I have now seen the first hour and a half of the Hulk. I really enjoyed it. The dialogue and character stuff was great — it’s a great movie — certainly not a kid’s movie or really a broad appeal thing like Spiderman, but I enjoyed it a lot.

The reason I’ve only seen the first hour and a half was because we got tickets for what very well might have been the most disruptive and distracting group of theatre goers I’ve ever had the misfortune of encountering. Crying babies, babbling 4 year olds, bored 8 year olds, loud food packages, talking, cell phones… you name it, someone had it (usually one row back or between me and the speakers).

You know modern theatres and at what volume they run the sound? I lost dialogue, people. Dialogue in sections with no background music. Calm, clear conversations.

So, a refund, and we’ll try again some other time. Some later timeslot, perhaps.

God I hate that. Not missing out on dialogue during a movie, but rather the incessant yammering of the idiots at theaters. For the love of god, you and I both paid money to watch this movie, which most likely took several months (if not years) to make and cost millions of dollars. So sit back, eat your popcorn and shut your cake hole.

Sorry. But I only go to about one movie every 3 months or so (if that) and this is one of the big reasons why.

Why is it that people sitting in a theatre forget that they're NOT at home watching a tape or DVD?

I know this is going to make me sound extremely old (which I am, of course) and extremely cranky (oh, be quiet), but I distinctly remember that when I was a kid ushers came and let you know very quickly if you were disturbing other patrons. You got one warning and then you were out the door.

There are many things I don't miss about the 1950's and 1960's, but one of the things I do miss is the manners that were expected of EVERYONE in public places, kids included.

I have had particularly bad luck at movies lately, myself. I went to see X-Men 2 a few months ago, and two 13-14 year old boys were having a farting/burping contest a couple of rows back. The next time I went, for a 9 p.m. show, I had a couple with a little baby and a guy with 5 (fucking 5!) 5-7 year old kids. Sigh. . . . I know why so many people are shelling out big money for state of the art home theater systems.

The sad fact of the matter is that it costs us less to buy the DVD unseen than it does for all three of us to go to it in the theatre (and forget about getting food or snacks), so for us to go it has to be the sort of thing we'd really like to see on the big screen. Anything else, even if no one we know has seen it we're better off just buying it, because even in the worst case scenario, we have a copy of a movie we didn't like for half the price of a night out.

I hear ya Doyce. We only go to the movies that absolutely need a big screen, everything else we rent or buy. It is just way to expensive for the hassle of sitting in a movie theater with people who think they are Joel and the Bots.

Hulk was better than some reviews would have you believe, though the beginning could've been edited down a smidge and the climax is... kinda weird. But overall it's a pretty damned good little movie.

Good point about buying the DVD unseen, though. I hadn't thought of it that way...

I've never had a hell movie experiance out here in Portland.

The worst has been a crying baby or two. Maybe once a cellphone went off. Even going to the crappiest mall theatres here aren't that bad of an experiance.