If there’s one thing I love, it’s movies. I’ve taken three film studies courses in my life and have made some short (not great) films/videos for classes, competitions, and events. However, I’ve found attending movies in the theater to be a bit of a challenge lately.
My wife, like many others, is a fan of the Hunger Games novels. We attended a screening in the theater of one of the films and discovered, much to our amazement, a newborn baby in a carseat at the night-time screening. The baby was well behaved, but at the slightest peep the parents would make a loud shushing noise, which continued through the entire film. We were expecting a child at the time, so don’t chalk this up to disliking babies – only parents with poor decision-making abilities.
We attended a showing of Selma, the moving story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march in Alabama. The woman next to me chose to eat popcorn, which she’d popped at home, from a (very loud) plastic shopping bag. Ok, that was fine, movie theater popcorn is expensive. She washed it down with a can of Diet Coke, presumably also from home. Fine, I’ll give her that – nothing goes better with free popcorn than free soda. Once her mouth was devoid of popcorn, she started talking to her friend. Next up, rustling of the empty bag while she looked for items in her purse (note the plural ‘items’) for about 20 minutes. First came the Chapstick, then the tissues to blow her nose, and the Pièce de résistance, an eCigarette! Yes, she was smoking during this movie. I think I wouldn’t have minded one of these, but the pairing of talking, digging, and smoking was just exquisite.
My favorite people are what I call “the narrators” – people who feel a need to audibly ask questions or repeat lines from the film. The night before the 2015 Oscars, we had a chance to see The Imitation Game, the story of cracking codes produced by the Enigma machine and Alan Turing’s personal struggles. A graphic explained that World War II would go one for three more years after the code was cracked in 1942. “THREE MORE YEARS!” exclaimed one woman. Along with 1492, 1776, 1812, and 1865, 1945 is one of the few years you should remember from even the most basic of grade school education.
The demographic for these offenders seems to be over the age of 45 and traveling in pairs. They don’t just stick to the cinema either – they enjoy live theater and really bring out their narration A game for community theater.
Seven more years and I get to do what I want in a movie theater!
Movie referenced: Sound and Fury
Stephen Quirk 