Nobody remembers the bad movies from the 80s but there sure were a lot of them.

Bologna! There's a whole community practically dedicated to the terrible movies of the 80's over at B Movie Bonanza. :P

Focusing solely on the movie-going experience, I would love to live in a city like LA or NYC where they have a few theaters with added technological features, like 70mm IMAX and/or 4K projectors and/or rumble seats (those must have been amazing with something like Mad Max: Fury Road).

There's at least one 60FPS theater in NYC, it must be wild to watch a film like that just by itself, or even WILDER, in 3D.
But I believe there are a few theaters in Asia - probably in places like Singapore and Shanghai, but don't quote me on that - that screened Ang Lee's "Gemini Man" in the incredible-sounding combination of 120FPS in 4K and 3D, they said it was like the screen dissolved and you were watching the action happening through a huge rectangular hole in the wall.

No, survivorship bias is real, but this is late stage capitalism. Disney owns it all, and the occasional worthwhile film sneaks under their writing by committee bullshit

There's plenty of good movies that future generations would happily watch... But proportionally? The number of movies made a year has exploded, the number that make an impression for even a year has dwindled

Whoa I thought you were exaggerating, but that's pretty bad. I would just show black and white movies in that theatre

I have a spreadsheet

That's some dedication.

Last Regal I went to had to replay the after-credits scene 4 times due to the projector restarting.

That’s surprising, the regal theater by me is by far the nicest and they do a good job of keeping it that way.

Nothing makes them special. The picture quality is worse than my setup at home (I have a 65" HDR OLED TV.) You're sitting with like 100 people in a large room, half of whom are caughing nonstop and probably have covid. The food is disgusting and overpriced. The price of tickets are ridiculous now. The audio is WAY too loud. Like seriously, way too fucking loud. I had to cover my ears during the previews last time I went. Pretty sure the volume was legit hearing damage level. I see no good reason to go to a theater ever. They're trash.

The only benefit the theater has over my living room (5.1 setup) is the dolby atmos or whatever setup. But you can't even appreciate it because they blast the volume at ear drum shattering levels.

Not everyone has a good setup at home and people want to go out.

What makes them so special nowadays?

I guess they are much emptier these days which might make them somewhat bearable.

Why would you need to pay for a cinema ticket, just to hide a kiss without being seen. Is this the 1950s!?