pet peeve: people who talk through the movie in a theater
four words: wait for the DVD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gudEttJlw3swhen i was a child, i learned that going to the movies was a fun-filled privilege, one in which i was to stay quiet and…wait for it… watch the film. one of my favorite pastimes is going to movies in a theater; there’s something different about the whole visualization that you just don’t experience at home (unless you have a theater-sized screen, which sadly, we will likely not achieve in our house in our lifetime.)
but over the course of my life, i have noticed a few phenomena.
1) when i lived in south florida, i learned that to hit a film during certain hours of the day would guarantee that i would be joined mostly by hard-of-hearing elders. these elders spent half their time half-whispering what did he say? until i nearly lost my mind.
2) now that i’m a parent, i spend plenty of time at kid movies, some of which aren’t half bad. (and some of which i might prefer to have my fingernails pulled out, one at a time.) i have instructed my children that they aren’t to talk during a film unless they need to go to the bathroom, in which case they must q u i e t l y let me know their status and we will then quickly and q u i e t l y run to the loo. pity that many kids aren’t raised by me, model movie mom. kids talk throughout the movies, and in VERY LOUD VOICES, TOO. (just because you can screetch through a video at home doesn’t mean you can do it in public, dearheart.) you’d think their mom or dad would tell them to pipe down — that other people paid to hear the movie and not them asking 50 times whether buzz lightyear is really gone. but somehow, the parents were MIA on the day they taught about theater behavior.
3) things have gotten a bit better since theaters started airing those silence is golden PSAs. some people now turn off their cellphones. but hey, you in front of me, texting away. the light from your phone is distracting — and if you wanted to text, why did you pay $10 for a movie ticket?
gah.