So this open letter to the worst human being to ever sit in a theater is making the rounds:
It started before the lights went down, but to be fair, I was actually betting that the woman on the other side of me, the one who dragged out a giant knitting project and who spent twenty minutes talking about how she snuck her cell phone into the theater because “nobody’s going to tell me I can’t use my phone if I want to,” was going to be the nightmare. And while much of what poured out of the awful hole in the front of her skull made me wish I’d been born deaf, she at least grasped the general idea that when the lights went down, it was time for her to be quiet. She put away her knitting needles. She watched the movie. And she was perfectly fine.
You, on the other hand, took the opportunity when the lights went down to begin a running narration that only occasionally actually had anything to do with what was onscreen. As the 20th Century Fox logo came up, you mentioned to your companion, “You know, I like Fox. I like that they give us unlimited concessions.” I only wish you had availed yourself of more of them so that you had less time with an empty mouth. Unfortunately, two pieces of pizza, a pretzel, a large popcorn, ice cream, and the diet soda you were so proud of did not manage to keep your maw busy for the full two hours. And that was a shame.
Now, here’s where I need your help. I need to know how you would have wanted me to handle things differently tonight. Because I thought all three attempts I made to ask you to perhaps take it down a decibel or two were polite and well-mannered. I have this bizarre tendency to treat people with a modicum of respect even when they don’t deserve it, because I am aware that I am a 6’2″ guy and that I look like a mental patient when I’m angry. It rarely works out when I approach someone with my dander up, because I seem to activate the flight-or-fight response in people. I went out of my way to be courteous when I asked you to please stop talking. All three times.
Here’s where things sort of fell apart. All three times, your response was to lean away from me as if I had just started throwing up in your ear. You ignored me, and you refused to even look at me. You stopped speaking for a combined total of maybe 20 seconds, and then immediately went back to it.
—-
When you go to a movie theater and you treat it like it’s your living room, sharing every horrifying spasm of that flaccid muscle occupying space between your eyes, you have to understand that it is intolerable. I suspect you made a choice tonight that your enjoyment was more important than the enjoyment of anyone else in that theater, and that you routinely make that same choice. I don’t believe anyone is as horrible as this woman was without being firmly aware of it. So I’m asking… on the record… how do we handle this differently next time?
Last year I posted something asking why GITS readers thought movie ticket sales were down. The responses ranged from “crappy movies” to “too expensive” to “prefer watching at home.” But there were a surprising number of “obnoxious moviegoers” in the list as well.
So I was wondering what if we shared our worst experiences in a movie theater, specifically with patrons who crushed our viewing pleasure. This could give you a chance to blow off some steam, but also perhaps generate some awareness karma to filter out to the general populace.
It really is a problem. My time is limited, as is yours no doubt. So when I go to a theater, I want to allow myself to go into the movie as fully as possible. Distractions like phone-texting or loud conversations can break that thin strand of connection we develop between our consciousness and the movie universe. And for fans of movies like each of us, it can be a severe bummer.
How to deal with it? I take the direct approach. I ask them to please be quiet out of consideration for the rest of us. If they persist, I go get the manager.
How about you? What have been your worst movie theater experiences? How have you handled people who were ruining the movie for you and other patrons?
Worst experience IN a movie theater didn’t happen during a movie, but during an improv show. (It was an art house theater in New Orleans with a combined stage and screen thing going.) Anyway, it involved a very drunk guy sitting behind me and, at the very end of the show, an awful lot of vomit. Fortunately, I have a sixth sense for this sort of thing and managed to get all the way out of the row before he really got going.
This is why I take my brother to the movies. He’s training for MMA and firefighting. He usually only has to ask somebody once.
Last night I saw The Woman in Black (which was super-fun btw). A kid was scared so he started talking and pulling out his cell-phone. I was about five seconds from telling him to shut up, when my sister’s boyfriend pulled out his cell!
So, I promptly took my anger out on him, “Put away your phone, douche-bag!”
The kid heard me as well. The rest of the movie was phone free.
Honestly, what the writer of this eloquent article did wrong, was to be polite.
I think, “Shut the fuck up.” works just fine. Just don’t say it to someone who might kick your ass.
That Harvey Keitel part rocked.
Sorry. This reply should be attached to Teddy’s comment!
Nothing that bad ever happened to me, but if it did I’d probably walk out and demand my money back if I’d paid for a ticket. I did get my money back after an earthquake during a screening of The Piano back in 1993. Pretty scary in a dark theatre full of people. Everybody ran out. Of course, some may have been running after seeing Harvey Keitel’s not-so-privates. Who knows.
Standards in theaters should be a lot higher than what they are, considering the price of movie tickets. It seems like every time I go to a movie, I find myself gingerly picking my way down a popcorn-strewn aisle with my feet sticking to the floor. I HATE THAT.
The staff at most movie theaters do not really care about your experience. I HATE poor customer service and I am just about guaranteed poor customer service when I go to a movie theater.
Somehow the binge-eaters always find and sit next to me. Rustling gummy worm bags, crunching nachos, boxed junior mints and for the love of all that is holy, there’s no more soda in your cup! If I had my way, all movie food items would be wrapped in muslin and be the consistency of tofu. Quiet tofu.
The one that made me the most uncomfortable was when I was watching THE HELP. About halfway through, a caucasian woman started yelling at an african american man to put his cell phone up and they argued for a moment.
I never noticed any bother or light — then again I was engrossed in the movie. After a few minutes she got up and came back with attendants. They asked the man to leave and he started arguing and the woman he was with started calling the attendants and the snitch racist — wouldn’t have been so tense if we weren’t watching THE HELP — which is about racism and inequality. Awkward!
I was a few seats away but it made me very uncomfortable.
^^That barely edged out when I went to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. A woman brought her toddler and baby into the movie. Within the first 10 minutes the baby started crying. It would stop for a few minutes the start. She was literally 3 seats away from me and all I could think was — I’ve been waiting 13 years to close this chapter in my life (reading Harry Potter books and watching all the movies) and this woman is going to ruin it.
Finally someone got fed up and yelled, “Get your baby out of here woman!” Then people just jumped in like a mob and yelled “yeah!” “get out!” and then an attendant asked her to leave.
Pay a babysitter 20 bucks instead of wasting it at a movie when you get asked to leave.
I went to go see Cars 2 with a buddy at a 10pm showing on a Saturday. I obviously picked this time because I thought, generally, parents are responsible people that actually take care of young ones and that they would be in bed by 10pm.
I was so wrong. The entire theater at The Grove still was jam packed with kids and parents. So, okay, whatever that a part of it when you go see Pixar films so I just went with it.
So, me and my buddy happen to sit next to what I thought was a family of 4… less than 5 minutes into the movie, this toddler / baby of theirs starts screaming. So, I would assume the responsible thing would be to take your kids out of the theater until it shut up, but nope. Not this family. The kid continued to scream… 5 minutes… 10 minutes… 30 minutes. The whole time the kid was kicking my buddy in the arm from his father’s lap who just sat there… I thought, “Oh maybe that he can’t get up and leave with the other kid or something” but nope… it was actually a family of 3 and both the Mom and the Dad ignored the screaming for THE WHOLE MOVIE.
My buddy talked to him multiple times to quiet the kid and even went to a manager who never showed up… We just endured it like idiots. Oh and the guy did answer his phone and was texting also. WORST PARENT EVER. That Mom and Dad beat out the last champion of a father who let his 2 year old daughter have a giant Monster at a gas station.
Haha, these are all very funny.
Short story: Seeing The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. The THEATRE is literally ABANDONED. We have the theatre, my date and I, all to ourselves– awesome!
About a quarter of the way through, we realize how bad this is. So I try to make up for it. I work my magic, and surprisingly so, so does she– Wow, more awesome!
Here’s the kicker. About halfway in- somebody finally says “Hey, could you guys like, stop talking, you’ve been talking during the whole movie”
…
Holy shit. Has this guy (just 1 GUY) always been there??
She turns to me and says “Omg, you know I felt someone kicking my chair.”
I laugh and without looking further into this, because I’m surprised she hadn’t mentioned it to me– (That’s how convinced we KNEW the theater to be empty.)
I turn around to the Guy. (While this disgusting feeling of how I now just became that-guy, who talked during a movie, which i never am – and only did so to make up for the so-said-shitty-movie for my date).
“excuse me, sir, do you like this movie?”
(From this situation he thought i was being sarcastic, but I HONESTLY wanted his opinion)
“No, but I payed money for it, so I’d like to watch it.”
OKAY. STOP. If I didn’t have this beautiful girl sitting next to me right now I would have gotten up and walked out.
THis GUY.
This Messiah.
Is torturing himself on purpose. Basically, he payed 12 dollars to sit in this agony- this total dark space of boredom, (and this is like a 2 hour movie) just so he can idk, fulfill some inner need of being that messiah. It’s masochistic (assuming he is on my level of how BAD it is, this is one tough dude).
So i turn back to my date. (realizing now this guy thinks im a dick for asking that question, and being a dick for having her watch this movie, and being a dick for realizing i am now that guy who talks during it) I say to her, feeling i get 1 last thing to say:
“Couldn’t this guy just get the fuck up and go sit somewhere else? I mean we have the cornerstone seats but really, BESIDES THIS GUY, THIS ONE DUDE, WHO- DECIDED to SIT DIRECTLY BEHIND US, the theater is– completely EMPTY– like cereal with just the milk, EMPTY. IN NYC– MANHATTAN– 42nd Street.
… this dude could have gotten up and totally not had this problem, for theatre sake, we were date-whispering! 2 seats over he would-a been fine. Hell, there’s a balcony right there. Instead, being the messiah that he is and how crappy this movie is I’m willing to bet he thought he could just put it out, be the MAN, or maybe secretly he just wanted to get all that anger out of how bad the movie was.
Anyway, that’s the story- sorry it’s so long. And sorry to those who liked the movie, I love TERRY GILLIAM, and that’s probably why it came to me as a shocker, but who knows, maybe i wasn’t ready for it, it was just too slow, too slow a start, didn’t feel connected to the characters. blahblah-blehbleh-blah.
(Incidentally, afterward, there was a free screening of hot tub time machine, which we stayed for and laughed our socks off. Which totally made up for the experience. Even though that dude carried our conversation the rest of the night; I actually enjoyed him being there, I think HE made that movie for me.)
some kid kicked the back of my seat. he did it again. he did it again. i turned and glared. the kicking stopped for a moment. he kicked again. i turned and said, “please stop kicking my seat.” the kicking stopped for a moment. he kicked again. i turned around again. he kicked again. i turned, stood up, and said very loudly, “stop kicking my seat!”
two seats over, someone who i assume was his mom said, “is he kicking your seat?”
“yes!”
“well leave him alone! he’s only 13!”
“what?”
“do you want me to call security?”
“yes!”
she didn’t. but the damn kid quit kicking my seat.
I didn’t chime in on your ticket sales post but I believe that that is one of the least acknowledged facts. The fight really shouldn’t be against piracy in Hollywood, it should be against people that lack manners.
My most recent worst experience was in “Drive”. If you’ve seen it you know that it’s a relatively ‘quiet’ movie and relies on that quiet to drive some of the tension. This was broken by some man in the seat behind me and his friend laughing and guffawing all the way through.
I typically do the ‘three strikes’ and your out but one of the other patrons had less patience and got the manager.
I had a similar experience the first time I saw The Hurt Locker, which might’ve pissed me off more, when we would get to a climatic bomb defusal moment and this drunk idiot in the back would yell “BOOM!”.
Eating food doesn’t really bother me too much as long as you’re not rattling your plastic for too long but the constant whisper-whisper of a nearby couple or the belligerent stupidity and lack of manners displayed in my other two examples do set me off.
Also, regarding cellphones: It’s great that you’ve turned off the ringer but you should turn off the damn phone — when you look at the screen it’s like a giant square maglite.