Do you prefer your movie theaters empty or full?

Heath Ledger (pictured) was just voted the summer’s best movie villain in a Moviefone poll, which immediately caught my attention, because I finally saw The Dark Knight last weekend and Ledger’s riveting performance was still fresh in my mind.

What took me so long to see it? (1) I refuse to camp out and wait for anything these days, and (2) I loathe watching blockbuster movies from an angle that requires a periscope and/or several successive sessions with my chiropractor. Thus, I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight last weekend in a dilapidated multiplex in Brooklyn. I got there just in time for the previews, settled into one of the primo handicapped seats in the house (extra legroom! free Goobers courtesy of the patron at the 5:30 screening!), accompanied by maybe 20 other people in the theater, including Annie Barrett. (Not really.) My friend Richard, who had seen Knight along with the 86,000,000,000 other fans its opening weekend, came with me, as the first time he saw it, the guy behind him wouldn’t stop laughing, very very loudly, at EVERYTHING, even the parts that were downright creepy. So Richard wanted to see it again, minus the accidental soundtrack.

Upshot: We got great seats in a perfectly silent theater. But then again, such a lax moviegoing method occasionally backfires. I become a bit of a conversation Nazi when a movie I haven’t yet seen crops up in conversation with friends, or I cover my ears and go, “la la la la,” which always goes over really well. And I miss out on the surge of adrenaline, the feeling of excitement that fairly crackles through a packed-to-capacity theater on opening weekend. And I voted for Tim Roth. (Not really.)

How about you, PopWatchers? Do you roll empty or full?