You know the drill. You walk into the theater, and you're a little on edge: the
movie starts in five minutes, it's a pretty popular movie, and you have two
other people with you. You disregard the
seats down in front right away and turn to look up at all the people filling
the stadium-style seating above you. You
desperately scan the crowd for three seats in a row, and finally – what a
relief! – you find them.
They're way off
to the side and really far up, but anything's better than those first few
flat rows at the bottom.
For some reason, it's become accepted as common knowledge that sitting near the front of a movie theater is a very bad idea: my neck will get hurt! I'm too close to the screen! It looks so...big!
Frankly I'm beginning to find it funny, if only because I
consistently benefit from this universal aversion. I sit in the front all the time, recline
comfortably, and for years have never left the theater with a neck cramp. Those chairs are tilted back a little; if you
just relax, your eyes drift upwards anyway.
Besides, I like it because it's a more enveloping
experience. I'm encouraged by the rise
of HD flat screen home systems, because it means people haven't forgotten that
size matters, but let's remember that theaters are designed – disregarding
annoying patrons – to cut out distractions. Everything else is dark and you're ready to get transported to another
world; the screen might as well take up as much of your vision as
possible. It especially works well with
big summer extravaganzas like Prince Caspian...or anything involving
Natalie Portman or Angelina Jolie.
And yet people avoid those seats at all costs. Last summer, to gain some extra money I
worked as part of a crew that organized advance screenings in
The theater would often fill up quickly except for two areas: the reserved section and the first three rows. People would come up to me, desperate to have good seats for Disturbia or Spider-Man 3 or whatever, and they would bribe or beg me to let them into the reserved section. I would suggest sitting in one of the many empty seats in the first few rows instead, and without fail, they would look at me with an expression of incredulous disgust.
Okay, look, I know it's a matter of opinion. Some people like to be at an optimal distance
and height away from the screen – fine. And
there is one caveat: if you're up front but too far to one side, the picture
looks distractingly skewed.
But the next time you walk into a crowded theater and can't find those three seats in a row, give it a shot. Just don't tell anybody else, because then I won't have anywhere to sit.
Michael Dance
StrandedinManhattan.com
**Read more articles by Michael Dance**
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