Video: Advertising Ruins Screening Of Scorsese's New Film

Between all the bedbugs and the unruly behavior, going to a movie theater feels risky enough.
But at least the movie usually plays: a tipster wrote us about an unfortunate experience seeing Martin Scorsese's Hugo at the Regal Union Square last night. "This occurred after the film broke twice during the screening and we had been sitting in the theater for 3.5 hours," he said. "It's quite the mashup. Considering the movie is a tribute to film and film preservation, it was especially hysterical and at the same time a total travesty."

After the film broke twice, moviegoers got to watch the climactic thirty minutes of the film with the commercials for the cinema laid on top. The tipster said that the approximate 200 people in the theater were offered refunds and free tickets by management, but many were so exasperated at the three-and-a-half hour experience, they left well before they were handed out: "When the movie was over people were really pissed, the managers were standing outside handing out passes and apologizing but after going through all that to get to the end of the movie and to have that happen was surreal."

Mostly, the tipster was angry that there was nobody there to watch over the film when it initially broke: "Tickets were $18 for this movie. Regal deserves to get shit for it. Maybe they can actually start putting projectionists in the booth." We can imagine it'd be pretty frustrating not seeing the end of a film you paid money for—but having watched the footage, we thought it was probably the funniest possible mistake that could have happened. Or a "travesty," as one woman so hyperbolically called out in the video. Would it be less of a travesty if the advertisements were for American Express?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Ben Yakas in Arts & Entertainment on January 15, 2012 4:45 PM

Comments [rss]

Soledad Socorro

Despite really liking "A Dangerous Method" at the Landmark Sunshine located on E. Houston - the print projected on the screen was AWFUL! For this to be a major city with a whole bunch of geeks, tourists and diehard NYers - you will think the managers will be on the up&up. Quality sucks. AND I AGREE WITH Sarah Sprague. & maybe the fancy shmancy people who run tribecca fest or other well connected, kind hearted folk can ADVOCATE for the masses who actually shell out the $18, (x2 - many times). A film outing is all people have to depend on for entertainment/culture now a days.

sarah sprague

I've been railing against this for years. Once theaters stopped using trained, union projectionists, the viewing experience has gone to hell.

edgie186

what about trained, non-union people? oh, surely they can't be as good. uh huh.

Steve Carter

If this was a 3D screening, and a 18 it surely was, I really doubt that the film broke. Maybe a digital projector malfunctioned or something, but not film breaking. The new 3D systems don't use film.

Sean081978

Movie studios love to go on and on about how services like Netflix and Hulu combined with illegal file sharing are ruining their business, and one could argue that their insistence on producing horrible movies has to share at least part of the blame. I can tell you though that the end of any notion that going to the movie theater should be a pleasurable experience has hurt their box office take more than anything else. People have shown time and time again that they will happily pay the ridiculously inflated prices for both admission and snacks, but couple the increasing frequency of these kinds of errors with the lack of any enforcement of theater etiquette, and a $20+ per person night at the movies no longer seems like a great use of those funds. Of course, theaters could hire more staff to actually make sure something like this would be handled immediately, or to make sure no one has inexplicably paid so much money to sit in a dark room and carry on lengthy conversations with another, but we all know that isn't going to happen. And so the movie-going experience continues to deteriorate, and more and more of us find heading out to the theater far too frustrating to bother with, no matter how badly we want to see the movie in question.

ButtPlugs

First world problems

Inconcievable de Impublishable

3rd World Solutions ... "let's tape all the reels together and put them on a big platter that destroys the print."

SpideySense

I've had similar problems at Regal Union Square in the past, although I was fortunate enough to see Hugo in 3D there without incident.

ihateloggingin

No movie theater keeps projectionist in every booth. One guy usually
runs 3-4 movies at once and has to run between the theaters.

cr17

I love when people think this process hasn't been automated as though we were living in the age of "Cinema Paradiso"...

robingee

That would be cool, though.

robingee

Oh they're not going to pay for projectionists in the booth.

cr17

Some people had a less than stellar night in NYC?!? WHO IS TO BLAME? BRING ME THEIR HEADS! BLOOD WILL FLOW IN THE STREETS! BABIES THROWN INTO THE RIVER!

Inconcievable de Impublishable

You're overreacting. Quit whining.

robingee

This would be funny if people were really freaking out about it, but everyone's laughing.

Ian MacAllen

Regal Union Square is horrible about ensuring their films are playing. One time only half the projected image was playing for the first few minutes of the film and only after I left the theater and found someone did they come and fix it. Another time a film started and there was no sound. I was in the process of calling the theater's box office from my cell phone when someone showed up and turned the volume up.