Wow...I was expecting things like "the usher was rude and wouldn't let us in" or "I dropped my Reese's Pieces all over the floor" (which happened to me while a friend and I were out with two girls at a movie-I couldn't get the bag open, and when I did of course it exploded and they were flying everywhere). This thread is already much better than I expected.

I already told the story of the guy who came in to a screening drunk and started talking the moment the lights went down. He grabbed my leg (which had to be intentional because my notebook was sitting on my leg and he reached under it to grab my leg). I jumped and shifted in my seat, and he got up and left and didn't come back.

I loved The Lord of Rings so much that I had to go and see it again in the theater (completely unheard of for me). Imagine my disappointment when the sound was out of sync with the image...and you know the funny thing? No one wanted to do anything about it. All of us sat there for the first 5 minutes without so much as a murmur. Finally, muttering to myself, "unless I do it, it'll never get done", I went and complained to the theater staff out front. They tried to fix the issue, but in vain...sigh. I never did get to see the movie on the big screen for the second time...

I worked at a movie theater for a long time up in Westfield/Carmel. There are a lot of stories to tell about my time there but only 2 stick out for the moment. One of which involved customers in a theater the other involved something we as a staff did (mainly the guys).

The instance involving customers was during opening weekend of "Titanic". We had it on 4 screens and every show was selling out. We had to play crowd control to make sure poeple weren't sneaking into the theater and sitting on the floor, etc. Well right as the movie started I did a walk down the aisle to do one last check before the lights totally went out. Well right when the lights dimmed I walked up to the front and stood off to the side waiting for the movie to begin. We all knew what the last preview was before the actual movie started and the lights turned completely off. Well as the last preview was getting ready to finish, I started to make my way up the theater doing a final walkby. Right as the lights were going out I noticed something strange in the middle of a packed row in the middle of the theater. There was a girl that was looking to be a little to close to this guy so it caught my eye. Well the lights finally went out and as soon as they did her head went down to his lap. I shined my light at em, and sure enough.. she was doing what everyone reading this is thinking she was doing. I didn't have the heart to stop it, I was kinda impressed at the guts both of them had to do something like that in a totally sold out show!

The second story is quicker. Me and the guys that worked there used to do a stupid little game where we would get another male coworkers attention if we had a hot girl in our concession line. We would say stupid little things like "Hey Jon I need 5 popcorns" or something to that nature, to give the other guy an idea on her "rating" (1 thru 5) and to get the other guys opinion. We did this crap out in the open, we thought we were being smooth about it. Obviously, we weren't.

I'm not sure this thread is going in the direction Joe anticipated.

Most of my bad experiences were first-hand only in that, as a manager, it was up to me to resolve them.

STAR WARS (1977)-Eastwood Theatre-850 seated watching the show-1600 outside waiting to get in. In line was a very, very pregnant young lady going into contractions. We brought her inside where it was cooler and offered to call an ambulance. "How long is the show?" aked she. (2 hours and 4 minutes.) "I'll make it."-and did! "I didn't come all the way from Kokomo to miss this!"

THE EXORCIST (1973)-Glendale Cinema 4-5-6. Opening weekend. I had not seen the show yet-watching from the projection booth. Seconds into the cross/masterbation scene a women in the third row began screaming, "He's here! He's here!", and began ripping her clothes off, running up the aisle casting garmets in all directions. The concession girls cornered her in the women's room and helped her calm down and re-gain her dignity-not to mention her garmets.

ALIEN (1978)-Eastwood Theatre-again, full houses. John Hurt's explicit indegestion was always good for a quart or two of stomach contents being spewed around the auditorium. Some hit the floor, some the aisles and at least one round of garlicky spaghetti hit the back of a guys neck in the next row.

The Blair Witch Project...I don't usually do horror but enough people whose opinons I value said GO, so I went. Then, because I'm classic non-confrontationl, two of the other 6 people in the theatre talked through the whole thing. I was pee-ossed bee-atch!

The Village: waiting in line to buy tickets when all of the sudden the one hater standing in front of me, in a very loud and quick manor, laughingly shared with the other hater the plot twist! It totally came out of nowhere and totally ruined the movie.

There are a lot of oddball things that seem to happen at promo screenings. It makes sense given that passes are given away for free and at times people don't necessarily care to observe the usual rules of cinema eqtiquette.

Once at a somewhat recent screening, an older woman who was obviously having some problems was yelling out loud during the movie. She was obviously disoriented, and her companion tried to usher her out quickly, but that didn't stop a few d-bags in the audience from swearing at her loudly, which prompted someone else finally to yell back at them to have some sensitivity and called them a pretty nasty name. They finally quieted down and the movie went on.

I was at a screening of "The Terminal" (with Tom Hanks) that apparently had a reel missing, so a large portion of the movie was missing. I had to go back after a 7:30 screening (which was over at 9:00), watch the movie again, go home and write the review, then get up on time the next morning to be in at my daytime job at 8:00.