People Who talk and ask questions during movies

[DavePS3]

Here's an spot I put in our company newsletter last year for your semi-amusement...

Watching Movies With Morons...

It remains no great mystery to me, as to why people prefer to
watch movies at home rather than suffer the slings and arrows of
theater survival. You look at the picture quality at most theaters and
you can’t help looking forward to seeing that film on YOUR display
once the title hits the shelves on DVD. The picture up on the
screen is out of focus, blacks aren’t black—they’re gray… colours
are muted and the audio is nowhere near what you have at home,
it’s just big. Just a really big crappy image (although there are exceptions)
but the picture and sound are just the tip of the iceberg.
The last three films I saw at the theater left me quite anxious to get
the Hell out of there even before the idiotic Toyota Matrix commercial.
Before the house lights began their descent into darkness, I
was given the absolute pleasurable experience of seeing the 70 year
old man in front of me, (still wearing his Tilley hat) revert to
Hunter-Gatherer type. Conceivably scooping for precious metals,
potatoes or his lost car keys, that index finger probed that beak of
his for a good ten minutes while his wife sat beside him, oblivious or
apathetic. I tried to look away but like a horrible car accident, one
just cannot believe the carnage and in those traumatic times, line of
sight seems to periodically pull back to the grisly scene like iron
filings to a gigantic magnet.
Then there was the couple beside me who, in some kind of twisted
joint effort, began hacking up Oyster-size globules of phlegm into
dirty tissues. There was the guy who tripped, spilling his pail of popcorn
all over his fellow passengers, the girl behind me popping her
gum and the fat guy arguing with his equally fat wife over why she
didn’t pee before they left the house. ...then the lights went down.
Now, during the mundane at best pre-film commercials, one does
not really care, who gets settled where or which person can’t seem
to remove their coat, find their wallet,, position their hemorrhoid
cushion properly, stop talking or, the panic-stricken bodies trying
to find their guide or partner after re-entering from a short sabbatical
in the lobby. That pre-feature sludge is simply part of the game.
One tends to take it all in stride. After all, people do come late, they
need to finish whatever conversation they were having just before
the dimming of celestial indirect lighting. It’s a given. Besides, one
hardly needs to concentrate on the double entendres, sub-plots and
over-all storyline of the overweight bed-ridden guy with the laptop
and gambling addiction. Never get tired of that commercial… right.
Once the main feature actually starts up however, one’s expectations
rise considerably. This is, after all, the reason why everyone
around you, is present… to see the film. Or so you think. This is
actually where the acute sense of reality truly hits home. The person
behind me just cannot seem to open that cellophane bag of candy,
that geriatric couple keep hacking but I hope against all hope, that
things will settle down. Yes and pigs shall indeed fly out of my proverbial
butt. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be a safe haven anywhere
within that tomb of the living dead. A cell phone keeps ringing somewhere
near the front… every two minutes some claustrophobic lost
soul feels he simply must pass through the metal against metal
shackled main doors or go mad and best of all, throughout the entire
film, the woman behind me asks her date every inane question
about the story she can think of. Not just questions about who the
guy in the coat is, but questions about the progression of the story.
Questions that cannot possibly be answered because those answers
are part of the thread. Part of the fabric, the elaborate tapestry that
the filmmaker wants to reveal in a certain way, in a certain time
frame, in his own way. Shut the Hell up and watch the movie.
The woman I was with these last three times was just as dumbfounded
as I and it left us puzzled as to why we even bothered. Why
indeed. You can relax at home, and really enjoy a film… quietly, with
perfect picture quality, perfectly set-up sound and all without the
aggravating sensory abuse one suffers and pays for, in the theater.