My spouse has gone all in on the gd rumble-seats in Cinemark theaters. Even dumb movies we’d never go see, they’re like “does it have rumble seats? ‘cause I’m there.”
For me it’s just the comfy-ass recliners. One of the Regals near me swapped out all of the chairs with comfy recliners and— my god— sitting through a 3 hour movie was a comparative cakewalk to how it used to be.
I haven’t got any AMCs near me, but it sounds like they haven’t put in the same efforts on seat situations. You can have all the Dolby, XD, THX etc stuff you want, but the chairs are a big part of it.
—that said, we also have a lovely historic theater near us that’s oozing character and ambience, so… it’s an uphill battle for all chain theaters in our area afaic
If only they’d upkeep the recliners… my theather converted around covid, and half of the them are non functioning now. Broken buttons mostly, but it’s especially bad around the center positioned seats everyone always takes.
I used to be an usher a while back and cleaning the basic foldy seats are no bueno, especially on kid/family movies— people are slobs. Shrek 2 was the WORST by far to clean up after, and it was in theaters for so long.
I cannot imagine how long and how much work it would take to thoroughly clean some of the recliners I’ve seen.
Coupled with that, nearly every chain cinema near us has cut staff/concessions down to combining concessions and tickets into the same booth/register, and the ushers are a skeleton crew.
They’re looking for a quick-fix/lowest effort draw for an audience and are only halfway there ‘cause uhhh ineptitude or greed or both. And it sucks ‘cause I’d hate to see all of these places shut down.
…although, one of them shut down near us and got bought by a local guy who has spruced it the hell up, so. We’ll see what happens.
I’ve heard from a few friend’s kids that cleaning the recliners is basically easy mode. They’re not cloth like the old founding seats so everything just wipes right off.
Came here to say pretty much the same thing. There are a few AMC theaters near us that my wife and I enjoy going to from time to time. But it’s clear they aren’t doing anything when it comes to maintaining & repairing their seats. They were awesome when the theaters were newly renovated, but the last time we went one of our seats was broken so badly we couldn’t sit comfortably in it. Luckily there were plenty of empty seats so we could move easily.
I’ve had it happen twice. I’ll be in an airplane, watching a movie, and there’s a big battle scene. The plane hits turbulence and the fight becomes much more exciting.
the landmark “4d” seats that move/rumble make any movie with flying so fun. They still haven’t gotten the technology precise enough for well timed jump scares in horror movies though.
I found the rumble seats very off-putting, so I turned it off after a few minutes. Turns out, you can’t turn these ones off, just down. Very frustrating two hours.
My spouse has gone all in on the gd rumble-seats in Cinemark theaters. Even dumb movies we’d never go see, they’re like “does it have rumble seats? ‘cause I’m there.”
For me it’s just the comfy-ass recliners. One of the Regals near me swapped out all of the chairs with comfy recliners and— my god— sitting through a 3 hour movie was a comparative cakewalk to how it used to be.
I haven’t got any AMCs near me, but it sounds like they haven’t put in the same efforts on seat situations. You can have all the Dolby, XD, THX etc stuff you want, but the chairs are a big part of it.
—that said, we also have a lovely historic theater near us that’s oozing character and ambience, so… it’s an uphill battle for all chain theaters in our area afaic
I put my feet up in a recliner at the theater once… Zzzzzzz. I can’t do it.
If only they’d upkeep the recliners… my theather converted around covid, and half of the them are non functioning now. Broken buttons mostly, but it’s especially bad around the center positioned seats everyone always takes.
I used to be an usher a while back and cleaning the basic foldy seats are no bueno, especially on kid/family movies— people are slobs. Shrek 2 was the WORST by far to clean up after, and it was in theaters for so long.
I cannot imagine how long and how much work it would take to thoroughly clean some of the recliners I’ve seen.
Coupled with that, nearly every chain cinema near us has cut staff/concessions down to combining concessions and tickets into the same booth/register, and the ushers are a skeleton crew.
They’re looking for a quick-fix/lowest effort draw for an audience and are only halfway there ‘cause uhhh ineptitude or greed or both. And it sucks ‘cause I’d hate to see all of these places shut down.
…although, one of them shut down near us and got bought by a local guy who has spruced it the hell up, so. We’ll see what happens.
I’ve heard from a few friend’s kids that cleaning the recliners is basically easy mode. They’re not cloth like the old founding seats so everything just wipes right off.
Dunno if that holds for all, just local anecdotes
Came here to say pretty much the same thing. There are a few AMC theaters near us that my wife and I enjoy going to from time to time. But it’s clear they aren’t doing anything when it comes to maintaining & repairing their seats. They were awesome when the theaters were newly renovated, but the last time we went one of our seats was broken so badly we couldn’t sit comfortably in it. Luckily there were plenty of empty seats so we could move easily.
[off topic]
I’ve had it happen twice. I’ll be in an airplane, watching a movie, and there’s a big battle scene. The plane hits turbulence and the fight becomes much more exciting.
I can understand the appeal of the rumble seats.
the landmark “4d” seats that move/rumble make any movie with flying so fun. They still haven’t gotten the technology precise enough for well timed jump scares in horror movies though.
You should probably buy her a vibrator.
I found the rumble seats very off-putting, so I turned it off after a few minutes. Turns out, you can’t turn these ones off, just down. Very frustrating two hours.
I will say the small 10 screen AMC near me has nice seats. It has a bunch of small theaters that are pretty comfortable.
The giant AMC at the mall 30 minutes north of me has huge theaters full of crappy seats.
It depends on where you go.