Frequent poster Heidi checks in today with this disturbing report from her screening of “The Dark Knight” …
We had a screaming child in our packed theater … the mother, instead of simply removing the child - would go and stand in the hallway so she could continue watching the movie, but no one would be giving her those “stares.”
We know the disease. So what’s the cure? I suggested recently that patrons could opt to pay $1 more per ticket to watch movies in theaters where iron-fisted ushers roamed the rows. That way people could watch movies in peace if they choose. The rest could save a buck and take their chances.
How do you handle a crying baby? A teen with a blaring cell phone? The elderly couple who say, “what did he say?” throughout the movie?
Related posts:
I'm an award-winning journalist and film critic with more than a decade of experience in newspapers, magazines and the Web. I'm a member of both the Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association and the Denver Film Critics Society.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
If the movie is crowded and I can’t move far enough away from the offending person I will:
Get out of my seat and ask them politely to please take their baby outside while the movie is in progress. They may get a little hinky, but so what?
I find the worst offenders to be spoiled young teens in groups. If what’s happening in the movie isn’t enthralling them sufficiently, they will hold loud conversations, talk on their cell phones or kick the seats in front of them. Asking politely for them to calm down gets you nothing but amused stares. In this situation, you sometimes have to drop the “big one” and bring in an usher. Just be sure they don’t have large male members with gang items unless you’re carrying a tazer or large pepper gas dispenser on the way back to the car.
There’s the rub, K. You may not know if the jerk behind you with simply shut up after being admonished … or wait for you after the show with something dangerous in his sweaty grip.
And I fear the people who willingly talk during a film won’t care what a polite person says to them.
Or you could wait for it on PPV and watch at home … that’s my message to the theaters. And it isn’t just auditory harassment, there’s the physical kind (dimwad kicking the back of my chair, then says, “I wasn’t” … dude, you were) and the olfactory assault, as in the mutton-headed theater owners who not only sell giant tubs of oil-slathered styrofoam and gallon-sized sugar water to the larded masses, but not quenches there lust for nachos soaked in cheese-food goop and jalapenos, stinky hot dogs and every other manner of fried rat on a stick. But first, watch these five commercials for coca cola, ford, and puppy chow.
Yet people pack theaters. By eliminating ushers, hosting crab leg night at the movies, and offering flimgoers a dark place to text message their pals, the theater owners are playing a game of lowered-expectations chicken with the public … and they’re winning.
Vote with your rear end, watch films at home. If crowd levels and revenue dropped enough, chain theaters would have to react.
Yeah, coupla typos in there, I was on a rant … it happens
I shussh or I move. I haven’t had to do it often, but I always have a plan. I’m more tolerant of the elderly and babies, teenagers get a strong “do you mind?”. I’ve noticed a larger number of little ones in movie theaters this summer. Wondering if the economic squeeze is making folks chose between the price of a movie ticket over the price of a babysitter.
Chase, you’re right. We can get all indignant about it, but until the theaters start looking empty nothing will change.
Linda, you may be right about the economic squeeze, but that’s still no excuse for bringing wee ones into the theater.
Some movie houses have special screenings for parents .. they can bring the kids and they can scream their heads off. Guilt free experience, I suppose.
I set them on fire.
You know you can’t yetll ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, Triskit. I think that extends to setting cell phone users ablaze.