I'm sure it's happened to me before, but I can't remember a single instance.
Until last night, when I went to the Sun in Yarraville to see a 9:10 showing of Renfield on its opening night.
As usual, I was racing to get there on time, leaving little enough time that I was starting to stress out when three indecisive guys in front of me were taking forever to select their snacks and then had to pay separately even though they were together in one group. (I mean, I guess I get that part. I don't usually treat my companions to snacks at the movies, but then again, I almost never go to the movies with anyone anymore.)
When I got up to bat and it was about 9:12 -- and the Sun never plays many ads or trailers -- I knew I probably wouldn't miss anything but wanted the transaction to go through pretty quickly nonetheless.
It was then that the woman told me that the movie was going to be starting late.
The words almost didn't make sense in my head. Movie? Starting late? What does that even mean?
Trains leave late, airplanes leave late, but movies? Movies don't leave late.
I asked why of course, assuming a power outage -- the screen behind the concession area that shows the movie start times was blank, with a note apologizing for the inconvenience. It had been wet earlier in the day and maybe something had gone on the fritz.
She didn't exactly explain it, but there was a cascading effect as a result of a problem several movies earlier on the same screen. She said it would be starting in about 20 minutes.
Not wanting to hang around in the lobby that whole time, I went to run an errand, but made certain I could rely on the start time she had quoted of 9:30. She said I could.
I got back around 9:22 and she said "Okay you can go into your movie now." It's good I didn't get back any later, because selecting my seat was immediately followed by a second unprecedented thing: not a single ad or trailer, just the production company logo and the start of the movie. Guess they thought they'd already given us enough of the runaround, no need to add insult to injury by advertising to us.
Apparently I couldn't rely on that 9:30 after all.
How annoying would it have been to be apparently 20 minutes early for a movie that was starting late, only to find out you ended up ten minutes late anyway?
Actually what I suspect happened was that they knew how many tickets they'd sold and they knew all of us (there were maybe seven) had already reported to our seats. Given this and given that the original start time had already been missed, meaning no late-comers expected, they just started the movie as soon as they knew that all the passengers had found their seats.
And the movie? It was a hoot. It's not perfect but I enjoyed the hell out of it. No one told me Awkwafina was in it, which is an added bonus to any movie.
Oh, and it was only 93 minutes long, according to IMDB, so starting late didn't even have an impact on arriving home at a reasonable hour. I'd say it was 93 minutes soaking wet, as it felt a lot more like 87 to me.
The thing that did impact my arrival home was that the train I was relying on wasn't running, so I had to wait for a replacement bus. But I was still home and tucked in and dreaming of vampires tearing people's arms off by midnight.
2 comments:
I agree, it would have been quite disappointing if you arrived by 9:30 and they were seven minutes in. I enjoyed Renfield as well. In trimming it to an efficient 93 minutes they did leave some referenced stuff on the cutting room floor. However, that did not detract from me really enjoying the film. Solid cast and performances, good humor, overall, it was a movie one could really sink their teeth into...(see what I did there...)
Nice, love the puns! I didn't notice any of those references, just seemed tight and fun to me. Nothing groundbreaking, just a good time at the movies and a good use of Nicolas Cage. Thanks for the comment!
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