My Top Ten Movie Theater Experiences

By Jeff Webb

I have loved movies all my life. Seeing recent summer blockbusters like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “Star Trek,” I have been thinking about some of my best movie-going experiences, the films and the energy that really made me feel involved in the picture. I have listed ten of these experiences below, and I encourage you to list some of your favorite movie-going experiences in the comments below this posting.

Note: The years correspond to the year the film was released, not the year I saw the film in theaters.

1. Grindhouse (2007): Probably the most fun I ever had in a movie theater. I went and saw this on opening day with about four or five of my friends, and the theater was packed. “Planet Terror,” full of tongue-in-cheek fun, had the audience all pumped up, though the energy dwindled some when “Death Proof” came around and the pace of the film slowed down. However, the climatic car chase redeemed it all, and still ranks as one of the best car chases, in my opinion, in film history.

2. Titanic (1997): Anybody growing up in my generation listing movie-going experiences and not including “Titanic” is lying. It was an event movie, and in the twelve years since—even with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Harry Potter, and the trend of superhero movies—nothing has still approached the epic reception of “Titanic” by the public. You didn’t just see it once. You saw it two times. Three times. Middle-aged couples planned evenings around it, like they were getting dressed up to see a play, but, rather, they went to the cinema. I, for one, saw it in the now defunct Kanawha Cinemas, with water dripping slowly from the ceiling, giving it all an air of realism. It was my first experience with Kate Winslet, too, giving my fifth-grader self a movie star crush that lasts even to this day.

3. The Dark Knight (2008): If any movie has come close to “Titanic,” it is “The Dark Knight.” I saw it five times, and every time was fantastic, though the best was opening night. It was a midnight showing at Marquee Cinemas, a sold-out theater, and, that first showing, it all was so much darker and intense than I had ever anticipated, and I loved it for it. It’s not a film masterpiece, as some would suggest, for it does have some flaws script-wise, but, in terms of summer blockbusters, “The Dark Knight” is one of the absolute best.

4. No Country for Old Men (2007): Perhaps the most suspenseful movie I have ever seen in theaters. I sat in the front row with two of my friends, in a packed theater, and perhaps because the crowd was into it, or perhaps because I was so close to the screen that I felt actually in the action, I was completely tense. I remember actually feeling a weight lifted off me when the film concluded, a conclusion that many people criticized but I felt to be absolutely genius.

5. There Will Be Blood (2007): The film that should have won 2007’s Best Picture Oscar. I could not convince anybody to go with me, so I drove alone one Friday evening from Buckhannon to Morgantown to see it. The theater itself was new to me, and was a very clean facility, which was nice. The film, though, was what really impressed, with Paul Thomas Anderson’s direction reminiscent of such greats as Kubrick or Huston, and Daniel Day-Lewis, as Daniel Plainview, turning in one of the best performances of motion picture history. The audience was completely engrossed by the time the final scene came around, and I just remember everybody sitting in stunned silence at the shocking ending the film serves up.

6. The Wrestler (2008): My friend and I anticipated this film for a good six months before its release. I ended up seeing it twice, once with said friend in Pittsburgh, and once more with a girl in Buckhannon. In Pittsburgh, on the film’s opening weekend in the town, the theater was packed, and the audience energy was high, responding to such scenes as the hardcore match and the Ram working in the deli. In Buckhannon, it was just the girl and me alone in the theater, but “The Wrestler,” is, in all essence, a simple film, one that can enjoyed both with a crowd and with only one other person.

7. Jurassic Park (1993): I only have a vague memory of this experience, as I was five years old at the time I saw it, but I remember it was at a drive-in theater, and it was at night. I remember being scared, thinking that dinosaurs might come out from behind the movie screen and attack us all. It was, probably, the first time I was terrified by a movie, but I also loved it. Spielberg films have always been dear to me, playing important roles in the development of my childhood, and “Jurassic Park” is no exception.

8. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): Speaking of Spielberg, I saw this at the Warner Theater in Morgantown in Spring 2009. I have loved Indiana Jones since I was a child, going so far as naming a pet cat, when I was six years old, after the iconic movie character. The film is completely mesmerizing on the big screen and in a dark theater. However, I had already seen it countless times on home video, so I knew what to expect, but I must wonder what it would have been like seeing it for the first time in 1981, and how exciting that must have been.

9. Blindness (2008): The film received poor reviews, but I, for the life of me, cannot figure out why. I saw it by myself, in a theater completely empty but for me, and that was an experience. That has only happened a couple times in my life, and it is such an outstanding feeling. It makes you feel important, like it’s a private screening all for you, and, with a film like “Blindness,” it makes it all much more intense and scary, which, perhaps, is why I have a more favorable opinion of the film as opposed to others.

10. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999): I saw this with my brother and his friend, Kenny. I don’t remember much about the experience, though I do remember it was at Park Place Cinemas in Charleston right after they had remodeled, and that it was a tremendously funny movie. I just had a good feeling that night, and that, of course, is the end result of a good movie-going experience.