1. The Walk-Outs. People routinely walk out during films here — who knows what the reasons are. Some will walk because they hate the movie, others will walk because they have to be someplace, and still others walk to avoid the crowd. Really?
For those in the last category, sit your stupid ass down and wait for the film to finish. You’ve waited in longer lines to get into the bathroom. So you have to stumble out with the herd at the end of the movie – you will A) not have missed the last crucial moment of the film, and B) not have ruined the last crucial moment of the film for everyone else. I just walked out of Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe (horrid) so I totally get the need to bail on a bad film.
2. The strange desire to see something shocking, sex-soaked or so stylistic one couldn’t recognize a story if it suffocated them in the middle of the night. Perhaps because I’m in the Oscar business, story and writing matters to me more than visual style, which is an easy get. This is, again, why film criticism continues to matter and must be preserved.¬†¬† It is astounding to me that Les Amours Imaginaires, which is probably a perfectly fine movie — dazzling to look at with lotsa sex and pretty people having sex — but really? A standing ovation? Another Year failed to get one, thus, the entire mystique around the standing ovation has just evaporated for me: it means nothing. UPDATE: Pete Hammond has informed me that press screenings are different from screenings with a fairly regular audience. Standing ovations never happen in press screenings, so they can’t really be compared with the other kind – apparently the standards for standing ovations aren’t very high. Hammond said he would drop dead of a heart attack if there was a standing ovation in a press screening.
3. The lack of free wifi. Sure, I have wifi as part of the press in the fest, but you can’t really get free wifi otherwise anywhere in this city – it is some strange company laughingly called “Free Wifi.” But it isn’t free and there is no way to buy it either.
4. Sitting in the balcony. I don’t mind it actually. To get a good seat requires getting in line around 7:30am for an 8:30am screening. You must then race up the red carpet stairs, then another few flights until you are checked in. I always have to check my camera in the coatcheck. By the time you get into the theater, many of the closest rows in the balcony, those that aren’t reserved for the pink and blue badged press, are taken. And be prepared to sit elbow to elbow.
5. The need to always check iPhone or Blackberry DURING A MOVIE. What is up with that? At screenings in LA, no one talks, no one looks at their phone and no one walks out. There is respect to be paid to the filmmaker, and there is an etiquette to be adhered to. You can tell I’m lacking in sleep because THIS PISSES ME OFF. There, that felt better.
