| 10.08.01 • GUIDE
TO MOVIE ETIQUETTE & RETRIBUTION
If there’s one thing I would really like to get across
to the world these days it is this: A movie theatre is NOT a
glorified living room.
I’ve always been in love with the movies, and when I went
to college I even convinced my parents to “invest”
roughly $100,000 into my passion for the silver screen. But
the #1 incredibly overlooked film school course is, without
a doubt, proper theatre etiquette. And judging by the average
film-going audience today, this should be a standard course
starting in middle school.
Hell, when I was in high school, some friends and I went to
see “Wolf” at the local multiplex (a wannabe classic
piece of horror/fluff from Jack Nicholson). Somewhere during
the middle of the film, the teenage usher came wandering down
the aisle to check on things. To his amazement, and my consternation,
he spied two friends sitting about a row ahead of me and to
the left across the aisle. In a move that I found mind-boggling,
and in obvious violation of both The Rules of Ushering and The
Rules of Movie Watching, he knelt down next to his friends and
began chatting away.
I began to fume, and before logic or reason could get a word
in edgewise, I leaned across the aisle and ever-so-gently kicked
him in the ass. He spun around in shock and I gave him the “cease
and desist or I will kill you” motion with my hand. In
a mixture of amazement and fear, the usher slinked back up the
aisle and out of the theatre. My friends were aghast, and when
they tried to ask me what I had just done I hissed for silence
and warned that I would not be responsible for who I kicked
next.
And this was for “Wolf,” so you can see how I don’t
really draw any distinctions between talking during “good”
or “bad” movies.
That was well over 10 years ago, and I am sad to say that things
have gotten worse since then. The invention and proliferation
of cell phones, pagers, and Blockbuster stores have only given
people license to be annoying and fostered a blissful sense
of ignorance on how to act in a theatre. After all, when you
watch the majority of your movies at home, you lose the proper
sense of respect and wonder that theatre-going requires.
Although the movie industry has begun adding the phrase, “Please
make sure to turn off any cell phones or pagers” in addition
to their standard, “Please, no talking during the movie,”
we all know how ineffective these warnings can be.
So with that in mind, allow me to present Greg Rolnick’s
Guide to Movie Etiquette and Retribution™:
1) THOU SHALT NOT PROVIDE EXPOSITION:
Explaining to your neighbor what just happened or who that guy
on screen is shall be punishable by a large round of “shhhhhhing”
on the first occasion and public stoning for every utterance
thereafter.
2) THOU SHALT NOT RUIN THE SURPRISE:
Giving away the surprise ending to the entire theatre is punishable
by repeated viewings of the Pauly Shore oeuvre, with a running
commentary from Mr. Shore himself.
3) THOU SHALL NOT TALK TO THE
SCREEN UNLESS IT ADDRESSES YOU BY NAME:
A self-explanatory rule, which can be violated only when attending
a brew-and-view screening of just about anything (although theatre
goers on the South Side of Chicago, Harlem, and South Central
L.A. may beg to differ, I stand firm on this point).
4) THOU SHALT NOT USE ANY MOTOROLA/NOKIA/OR
RELATED PRODUCT:
A ringing cell phone shall be quickly turned off and pushed
back into your pants in the most uncomfortable place possible.
An answered cell phone will immediately be given to the nearest
teenage girl, who will be encouraged to step outside and call
every friend and family member about her shiny new cell phone.
5) THOU SHALT NOT TWO-WAY, ONE-WAY,
OR PAGE OF ANY KIND:
A pager that rings out inside the theatre shall then be tossed
across said theatre with enough force to shatter its contents
like a cheap piñata.
6) THOU SHALT NOT ROCK, KICK,
SWAY, OR MOVE THE SEAT IN FRONT OF YOU:
If your seat moves for any reason beyond you shuffling your
sleeping butt or getting up to leave, you will be allowed to
turn to the jackass behind you and brain him/her within an inch
of their life; so long as you do not block the view of the patron
seated behind them.
7) THOU SHALL NOT ATTEND A FOREIGN
FILM AND READ THE SUBTITLES ALOUD:
Assuming this is not a Hong Kong action flick in the original
Chinese, you were urbane enough to attend something that isn’t
in English, so please don’t destroy your credibility now.
This act of annoyance is punishable by immediate duct-taping
of the offender’s mouth and the option of invoking the
punishment from Rule #2, depending on the level of irritation
derived from their reading voice.
And finally…
8) THOU SHALL NOT ATTEND ANY FILM
CREATED BY THE TEAM OF BRUCKHEIMER/BAY:
This is a Cardinal Sin and is punishable by death.
So there you have it. Read. Absorb. Distribute to your friends.
I have a feeling that if everyone adopts these simple new guidelines
we’ll all be a lot happier. And if not, at least we’ll
be increasingly entertained by what goes on in the theatre aisles
instead of the crap up on the screen.
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