As any good connoisseur of alternate realities, I have a fondness for film. However, excepting the year the \X-Files"" movie came out, I don't venture into the theater superfluously often for one simple reason: people.
As in most arenas of existence, all it takes is one obnoxious cretin to drain the entire experience. I have had one too many a cinematic excursion ruined by fellow theatergoers who decide the best way to treat a hacking cough, calm a colicky infant or carry on a discussion, is to take a trip to the movies. I cannot remain silent any longer.
Therefore, as my first official act as Friday columnist, I am putting my impractical heel down and launching a campaign to bring this madness to an end.
No doubt few among us have managed to avoid an unpleasant encounter or two with the most abundant species of discourteous moviegoer, the talker.
This creature tends to be middle-aged, female and is rarely spotted in the absence of several others of like persuasion. Offenders range from the simple narrator, who points out obvious details with the zeal of Helen Keller upon epiphany (for instance, that there is indeed a piano in ""The Pianist""), to the prophet, that insecure soul compelled to make those around them aware that they're on top of all impending plot twists revealed in the previews (or in some cases, elementary world history).
Talkers are perhaps at their most insufferable when they speak not actual words, but rather monosyllabic grunts reminiscent of a large sea mammal giving birth at every minute onscreen happening.
Regardless of their specific quirks, all true talkers are oblivious to dirty looks of escalating malice, polite requests for silence and even projectile Raisinets fired in their general directions. This class of irritating cinema purveyors, along with the mouth-breathers and nose-blowers who are inextricably drawn to the seats directly behind me, will not live to disrupt another poignant cinematic silence if I ever succeed in cultivating the elusive ability to lodge Junior Mints in tracheas via psychokinesis.
Of course, no diatribe on aurally annoying theater patrons would be complete without mentioning poor cell phone etiquette. As I see it, unless you're an emergency surgeon, a counter terrorism agent or high on the waiting list for a vital organ transplant, you need not be taking calls during a movie. (And in the unlikely event that you are any of those things, I can't help but wonder what you're doing at a matinee of ""Zoolander"" to begin with.)
In any event, unless a yet-to-be-discovered scientific link exists between exposure to projected images, the chemical composition of Jujubes and a physiological inhibition of the ability to exercise even the simplest forms of common courtesy, there is simply no excuse for this brand of behavior.
In my idealized vision of the future, movie theater arm rests will come equipped with special buttons that, when activated, will pause the film and send in a cadre of ushers to deliver fierce Twizzler-floggings to insolent parties. Until that sweet day comes, all I can do is implore you, dear readers, to shut the hell up during movies.
Holly Noe looks forward to authoring this column each Friday. If you have comments (or if you recognize yourself and would like to apologize) she can be reached at flamingpurvis@yahoo.com.
