ...

Three or four of you...bounded up the stairs?? Rather obnoxious, even for you.

Posted by Lord Ozark at July 24, 2010 12:05 PM

comment #5

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Oh, thanks, Lord Ozark. I decided to ban you the other day but then I forgot. Thanks. You just reminded me. Cool.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at July 24, 2010 12:22 PM

comment #6

Bob Hightower says ...

I was watching CATCH-22 when it opened. I was getting numbed by the heavyhandedness of Mike Nichols's antiwar "satire." Finally there was a scene on a street in Rome of someone beating a dead horse. I couldn't take it anymore and yelled out, "Mike Nichols is beating a dead horse!" I didn't get any reaction from the rest of the audience, which seemed confused.

Posted by Bob Hightower at July 24, 2010 12:24 PM

comment #7

Dan Revill says ...

I tend to push the bad experiences out of my mind...my two favourite experiences though happened ten years ago.

The first was seeing Lawrence of Arabia on a big screen. I went with my father. I had first seen the movie a few years previous. I knew it was my favourite film already, but that screening cemented it. I don't know how anyone can ever skip a viewing in a theater - 35mm or 70mm - of this film. It's a must.

My second was seeing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I had a festival pass for the Vancouver Film Fest and wanted to see this movie so bad. Unfortunately a bit of bad planning lead to me not being able to make it on time via transit. Thankfully one of my parents was going out that way (I think my mother). Anyhow, I hitched a ride, got to the theater in time to pretty much beg my way in (passholders were given first access, but it was almost showtime). Probably to the chagrin of rush line patrons, they let me in. I sat at the very back of the theater, near the aisle and was transported away. I had never seen anything like it and at the end, everyone clapped - also something I'd never witnessed. I was 18 then and doubt I'll ever have as great an experience as that.

Posted by Dan Revill at July 24, 2010 12:33 PM

comment #8

Lord Ozark says ...

Empty threats from an empty shell.

Posted by Lord Ozark at July 24, 2010 12:33 PM

comment #9

bmcintire says ...

When I was in college, I went with friends to see FRESH HORSES. The brat-pack movies were in full swing at that point, end we expected to see much the same out of something starring two of its primary components, Andrew McCarthy and Molly Ringwold.
The movie turned out to be a hideous bore, saved only by the fact that the projectionist had screwed up the frame, thus allowing the tips of boom microphones and lighting gates to become visible at the top of the screen. The more it happened, the funnier it became.
Soon, a theater full of drunk (they served beer at this place) college students was paying attention to nothing below the top half of the screen. An older (probably in his 30s - ha!) patron got up to complain, and the management, seeing what they had going for them, adjusted the framing so it was even WORSE. It made for a hilarious peek behind the movie-making curtain. And I still couldn't tell you what happened in the last half-hour of the film.

Posted by bmcintire at July 24, 2010 12:59 PM

comment #10

djiggs says ...

In May 1996, I was in one of my major depressive episodes of my life. I had committed myself to killing myself on Saturday that week...I had arranged everything (eg emptied by bank account, wrote my suicide note, laid out my clothes). That week, the ad campaign for the wide rollout of Fargo came in Chicagoland area with Siskel & Ebert quotes touting the movie as the best of year in freaking May!!! Well, I had to go see this movie before I died! So, I saw Fargo at Oakbrook Mall that Friday...I owe the Coen brothers, Frances Mcdormand, William H. Macy, Roger Deakins, Carter Burwell, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stromare, Harvey Presnell, etc. the inspiration/encouragement to continue on. I still remembering sitting in my car thinking maybe life is not all bad.

Posted by djiggs at July 24, 2010 1:19 PM

comment #11

pmn says ...

I remember the whole family going to see Quest for Fire at the Coronet Theater in San Francisco. There was some kind of janitors strike going on, and halfway through the movie, one of them threw what we were told was a "stink bomb" into the theater. The stench was brutal. People's eyes started to water. We all had to evacuate. After milling around outside for awhile, everyone was given free tickets to a future show. We, however, had driven 45 minutes into the city to see this movie, so said screw it and headed back into the theater to endure the stench and watch the rest of the movie. I remember this story mainly because we used those free tickets to see Blade Runner on opening night a few months later.

Posted by pmn at July 24, 2010 9:07 PM

comment #12

pmn says ...

One more. Went to see Body of Evidence with my girlfriend (now wife) in Boston. We were appropriately hammered for this flick going on; but we also snuck in a bottle of vodka. Our judgment heavily clouded, my wife, wonderful person that she is, decided to give me a handjob halfway through the movie. Her judgment particularly clouded, she decided to use the vodka as lube for the handjob. Worst handjob ever. If I close my eyes I can still feel the burning.

Posted by pmn at July 24, 2010 9:18 PM

comment #13

lipranzer says ...

Four experiences, good and bad. The good first:

(1) PLATOON didn't open where I went to college (Gonzaga University, in Spokane, Washington) until after it had been nominated for so many Oscars, if memory serves. My best friend at the time and a couple of others went to see it. Not only could you hear a pin drop the entire time - and this is the kind of so-called "eloi" crowd Jeff likes to dump on - but driving back from the movie, nobody spoke for about 15 minutes afterwards. We were that stunned from watching the film. When my best friend finally spoke up, he allowed it was well done, but not the type of movie he liked going to, whereas I, at the age of 20 (or 21; again, my memory's hazy on when exactly we saw it), thought it was brilliant.

(2) One of the reasons why I rate Kenneth Branagh's HAMLET so high is I got to see it in 70 MM form, at the Toronto equivalent of the Ziegfeld (except it has better seating than the Ziegfeld). Also a well-behaved crowd, and an attentive one, even though it was an early-morning screening.

Now for the bad - well, one of them isn't entirely bad, but:

(1) When I saw MAGNOLIA, again, it was a hushed crowd, and it was a movie that was really working for me, and I suspect, the rest of the crowd. And then, right after the scene where Stanley Spector is looking at the frogs raining down in approval, the screen went black. At first, we all thought the movie had ended right then and there. Turned out, the projector broke down, and altogether, it took them an hour to show the last ten minutes (about 20 minutes in, they started, but then the projector broke down again). Amazingly, very few people left.

(2) As for the really bad one, I had an experience similar to Jeff's when I went to see THE 6TH DAY. At the climax, when Ahnold finally realizes what's really happened to him, the power went out temporarily. They were able to restore picture right away, but not the sound, and despite the yelling of the audience (myself being the loudest), nothing was done, except we could hear the people in the projection booth instead of the movie. Finally, another audience member and I corralled a manager, and he FINALLY restored the sound.

Posted by lipranzer at July 24, 2010 9:39 PM

comment #14

Glenn Kenny says ...

FYI, Dan Talbot never owned or ran the Regency. You must have it confused with the New Yorker or some such. Frank Rowley, who did programming for Talbot at the Lincoln Square, did some work at the Regency when it was a rep house, but again, it was never a Talbot concern.

Posted by Glenn Kenny at July 25, 2010 6:35 AM

comment #15

Jeffrey Wells says ...

But, but, but....I Googled it! "Dan Talbot" and "NYC Regency" came up together, etc. I remember the name of Frank Rowley. Clearly. Rowley, you say, did programming for Talbot at the "Lincoln Square" -- you mean Lincoln Plaza, right? You also say he did "some work" at the Regency, okay. So who actually owned and ran the place? Thanks for correcting me.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at July 26, 2010 4:44 AM

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