
In Utah recently, a movie theater full of parents and kids expecting to watch Disney's family-appropriate High School Musical 3 were instead treated to the beginning of the R-rated flick Sex Drive. Apparently, the opening few minutes of the movie include nudity so parents didn't even have a chance to shield their youngsters. Understandably, folks were horrified:
"I could not carry my little children out before they were exposed to extremely vulgar and sexually explicit material," one parent complained in an e-mail to the Desert News.
That's a pretty big (though kinda amusing) movie-going disaster, I'd say. My disaster stories aren't quite so traumatic, though still entertaining. On the opening weekend of the new Star Wars movie a few years ago (you know, with mega-fans dressed up as characters) the film totally burnt out at a climactic moment toward the end. The audience completely freaked out — l turned around in time to spot a Sith angrily trying to climb into the projection booth. I also once went to a showing of Sin City only to have Million Dollar Baby come onscreen.
What are your movie-going disasters?

















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Polo Ralph Lauren
Barbara Bui
I went to Iron Man and they started playing the PowerPuff Girls movie!
1There was an old theater in my town that almost always messed up the movies. It was in small ways, and the tickets were super cheap, but still.
I know it's kinda wrong, but I totally giggled when I read this post. I mean, of all of the movies to come on instead, it's a film called "Sex Drive"?
2Oh put a sock in it lady. "My children were exposed!!" Hows about the rest of us who are exposed to your screaming kids at the movies and oh, EVERYWHERE?
3I went to see Cloverfield.
The end.
4Not *quite* a disaster...
But my friends and I went to see LOTR ROTK in the middle of winter (when it opened) in theatres. I think we went at like 4:00 in the afternoon or something like that. Needless to say, it was the first movie being shown of the day--so the theatre had JUST opened. This means, of course, no heat. For the full 3 and a half hours that we sat there, the heat STILL had not warmed up the theatre. It was freezing, and kind of miserable. But the movie was amazing of course, so it sort of canceled everything out.
5I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the opening midnight showing, and the first 2 minutes of the movie were skewed on the screen like the projector had tipped over. People were screaming and shouting, and the fixed it fairly quickly, but they still refunded a sold out theater!
6plus, it's in Utah. that makes it even more amusing.
7Went to see Marie Antoinette with friends and there was a waving hair caught in the projector for the first 15 minutes of the movie. Someone got a bright idea to get a can of compressed air and spray the hair out, but it was stuck and you could hear the loud ssssss and see the resilient hair for at least another 15 minutes WHILE the movie was rolling. People. Were. PISSED.
8We took my daughter to see Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban for her birthday at the IMAX and the compressor broke down with only 30 mins. left to go... we had to go to a multiplex the next day to see the rest.
9And then my sister and I went to see The Breakup and it started 15 minutes at the end...then it stopped and it took 30 mins or more to start it, the only reason we stayed was because they weren't offering a refund. And then we watched it. That was the disaster part.(I wish this were a lie, but no it's entirely true) Talk about bad signs!
Went to the midnight screening of Indiana Jones IV (don't get me started)...and the sound didn't work for the first five minutes.
10When I was twelve I went to go see Election with my parents and my brother (who would have been sixteen). My mom really wanted to see it since it had gotten great reviews. It was a little risque in the beginning with some normal fully blanket covered sex, and my rents were fine with that, but then all of a sudden maybe a half hour or twenty minutes into the movie I got to see my first blow job--and not the funny head bobbing bj, that teenage boy with his legs spread open and the girl on her knees in front on him. My dad decided it was time he and I left. My mom and bro stayed and watched. I've been to traumatized to watch the movie since...it's been ten years.
11That is kind of funny but I totally understand how that could be really traumatic. Not really for the kids but for the awkwardness for the parent.
12During SATC, in a packed theater, the film cut out right in the begining when her and big are looking at the "heaven on 5th" apartment. The film just cut off, and about 200 women simultaneously gasped/cried! Everyone immediately started screaming and after a minute some ran to the next theater because they had SATC showing on two screens at the same time.
13i saw American Beauty with my in-laws. the opening shower scene with Kevin Spacey was not fun.
14I've only had 2 movie mishaps that I could think of. My trip to the theaters to see "Cast Away" was such an awful experience. I was in my preteens and I was on a "date" with my bf, with our moms sitting behind me. Two scenes during the movie grossed me out so much that I had to walk out of the theater (the teeth pulling scene and one other) and I embarassed my mom by making a scene. Then ten minutes before the end of the film, where Tom Hanks' character finally finds his ex-fiancee (Helen Hunt) and finds out she's married with a kid, the projector moved up and we could only see the bottom of the screen. So when she goes out in the rain to his car and kisses him, we couldn't see anything! It finally got fixed though, before it ended.
My second movie mishap happened when my sister and I saw Step Brothers a few months ago. You know how there's a screen that tells you to silence your cell phone before the previews start? Well the projector froze on that screen for TEN MINUTES. And the funny part is that no one got off their butts to tell the theater employees that it wasn't working! Finally my sister got up and told them, then the previews started playing a couple minutes later. It was so ridiculous.
15Wow. I honestly did not think something like this would happen. I thought sitting thru Wild Wild West was bad enough.
16I took my 8 year old to see Aquamarine, and they evacuated the theater. Someone had called in a bomb threat. It was Sunday (in the south) in the summer and all of these little girls were standing in the heat in thier church clothes, crying about the movie being cut off. It was AWFUL. I think we stayed outside about 30 minutes. And we couldn't leave because we were near the back and it was all fenced in!
17This really isn't a disaster, but it's funny:
We went to go see Blade in the theater, and during the opening scene with the bloodbath vampire massacre, the sound kept cutting out, and the canned music from the lobby would play instead--The Beach Boy's "Surfin' USA." It was kind of awesome.
At the same theater, someone changed the sign out front from "Mortal Kombat" to "Oral Wombat."
18I admit I had to giggle when I read this too.
And they were worried about Zack and Miri!
I don't think I have ever had anything like this happen at the theatre.
girlnone! That would be funny.
19Where to begin? Transformers with no sound for the first 10 minutes and a skewed picture? Or Harry Potter 5, when we had nothing for 10 minutes during the climax of the movie, and when it came back on, it had advanced about 15 minutes past the point we left off on? Maybe Iron Man, when I was sitting through the credits waiting for that last little scene, and the fire alarm went off while my kid was in the bathroom. Full on Mom-panic mode. Or Sex and the City, which after sitting there staring at a blank screen for half an hour, they finally moved everyone to another showing? Not to mention the horror when we got full-frontal, with my mother sitting in the seat next to me. I've got nothing against full-frontal, but we're not the kind of family where I want to watch it with my mom.
20I saw Jurassic Park on opening night and the screen froze like three times. People almost rioted I SWEAR. We did get free passes to see it again though
21When I was about 16 I went to see the new (at the time) Woody Allen with my parents in an indie theatre. Instead they put a b&w Korean film (can't remember the title) that starts with a very explicit guy-guy sex scene. Highly awkward silence in the completely full room.
22Saw the Dark Knight opening at 12am and it started half hour late, no previews, they went around individually and checked our stubs twice and kicked out people publicly who didn't have theirs handy.
23I remember going to see "Jurassic Park" when I was 10 with my dad and sister. It was a packed theater, and we were all sitting in front of a black screen waiting for something. Finally 20 minutes past the start-time, my dad went out to the lobby and asked when the movie was going to start. The staff was like, "It hasn't started yet!" So someone ran up and got it going for us.
24We went to see Independence Day and the projector BROKE the last 10 minutes and didnt get fixed, we had to come back and see it all over again...for free of course.
When we went to see Indiana Jones and the Last crusade the power went out midway, we stuck around for about 20 minutes for it to come back on!
25I went to see Amityville Horror (you know the newer one with Ryan Reynolds)and halfway through the movie it was upside down, they didn't fix it even after 10 minutes (and I had gone right out and told them) finally I just left.
26I went to see LOTR the Return of the King and the projector froze for like a minute and people were already throwing food, yelling at the employees and demanding it fixed. Thank god it was only a minute , lol.
27I went to see Titanic, and right when the ship breaks in half, someone screamed and yelled "Call a doctor!" The whole theater burst out in laughter thinking it was a prank, and then people started running up and down the aisle crying and pleading for help. A girl sitting a few rows up from me had had a massive epileptic seizure. We were very fortunate to have several doctors in the audience to attend to her. But now whenever I watch Titanic, I always think of her during that scene. I hope she's okay!
28The last Bourne movie- two friends had to leave to throw up. Don't watch Bourne movies from the second row.
Manchurian Candidate- out of focus.
Y Tu Mama Tambien- saw it on a first date with a guy I barely knew. Aaaaaaaawkward.
29Went to Total Recall when it came out with my mom,dad,brother, and grandmother. It said PG in the paper and anyone who has seen it knows, that isn't kid friendly. Prostitute with 3 boobs, lots of killing, eyes popping out. My parents didn't take us out for some reason though.... lol
and
Saw American Pie with my dad. That was AWKWARD
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