I’ve just come back from taking Ariel to a midnight showing of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” and it was the single most surreal movie experience of my life. Explaining why will require blowing a major plot point, although it’s nothing that wasn’t included in the book. So if you read the book, read on without fear of spoilers. If you haven’t, then proceed at your own risk.
The local theater was running two late night shows: One at 12:05, the other at 12:10. We opted for the 12:05 because, y’know, why not?
So…
The climax of the film hinges on a sequence where Harry and Hermoine have used a time traveling device to catapult themselves back in time. They sprint from one end of Hogwarts to the other in order to, among other things, save an innocent Hippogryff named “Buckbeak” from dying at the blade of an executioner’s axe. In doing so, they wind up witnessing certain events all over again.
So the film has reached the point where Harry and Hermoine have managed to coax Buckbeak to safety. The annoyed Executioner, deprived of his target, decides to take out his frustration on a pumpkin in a patch outside Hagrid’s cabin. The angle of the picture is worm’s eye, aimed up at the Executioner, who is facing the camera. He swings the axe back over his head, brings it slamming down right toward “us”…
And the INSTANT the axe blade completes its arc, the film breaks. As if the Executioner, like a demented film editor, had sliced the celluloid clean apart.
The timing of it was so precise that it took a couple of seconds to register on the audience that it wasn’t some sort of inspired filmic breaking of the fourth wall. Then came an outraged roar and moan as the remains of the film proceeded to burn in the projector.
Ariel looked to me in frustration, and I said aloud, “Well, y’know, the film’s playing in another theater, five minutes behind. If we hurry…”
At which point I realized I was speaking to an empty chair. Ariel was already sprinting out the back of the auditorium. Either having heard my words, or having realized the same thing, the theater started emptying out. I immediately grabbed my jacket and headed out after Ariel.
In the hallway, I saw stunned theater workers gaping at the sight of a hoard of patrons dashing from one end of the movie house to the other (since, of course, they had to be playing at opposite ends of the place.) I got to the theater and found Ariel, comfortably nestled in the exact same seats we’d had in the previous theater. And sure enough, the movie was five minutes behind where we’d been.
So as Harry and Hermoine on the screen watched a familiar scene over again, we sat there and watched a familiar scene over again. I mean, I’ve witnessed live action movie participation before, but not even “Rocky Horror” involves running from one screening room to another and watching entire scenes over again.
The film itself? Easily the best cinematic representation of “Harry Potter,” although the new Dumbledore lacks the gravitas of Richard Harris and the explanation of who made the Marauder Map was oddly missing (I guess they figure everyone who’s seen the movie has read the book.)
And if you haven’t seen “A Little Princess” by the same director, you’re missing one of the best family films of the 1990s.
PAD
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Too funny! Hope it doesn’t happen to me, but if it does, I’ll have a bunch of people in the theater wondering why I’m laughing hysterically at a broken bit of film.
Definately want to go see this one. The trailers make it look really good, and I’ve enjoyed the book quite a bit too.
Also looking forward to Spider-Man 2, especially since I read the novelization. Was planning to see it anyways, but the book definately helped convince me. Great job, PAD. The movie sounds terrific.
Since you mentioned both Rocky Horror and film breaks, I have a similar story to mention…
My fianc
It’s not up here in Brazil, until a few hours. It’s my favorite book from the series, and hope it’s as good as I’ve been reading everywhere. Going to watch it later tonight with a bunch of crazy pals.
And here I thought it was only me that had this kind of experience at movies.
During the original run of Empire Strikes Back, as soon as Yoda appeared, the film broke, and I had to come back the next week.
During Phantom Menace, the movie was without sound for the first few minutes. So after waiting HOW many years for a new Star Wars movie, I missed out on hearing the first notes of the famous music as soon as the Star Wars logo appeared. Thankfully, the theatre was full of fans so we spontaneously broke out singing the theme ourselves.
During the crapfest that was Snake Eyes, the movie broke, and they restarted the movie 5 minutes later, although 20 minutes of the movie had passed. Talk about confused.
And my favorite, during the movie Unbreakable, what happened? The film broke half way through.
-Scott
Gotta add my experience to this one.
Several years ago, my family and I went to see the original Jurrasic Park on opening night. My brother and I both commented about how much my son resembled Joe Mazzello, the young actor who played Tim. They were the same age, same hair color and length, similar facial structure and body build. They even moved and talked alike. It seemed odd, but okay, it was kinda cool. About half-way thru, the film broke and the theatre announced that there would be a twenty minute intermission waiting on the spool from the other showing. Of course, everyone made a dash for the concession stand. While we were standing in line, I commented to my daughter about a mass of teenage girl that were all huddled together off to the side, and I wondered what they were so excited about. And then I heard my son’s cry… “Dad, Where are you?!!!” Trapped in the middle of this fanatical throng was my ten year old son trying to convince every girl in the state that he WASN’T a famous actor. Needless to say, he’s made a point of seeing every Joe Mazzello film since.
Nowhere near as funny, but definitely annoying.
Years back, I took a group of friends to see “Z”, Costa-Gravas’ superb political thriller. The repertory theatre it was playing at (that night only) had it as a ‘special’ showing which meant no passes and no discounts.
Add to this the fact that much of the ‘fun’ of the film is trying to guess what true event it recounts.
Then wrap it all up by having the script worked out such that you literally only find out what it is really about in the LAST MINUTE (the title of the film is explained in the LAST SPOKEN LINE!)
And one can well imagine how royally annoyed we were when the subtitles cut out TWO MINUTES before the end and I had to translate on the fly from the original French.
Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life”.
Mr. Creosote.
Yes, the film broke at the explosion.
All that build up… then *poof*. Rather anticlimactic when it was fixed 15 minutes later.
The local Brew n View was showing Temple of Doom about 2 years ago. It was the midnight show on a Thursday, so we had to work in the morning, but c’mon, it’s INDY!!!
So, we got there early to get good seats, endured the first movie, The Mummy, absolutely loved the second film, Big Trouble in Little China, and settled in for Temple of Doom…
Well, right as Indy was about to grab the Sankara Stones for the first time, as Willie and Short Round look on, the film jumps to evil Indy threatening Short Round! It played through past the mine chase, and then jumped BACK to Willie and Shorty first getting captured!
The crowd was howling, half of them left, but I had to stay and enjoy the original, “Projectionists Cut” of Temple of Doom.
-Joe
My wife and I went to see Spy Game in the theater. Shortly after the truck bomb took out the building in Central America (right before Pitt and Redford parted ways in the movie), the film cut out and the fire alarm went off. The theater and the ENTIRE MALL were evacuated.
Now remember, that movie came out only a month or so after 9/11. We were so freaked out we didn’t even hang around long enough to get the complimentary tickets. We just went home and hoped the planes weren’t falling down again.
Yeah, we (for bloody once!) got the Harry Potter movie out here before you lot did (seeing as it’s filmed and cast in Britain I don’t see how its too much to ask… 🙂 ) and when I saw it on Tuesday it was totally amazing. Loved it. They couldn’t have found a better suited actor for Lupin (and that werewolf SFX was brilliant!) and the shots of Glencoe, the Glenfidden Viaduct and the Cairngorms were stunning – the best I’ve ever seen them… And I live around there!
Comiserations on that annoying film breaking thing. Where I saw it, there’s only one screen in this one tiny cinema, in the whole city. If that had happened, we may have had riots… or a strong cup of tea*
(*read: ‘brandy’)
We got screening passes for Wednesday night in Atlanta (bringing our nine-year-old to her first advance screening), and we also had the film break! It happened right as Dumbledore was telling Hermione and Harry that they could save innocent lives. Seeing Dumbledore’s face melt was truly, well, surprising. 🙂 It took about twenty minutes for them to get another copy of the reel, and they gave us all free popcorn coupons (which they sure didn’t have to do, since it was a free screening).
Still, a dámņëd good movie. So much better than the first two.
Film breaking just as the axe descends?
Geez, you just have to make subtle Joss Whedon references in every entry, don’t you? 🙂
Looking forward to the film — I’ve heard good things from the diehard Potter fans I teach, and this just strengthens the optimism.
TWL
I stayed home with Caroline and will see it sometime soon.
My surreal film moment had to do with the first time I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. Somehow I got press passes for the film. So we are in the ship with the boxed up arc and G-d starts to burn the nazi symbol off of the crate. The film melted right at that point. Took us a minute or so to figure out that this was not part of the movie
My story isn’t quite so funny either, but I’ll share anyway.
It was 1983 and my parents had taken me to see Return of the Jedi on opening weekend. Just as Luke, Han, and Chewie were being taken to the Sarlacc, the theatre lost power. I remember sitting in the dark theatre, utterly bewildered. Turned out that some guy was burning leaves nearby and lost control of the fire. The fire quickly spread and burned down a power pole, naturally taking the lines with it. We had to come back the next week to finish the movie.
During Matrix Reloaded, the sound to the theatre cut out near the end, right before Neo’s conversation with The Architect. Fortunately, the sound came back mere seconds before their encounter.
I am a big Harry Potter book fan too… I can’t wait to see it on the big screen soon…
Many years ago, when TERMS OF ENDEARMENT was in the theatre, the film broke at a critical juncture; it marked the last time I ever saw a film at that particular theatre, since they had a history of such things and I’d had enough, but…
…on this particular occasion, they never fixed the film and gave passes (I demanded, and got, a refund).
Later, I asked friends who had seen the film whether I’d missed anything of importance that merited buying another ticket.
“What was the last thing you saw?” they asked.
I said, “Debra Winger’s character says she has a doctor’s appointment.”
There was stunned silence.
“Yeah, you missed a little…”
Well, I have my own little experience, only it was a lot more unsettling. I went to see “Cruising” (the Al Pacino film) and, of course, it was during a very loud thunderstorm. During the film’s first on-screen murder when the killer has his victim tied up on a bed, face down, and has been drawing a knife over the man’s back for a minute or so before lifting the knife to begin stabbing him several times, not only is there a very LOUD and very sharp crack of thunder as the knife begins its descent, but the film chooses the very instant of the knife’s entry into the man’s back to break. I think everyone in the audience either jumped or gasped/screamed when that happened.
For a slightly more absurd experience, I watched (the original) “Night of the Living Dead” on TV one Saturday night (it was showing as part of USA Network’s “Night Flight” series–which should give some idea of how long ago this was). Now, having heard of the film’s rather gory reputation, I was trying my best to keep from being too grossed out when, just after a scene in which the various zombies/ghouls have started feasting on some not-so-lucky individuals, the show goes to a commercial break–for Milky Way candy bars! When the movie came back, it was a bit hard to regain the same feeling of disquiet–that 30-second-long or so commercial prompted a laughing fit that continued even after the film resumed.
I’m hoping to see “Azkaban” either Sunday or Monday.
As a teenager ,i went to see ROBOCOP2 at the theater in downtown Philadelphia.To make a short story short,in the middle of one of the many gunfights in the movie a guy ran in with a gun,screaming like an idiot.I was immediately out the exit door at hi speed.Seems the guy was being chased by the cops for a robbery and he darted into the theater.The bad part (for him),He pulled a fake gun on the place he robbed and the police.He was caught outside the theater i guess thinking he would blend with the crowd.Policeman was not very happy with him pulling a gun on them ,especially a fake.By the way i waited about two weeks and saw the end of the movie….
at a different theater.
In 1986 I had just finished registering for my sophmore year college classes and decided to drive into the city (Lexington, KY) and catch ALIENS. This was a Wednesday matinee, and I was absolutley *alone* in the theater — not another soul there. On top of that, there was a thunderstorm raging outside, and on top of the movie’s pyrotechnics I could hear the occassional BOOM! from outside.
To make a long story short: in the scene near the end where Ripley, Newt et al are escaping on the space pod from the planet as it blows up, trying to outrun the nuclear blast, suddenly the entire theater shakes as the loudest BOOM! of all reverberates around me, and all the power goes out. There I am, alone in the theater, plunged into total darkness, after sitting through two hours of what is likely the most intense monster movie of the 1980’s.
Needless to say, I made a dash for the lobby.
Turned out that lightning had hit the theater(!) and fried the wiring. The manager was nice enough to give me a free pass to come back later. But I don’t think I ever used it — in fact, I remember the theater getting torn down not long after. I guess being a lightning magnet is bad for business.
Well, if we’re getting into “Aliens” stories…
I saw it opening weekend, at a late-night showing (11:30 or so, I think) at a crowded theater in midtown Manhattan.
Relatively early in the film, you have Ripley and the rest (including the slimy Paul Reiser character) checking out the lab where some of the larval aliens are stored. There’s the moment where one of them jumps towards Reiser and thumps against the side of the tube: everyone jumps, as expected.
About half a second later, there’s another big thump — on the roof of the theater.
Needless to say, the crowd was more than a little jumpy after that…
TWL
Funny, but I was just thinking about an incident like this that happened to me when I was a kid.
My family went to see MURDER BY DEATH at the Kon-Tiki in Dayton, Ohio. At the end of the film, as the credits rolled, it looked as if the film was starting to smoke, then, the film frame caught on fire.
The flames finally ate up the film as the last credit ran.
We thought it was all part of the movie . . . until we saw the smoke coming out of the projection booth.
The mention of a projectionist messing up the film reminded me of another story – my brother and I went to see TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE at a midnight showing back in the early 1980s. SPOILER HERE! -> The girl manages to stop the truck and get into the back of it, only to have Leatherface come up and raise his chainsaw above his head to bring it crashing down on her.
And then the film ended. No credits, no nothing. Lights came up and people starting booing.
Myself, I thought it was a great ending to the movie – Wow! It’s like a bad dream, with the audience “waking up” just as death was about to strike.
Of course, later I found out that it was just a bad print missing the last two minutes of the movie. The girl does get a way at the end, leaving Leatherface howling as the film comes to an end.
Kinda bummed me out in a way when I saw the complete print finally.
Remembering the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he ended the short in the nick of time with a pair of scissors.
My friend Dev and I went to see the original Harry Potter movie back a few years ago.
During the dramatic climax (the chess game), the film wound down and stopped.
Silence.
I turn to Dev and ask, “So, how do you like the movie so far?”
Five minutes later, it grinds back up to dramatic music. Some breakneck chess action. Thirty seconds later, it winds down again.
It does this for a while. Plays for a few seconds, dies for a few minutes.
A girl comes in during a ten minute shutdown (the fourth time) and sits in front of us.
We ask her if she’s there for the next showing. She says “Yes.”
We tell her that we’re still about ten minutes from the end of the movie, and that the projector is playing games on us.
“No, that’s cool,” she says. “I’ve read the book.”
FINALLY, the movie starts up again, and concludes without a disturbance.
We got both free passes AND our money back for that one.
The last film stoppage I experienced was during the climactic battle in THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS. Unfortunately, it was because an audience member was having a seizure. The audience was very patient and understanding — it was a free screening paid for by my employers, so the audience was entirely made up of my co-workers and their guests — and the film started up right where it left off.
“…dramatic music. Some breakneck chess action.”
Now there’s a string of words I never thought I’d see!
No dramatic movie moments here, but one did happen to my brother, shortly after he got married. He and his new bride went to see “It’s Alive” (no, I don’t know what they were thinking – or should that be drinking?). During the sequence in which the horror-child is revealed, dramatic music builds…
…the camera moves in on the crib…
…and as the child’s clawed hand emerges, my brother picks that exact moment to grab his wife’s knee, hard!
I don’t think she ever went to a movie with him again… 🙂
My funniest movie moment:
I was sitting in a dollar cinema (remember those?) watching a beat up copy of the first AIRPLANE movie. Just as Robert Stack says “The Sh*t is gonna hit the fan.”…YEP! Film breaks.
Best movie moment:
Watching Star Trek 2 & 3 back to back at a drive-in (yeah, I’m showing my age here). It was a starry, full moon night and you honestly could not tell where the screen actually ended during the outer space scenes.
QUESTION TIME:
Any extra bits during or after the credits for Harry that are worth sticking around for?
Thanks in advance if anyone answers.
I haven’t seen HP yet, but my friend has one of the best theater breaking stories. I ended up seeing the Passion at a pre-showing several days before it premiered, but my friend went a few days later. And just after the nine-inch nails had been hammered in, Christ’s cross was being erected and that’s where the film died. They had to come back a week later after all of the emotional build-up. Eesh!
Chris
“For a slightly more absurd experience, I watched (the original) “Night of the Living Dead” on TV one Saturday night (it was showing as part of USA Network’s “Night Flight” series–which should give some idea of how long ago this was). Now, having heard of the film’s rather gory reputation, I was trying my best to keep from being too grossed out when, just after a scene in which the various zombies/ghouls have started feasting on some not-so-lucky individuals, the show goes to a commercial break–for Milky Way candy bars! When the movie came back, it was a bit hard to regain the same feeling of disquiet–that 30-second-long or so commercial prompted a laughing fit that continued even after the film resumed.”
I don’t know if this is still the case, but a few (choke) decades ago, whenever they showed NOTLD on late night TV in upstate NY they would post some subtitled warnings on the bottom of the screen to let people know that the scenes where the characters are watching TV and seeing news reports of flesh eating ghould running amok was entirely A DRAMATIZATION and not the real thing.
How funny would THAT be? You turn on the tube and see a few snippets of rednecks shooting at the reanimated corpses of the recently deceased and just then the network kicks out.
I had a surreal movie happening a few decades ago.
A group of us had gotten together to go see The Exorcist.
When we got back in the car and turned on the radio, the first lyrics we heard were “Thank you for lettin’ me be myself, again.”
Spooky.
Lee Houston, Junior:
“Best movie moment:
Watching Star Trek 2 & 3 back to back at a drive-in (yeah, I’m showing my age here). It was a starry, full moon night and you honestly could not tell where the screen actually ended during the outer space scenes.”
Showing age here as well. Original Star Wars. Too young to legally drink, but drinking beer at a drive-in with other Star Wars fanatics. Talk about not knowing where the screen ended and the stars in the background began! Especially during the hyperspace jump.
Not a film break story, but many many dog years ago, some Disney movie took place at a ski resort. There’s a scene where the cast falls thru the ice into a cave (I hope I’m remembering the details right), and there’s about 2 minutes of movie where the screen is in total darkness and very low dialogue. Needless to say, the audience got very upset thinking the film or projector broke.
Cruel movie story. Again, showing age here, I saw Jaws in the theater at 12. Scene where Hooper is exploring the bite at the bottom of the fishing boat, and the owner’s head pops out of the hole is probably one of the scariest things I had ever seen. Fast forward about 1 month and going to see the movie again. Sitting in the row in front of me is a girl I knew from school. She had already decided her major was going to be “Bìŧçh” and had on multiple occasions took her general nastiness out on me. Well, as Hooper is starting to explore the hole at the bottom of the boat, I took my umbrella (rainy day…parents…you understand…LOL) and stuck it under the seat and tapped her ankle. She jumps up shreeking, then turns around to bìŧçh me out. Just she turned back around, you guessed it, the head popped out of the hole in the boat.
Ah, memories!
I have only one question for Mr. David.
How, in the name of all that is geeky, were there empty seats in the other theatre?
Did everyone in your town decide, “Well, I could go to the 12:10 showing, but then I couldn’t say I saw it FIRST” and the auditorium was nearly empty?
I worked in a movie theater one summer. I started work a few weeks before the big movies of the summer came out. Another guy started the same day I did. I got popcorn duty, he was to be a projectionist. That night was a preview of one of the summer comedies – “Soapdish” I think. The new projectionist had spliced one of the reels on incorrectly. It was playing backwards! We had to give everyone a free movie pass as they exited.
As people started coming out angry, I explained that since it was a preview film we didn’t have a chance to pre-view the film as we normally would have and that the production house much have labelled the reels wrong. It was a lie, but people bought it. The other workers caught on fast. It kept a lot of people calm who otherwise would have wanted the head of the brand new projectionist (or the manager who didn’t supervise him). The manager thanked me for my fast thinking 🙂
Re – the unintentional end of TEXAS CHAINSAW …
I’ve only seen two films where the INTENDED ending produced such a reaction from the crowd – setting aside mine of MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLE GRAIL where, after five minutes of static (it was the last thing shown LATE that night) I called long distance a friend I knew to be up at those hours, explained the scene I’d just seen and had her assure me this was indeed the end.
The crowd in the Elgin Theatre in Ottawa howled at the [VERY effective] ending of THE MEDUSA TOUCH – an underrated ESP/horror film if ever there was one – protesting “you can’t end it here…”
And then there was MISSING. A Really odd Japanese film supposedly studying the phenomenon of people who suddenly drop out of society so thoroughly, no one can find any trace of them. They aren’t dead and buried, they’ve just slipped into another life as it were. The director chose to concentrate on one case. Just as he has a break, a witness who supposedly saw the man on the last day, the following happens:
(SPOILER ALERT)
Witness is just getting into the meat of his story when the director waves him off.
“No, no, this isn’t working for me. We’ll have to do it again. But we’re losing the light anyway. Let’s try again tomorrow.”
Witness: “What are you talking about? I took time off work to be here. I can’t just do that every day.”
Director ponders this, shrugs.
“OK, it’s a wrap.”
And everybody wanders off …
Maybe the title referred to a missing ending?
Ok, the film didn’t break, but when I went to see Man on the Moon, the audio was about 3 second out of sync with the video. Most movies, this would be obvious right away. However, being a Jim Carrey movie, about Andy Kauffman, it took about 2 scenes to realize this wasn’t on purpose. The theater, being oblivious, let the whole movie play. THe bongo scenes were hilarious, and the dramitc scenes were oddly lacking in impact. 🙂
i’ve had so many craptastic moments in movie theatres. The sound cut out at the end of The Two Towers, The sound kept coming in and out at Return of the King, and the same thing happened when i saw it again with my free passes, and i got MORE free passes and went to see Calandar Girls with the same results (after they swore they fixed it). If it wasn’t for the fact that the midnight showing of harry potter was an event that i wanted to participate in to bond with the other nerds, I might not have gone. We’ve been catching everything on video. at least then we can control the home theatre envrionment.
Glad to hear that you enjoyed the movie PAD. Its my favorite Harry Potter book so far. Just a really great story, IMO. I can’t wait to see it (will prob go see it tommorrow).
Too bad about the film problems though..*sigh*
I’ve had that with a few movies I’ve seen…
I can’t remember any specific movies though..
I do remember one really annoying thing that happened one time was at the end of X-men 2.
Had nothing to do with the film breaking and everything to do with a stupid people who worked at the thearter.
At the very end of X-men 2, one of the people who worked at this thearter turned on the lights right as the hint of the next movie happened..if you’ve seen the movie you know what I mean..
Well, since it was so bright in the thearter, I could hardly see what was happening on the screen…
I knew something was happening…but I wasn’t completly sure what until I read about it on the internet and I was like, ” Oh! So thats what that was! ” Ugh.
But anyway, I have had the film stop on certain movies too. Very annoying.
Everytime though, the thearter got the movie up and running again. Never had to switch thearters or get a refund.
DF2506
” Can’t wait to see the new Harry Potter! “
This actually happens a lot at midnight showings. The theatre sisn’t run the film through the projector before showing it, and the film was wet, or hasn’t been stretched properly, is the explanation I heard from someone who works at theatres.
When I went to see Two Towers at midnight, and we’re in the middle of the battle of Helm’s Deep, and Olympic runner Uruk-Hai is running with the torch to set off the bomb that is going to bring down the walls. He jumps in, the explosion goes off and… the film breaks. Everybody runs to the other screen that it’s showing at, and, swear to God, it broke in THE EXACT SAME SPOT!!!! It was a very angry two theatres, believe you me.
Speaking of craptastic effects…
Anyone remember Sensuround? Big honkin’ bass speakers set up to bring out louder explosions and effects? I saw “Earthquake” in Sensuround, and it was OK. “Midway”, not bad. The theatrical release of “Battlestar Galactica”, the sound effect was about 10 seconds off of the movie soundtrack. So, after an explosion on the screen or an exterior shot of the Galactica, 10 seconds later you couldn’t hear any other dialogue because of the bass rumblings. Very frustrating to a young geek! LOL
As is the usual custom, the San Jose Worldcon in 2002 showed the various nominees for the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo. One of these was the Buffy musical, Once More With Feeling.
However, it seems that what was sent was an early DVD where the sound didn’t cut in until after the overture. So it starts off with no sound…and the audience didn’t know it’d be coming. So, of course various smartasses started yelling out comments. From the other side of the room came “Once more…with VOLUME!”. And from someone sitting in my seat, “Ðámņ, it’s the wrong episode; they’re showing Hush!” 🙂
Harry Potter review (on Sunday)
On Sunday, I’m going to go see “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”. After I do, I will edit this post and write my review here.
Until then, enjoy this story from Peter David about a surreal moment in the theater. PLEASE NOTE: That story do…
I was in a theatre out here in the San Fernando Valley watching “Courage Under Fire.” We had just gotten to the part which viewers are told not to reveal, and a massive power failure hits Souther California.
Never did see the ending (just couldn’t sit through it again), but I’ve been told about it.
I was watching “Shane” in an old theater run at that time by my friend. There’s a part of the movie where Shane is demonstrating how to shoot a six-gun to the farmer’s kid. (It’s VERY loud and scary to the kid. Good scene). Anyway, the camera is “worm’s-eye view” in front of a rock that Shane take aim and shoots. Of course, that’s the exact second the film breaks. I muttered to myself “I’ll be dámņëd. Shane just killed the cameraman.”
So many film break stories, but I;’ll share just two…
1) Midnight showing of JURASSIC PARK 2, right when the T Rex sticks his snout into the tent and all hëll breaks loose. Dramaticus interuptus.
2) I can’t remember what film it was, but I knew that there was a tag (a la FERRIS BUELLER) after the credits. However, they turned off the projector bulb half way through the credits while most people were filing out and I had to yell back at the projection booth to turn the durn bulb back on as the movie wasn’t over.
No there isn’t a bit tacked on at the end to stay for (like with Chamber of Secrets) but, the credits are wonderfully clever, and worth sitting and watching. Rather hypnotic too.
Enjoy yourselves!
Another movie story:My Best friend and i go to see
CANDYMAN with a another friend of ours .One scene in particular scared my best friend so much she must have jumped about 5 feet in the air.Those who have seen the movie know that if you say his name three times in a mirror CANDYMAN will appear and murder you .For about a week or so we both slept with the lights and freaked anytime we were near a mirror.The other girl with us thought we were ridiculous and started to say his name at which made us both go screaming out the room so he wouldnt get us.Tony Todd still scares me whenever i see him in movie or t.v show
Mine story isn’t a break, but it was just as annoying:
I went to see Mission Impossible 2 with a couple of friends, and as the movie got going there was a barely audible humming noise just behind the soundtrack. Five or ten minutes in, it was definitely audible. A little while later, it was even louder. Finally, it got to the point where we could no longer hear the dialogue, and they stopped the film. The lights came on, and we were told there’d be a brief “intermission” while they fixed things. My friends headed off the the washroom & the concession. A few minutes later, without warning, the movie started again, in exactly the same spot, and my friends had to hustle to get back in so as not to miss anything.
And, this didn’t happen to me, but I remember reading about one showing of The Poseidon Adventure where, just as the Captain (Leslie Neilson, as I recall) looks in his binoculars and says “Oh My God!” (because the tidal wave is coming, though the audience doesn’t know it, yet,) the power went off. Talk about timing!
Ok, just came back from seeing the movie. No breaks but I thought about PAD during that scene.
As for the movie, I thought it was good, but not as good as I’d hoped. I think I need to see it again, because right now I saw more of what was left out than what was kept in.
Azkaban is my favorite book in the series, and while I knew there were going to be some devations, I thought they really should have had Lupin explaining both the origins of the map and why Harry’s Patronus took the form it did.
Lots of good previews. I saw the film with a fellow children’s librarian and we let out a simultaneous “oooooooohhh” when we figured out what the Lemony Snicket preview was.
David
[This actually happens a lot at midnight showings. The theatre sisn’t run the film through the projector before showing it, and the film was wet, or hasn’t been stretched properly, is the explanation I heard from someone who works at theatres.]
I worked as a projectionest for a few years and never heard of this. if the theatre is of any size it uses platters. This a a large platter that the film is wound onto from the different reels (1 reel ~= 20 minutes). The movie is then ran from a platter through the projector and back to another platter.
if anyone wants more info on platters post and I’ll provide details.
does anyone remember the intentional “film break” that happens in Gremlins 2? I remember the sheer anger of the audience when that happened, and then the gremlin shadow puppets started… best fake out I’ve seen.
I just got back from seeing HPatPoA and quite liked it. I thought it was the best of the three filmed so far, mostly because it wasn’t an almost faithful scene-by-scene recreation of the book. While I did think they missed out on a few bits of exposition (where the map came from and why the Patronis was a stag, among others), mostly the shortened film captured the feel off the book almost perfectly.
The grainy, almost gritty visual texture of the film really added to the magic that seemed to be missing in the first two films.
In preparation for the movie, I watched the first two with my sons so they could refresh the details. In watching Prisoner, I was continually floored to see how much the main characters have changed and grown since the first film. It’s quite interesting watching the actors grow and grow up.
MINOR SPOILER ALERT
My favorite part, by far, though, was the CGI werewolf. It was, in a word, brilliant. Rather than a huge wolf or a guy walking around wearing a fur coat, it was a stunning amalgam of man and wolf that partook of the horrors of both species.