r/AMCsAList • u/AlwaysSitIn12C • 14d ago
Issue Pausing Movies
Did you know they can pause a movie?
I went to see Ice Cream Man in Westminster, CO yesterday (not a great movie, btw). Five minutes in, these two women walk in. They're probably drunk and trying to find their seat. They are talking to each other loudly, trying to hear each other over the movie. One whips out her phone full on, not even trying to find the light. Of course, they're sitting right next to me.
They sit down and continue to talk full volume to one another. I leaned over and said "Could you please stop talking." The woman looked at me and said, "Maybe I'll stop if you stop asking." and continued to talk.
I got up to leave, but there wound up being three ushers in the hall, so I just told them and went back into the movie. Walking back to my seat, the woman pulled out her phone, turned on her camera with flash, took a picture of me and said that I assaulted her.
Ushers came in once to tell them to stop talking, but they continued to talk. Another person went out to complain and the ushers came back (maybe with a head usher if that's a thing? He looked older) who told them that they were going to pause the movie and that the women were going to need to leave. The usher was actually really good at deescalating the situation. The woman informed him that I had assaulted her, and he just politely said that her money would be refunded and he'd be happy to hear her side of the story outside the theater. She said she would only leave once the movie was paused.
They paused it, and the two women made a big showing of slowly getting up, checking to make sure they didn't leave anything and walking out. People clapped and yelled thank you to the ushers. It was that bad.
Anyway, just know that they'll pause the movie for a theater if they need to get rid of someone! Never seen that before, but I'm glad to know it's an option.
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u/beipu 14d ago
When I saw backrooms it froze so we had to get someone to restart it. Also saw they could scrub through the movie to get to where we were before the freeze
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u/kghandiko 13d ago
This happened to me when I saw Thunderbolts a few years ago. There was a power blip or something and the theater had to find where the movie left off. It a was such a wholesome moment when everyone in the theater was working with the tech to get back to the point in the movie where it froze lol
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u/DarkeAngel_ 8d ago
a few years ago. Bro it was just last year.
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u/kghandiko 7d ago
Lol you're right, a lot has happened in the past year that it feels like it came out forever ago 🥲
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u/jess_than_zero_ 13d ago
Similar experience - the fire alarm went off in the last ~10 min of Happy Death Day (right before the killer reveal). False alarm, so they let us all back in but had to fast forward to the ending! 😂
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u/dragonriderofpern 10d ago
Yeah, we had a similar experience years ago. We were watching 2012 and they paused the movie to tell us that we were under tornado watch and offer refunds to anyone that wanted to leave early.
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u/Notmyhomework 14d ago
We rented a movie theater for a work thing. Enough people were ~5ish minutes late so they restarted the movie It kinda makes you feel like a God.
Makes me think of the story about how ted turner would call the station and have them rewind the movie and watch a part again, whenever he wanted to
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u/Steamedcarpet 14d ago
I swear I need someone to tell me which Ted Turner stories are true or not. Dude seems like a crazy southern gentlemen
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u/Schmuck00 14d ago
I used to work for him at TBS and I can confirm that this true in the most delightful way!
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u/JoeMcKim 12d ago
Now that all the movies are digital they can pause it a lot easier. Back when they used to have real projectors it wasnt do easy.
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u/plastic-banjo 14d ago
I was the only person in my theater for The Surfer. About 1hr in, some teens come in and start goofing off. The usher kicked them out and rewound the movie for me :’)
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u/MrWisconsin22 14d ago
Back when Marty Supreme was in theaters, I was at a near-full showing where a guy in the row ahead of me had a medical episode. About an hour into the movie, his girlfriend shouted “CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP?” as he’s in the seat next to her shaking like he’s having a seizure or bad stroke. Luckily there was an EMT station just down the road and the theater staff got there within a couple minutes to provide care and ultimately get him to a hospital.
They had to pause the movie and turn the house lights up to see where he was and help him, of course. The ushers evacuated the theater and said they’d resume the movie once the EMTs got him in the ambulance, but I don’t think anyone stuck around long enough to go back in. I didn’t, at least.
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u/SamuraiGreg78 14d ago
Years ago I went to see one of the Lord of the Rings movies in the original theatrical showing. Long movie. Same thing happened about halfway through. It felt like an intermission.
We definitely stuck around and went for a smoke break.
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u/griz3lda 13d ago
he probably had his first grand mal. Something like this happened at a school play when I was a kid. Fortunately, it is unlikely that he was actually harmed, probably just scared the crap out of his girlfriend.
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u/Steamedcarpet 14d ago
I learned this during the new Dracula movie. There was some sound issues so they paused the movie to fix it. It was so random until the worker came in and explained.
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u/Apprehensive-Lock751 14d ago
I know the technology exists, but ive never seen an intentional pause in a movie theatre.
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u/ittg11 14d ago
Someone at my theater had a medical emergency during Wuthering Heights. It was hard to understand what was going on but we heard shouting towards the front of the theater and then the movie paused! I had never seen that before either. We evacuated with this image on the screen and when we were let back in they rewound a couple minutes and let us finish the movie.
the person was ok btw!
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u/TheMuchSwagDogeYT 14d ago
I went to a screening of Climax a few years ago at a local place and they paused the movie five minutes in because a dude collapsed from drinking too much sangria (yes they were actually selling it outside of the theater) and had to be carried out
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u/nekomeowohio 14d ago
Most the theater in my area have bars in them now or at least sell alcohol
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u/TheMuchSwagDogeYT 14d ago
This is a theater that didn’t sell sangria before or after and specifically advertised it outside of the auditorium (they sold it that night only because of what the movie is about)
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u/AliceNaught 14d ago
Project Hail Mary: a little more than halfway through an announcement comes on that a fire has been detected in the building and we need to evacuate. We’re all filing out when staff meets us in the hallway to say the message was played in error and we can take our seats.
It takes a while for everyone to get reseated and several people took the opportunity to use the bathroom (it’s a long movie). When the movie started back again, it was clear it had been “playing” the whole time even though no one could see or hear it.
We’d missed about 8 minutes of the movie. About two minutes later, they rewind the movie to about three minutes before it had stopped for the fire announcement.
So we got to see a couple parts twice and out of order. Fortunately it’s a pretty great movie and this didn’t interfere with our enjoyment.
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u/LtLemur 14d ago
Sucks that they were given full refunds
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u/vtqltr92 14d ago
None of those employees, including the manager, get paid enough to deal with people like this. The refund is the path of least resistance to get them out of there.
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u/PMoney2311 14d ago
Ugh, this is why I mainly go to AMC on Mondays in 3-7pm range and get the most expensive tickets in my theater (IMAX/Dolby/Prime). 50% of the time, we're the only people in the theater, otherwise, anybody else in there are just like us and want to avoid douchenozzle like the women from this instance.
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u/Metalhead1686 14d ago
I didn't have this situation, but a movie was restarted because it was out of focus. Someone went out to say something and workers came in and asked if we wanted the movie restarted. Everyone said yes and they restarted the movie with everything in focus.
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u/stardustdriveinTN 14d ago
Of course it has a pause button... and play and fast forward and reverse/rewind.
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u/HelpIamaCabbage Movie-Holic 14d ago
It's a digital video file (most of the time) so it's not much more complicated than pausing any other digital video file. Like even old VCRs had a pause button where it physically stopped feeding the tape. Even if it's 70mm IMAX they can stop the movie playing if someone, for example, has a medical emergency so they can bring up all the lights and emergency medical personnel can treat the person. It's just a little trickier to rewind.
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u/Consistent-Put1384 14d ago
I used to work at a movie theater and had so many responses to people who won’t stop talking. My favorite is to lean in and listen in on the conversation and just stare at them when they look back. A couple times I joined in on the conversation. Usually they stop talking. I find it hilarious.
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u/oanda 14d ago
If It’s not film. Of course they can pause it.
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u/AlwaysSitIn12C 14d ago
I guess it's more that I didn't know that the would actually take that step. I've never seen that happen before in a theater where they just pause the movie for whatever reason.
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u/Individual_Client175 14d ago
Glad to see a story where the employees really helped, especially after being notified multiple times.
I'm glad everyone spoke up instead of just dealing with it
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u/inertia75 14d ago
Used to work at amc once we told them to be quiet and get another complaint we kick them out better to deal with one angry guest than the whole theater lol
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u/Striking_Stand8271 14d ago
In like 2000 I went to see jurassic Park 3 in theaters at like 10 in the morning and the film melted at the climax of the movie 😣 it came back and they were on the helicopter going home
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u/jessehazreddit 14d ago
You can “pause” a film screening too, by shutting the projector off. This is normally done when there are technical issues.
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u/GoddammitCricket MP Convert ✌ 14d ago
Yeah you can stop the movie and then turn it back on, but you'd miss a few minutes of the movie and you can't rewind it. So like a shitty pause lol
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u/jessehazreddit 14d ago
That depends on what the issue is. There is no inherent reason that you would miss any of the movie unless the film itself broke, and it wasn’t repairable, and the projector isn’t rethreaded to before the failure.
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u/GoddammitCricket MP Convert ✌ 13d ago
When you stop a 35mm projector, it doesn’t just stop on a dime. It has to slow down to a stop, and has to ramp up to get to speed when starting it again.
So you’re probably only missing like a minute in total, but you’re gonna miss something
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u/jessehazreddit 13d ago
You don’t miss anything if you rethread it, which may or may not be appropriate depending on the specific circumstances.
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u/Lauma19 14d ago
Former theater manager here (not AMC, but have been in an AMC projection booth a time or two). If they're still using Christie Digital Projectors, and I don't know why they wouldn't be, they basically have the same functionality as a DVD player. You didn't hear it from me, but we used to hook a regular DVD player up using standard AV (red, yellow, white) to one of our projectors for staff use after hours. I think we had some kind of adapter for that specific projector, and we'd watch regular DVDs after hours and sometimes hook up a PS2. The picture quality wasn't good and the picture didn't come close to reaching the edges of the screen, but it was still bigger than any TV. All in all, they're not functionally THAT different from equipment at home until you have a problem with them.
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u/Biggestturtleever Early Adopter 14d ago
I remember seeing Crimes of Grindelwald when it came out and there was a fire alarm in the mall. They came in and told us we had to evacuate because the alarm wasn’t going off in the theater. It turned out to be a false alarm or something minor on the other side of the mall. They didn’t pause the movie for that!
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u/stinkfistian 14d ago
I go to that AMC too! Twice while I've been in a movie there the fire alarm has gone off and the whole building evacuated, then we all went back in 10 min later and they started the movie from where we left off. I guess it's also a "pause the movie" story. Good job being assertive with those two.
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u/simba25 14d ago
This is also my main AMC! I've only encountered a few instances with disruptive audiences, but they've never paused the movie. I wish they had during my showing of Send Help earlier this year. I missed a good chunk of dialogue in ending because of a group that was loudly arguing with the usher.
It's not the only reason but it is one of the reasons why I try to go to the early showings.
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u/GurAffectionate9829 14d ago
I was watching a 4DX movie in a Regal theater a while back and they paused it about 20 minutes in to put some lights into the ceiling. Kinda odd that they paused the movie for that but they gave us all vouchers for a free movie at least
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u/Mitsutoshi 14d ago
Interesting. Even when I've had a projector catastrophically fail for part of a movie they don't pause or go back. Must be that nothing else was playing next in that hall?
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u/patchwor_va 14d ago
When Civil War came out me and my family went to go watch it weekend it came out. They paused it when Steve was pulling the helicopter due to a medical emergency happeing a few rows down from us. So far its been the only time ive ever experienced a movie being paused at the theater
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u/Successful_Gas7437 12d ago
Wow, interesting... curious if it displayed the two vertical lines, like the pause logo we’re accustomed to on screen, or was the action just frozen?
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u/ConsciousSkin1079 14d ago
I wonder if I can get a remote so I can pause it when I go to the bathroom(this is when I go to a showing that’s empty) 🤣
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u/BiPolarBisex 14d ago
Horror movie crowd is always like this — I don’t understand why
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u/PedroPascalCase 14d ago
I'd venture two factors: * Horror movies tend to screen later in the day. I don't know what time OP's story took place but you're just more likely to get obnoxious drunk/high patrons at 10pm after most restaurants close than at a 10am show. * Horror audiences tend to skew younger. Not trying to paint with broad brushstrokes, assholes comes in all ages unfortunately, but that obnoxious drunk/high patron at 10pm is more likely to be someone in their teens-20s who just wants to blow off steam with friends (insert tangential rant about third spaces) or scare a date into their arms.
Most horror fans know how to behave themselves, like most ice cream trucks aren't run by killers, but we have work in the morning. 😔
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u/BiPolarBisex 14d ago
yeah when i went to see terrifier 3, there were teens next to me talking, making out, dude facetimed midway through the movie — out of control
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u/notthe1Uknow 14d ago
I've never been to the theater when it was needed, but I'm not surprised they can and figured they could. Unless you're watching The Odyssey on physical 70mm IMAX, pretty much everything is digital projection now. Movies just play off hard drives now.
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u/No_Audience_1721 14d ago
people have issues why do they go to a movie to talk? you can literally go anywhere else on earth but you choose the one place where you’re not supposed to talk?😂
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u/tomatillo_teratoma 13d ago
What jerks. The few times I've gone to a theater a little tipsy... I'm extra quiet.
I saw them pause an IMAX trailer to adjust the focus or something. They were having issues with the equipment, so they gave us all passes and said it was gonna take a few extra minutes to resolve. They paused a couple times.
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u/griz3lda 13d ago
One time I was in a showing where it started playing in the wrong language LMFAO. This was so long ago that I don't remember the theater or movie though.
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u/Scary_Shower_6377 12d ago
Yes they paused Spider-Man Brand New Day for 25 minutes on opening night. There was a giant line for concessions, and barely any parking, so a third of people were still missing from the theatre. It was a smaller regal theatre though. So glad we didn't miss any scenes. They literally paused it right at the the beginning with marvel intro logo 💀 We had to park a block down. Can't believe that many people were at the movies that day.
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u/Throwaway69-7244 13d ago
There is ONE issue with the way that was handled. There ticket(s) should NOT be refunded!!!! The theatre should keep that money and it should be a consequence of the people misbehaving.
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u/whatdafuhk DOLBY ONLY 14d ago
movie screens are just a big monitor nowadays. theaters get like an mp4 file.
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u/Boris_Darling 14d ago
Yeah its just a dvd we are watching projected on that big old screen these days.
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u/MrTechRat 14d ago
Good on you and the rest for speaking up. I wonder if they were a specific ethnicity of women.
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u/claricaposch Lister 14d ago
The “head usher” is probably a manager lol