BALK!!!! A Few Words on Theatre Etiquette

Back now from watching The Bourne Supremacy.   A review will soon follow, but I had such a horrible experience I just had to get this out of my system.

People! Do we not know how to act in a movie theatre?  Since when did movies come with play-by-play announcers?  What possesses you morons (and you know who you are) to constantly disrupt the movie with your superfluous musings?  Do you realize how stupid your commentary makes you sound?  Do you not see that you are annoying everybody in your presence?  Has the advent of the home theatre caused to forget that others people are watching with you at a movie theatre?

Let me explain where I'm coming from.  A here while back, when the wife and I went to see The Alamo, my wife was stuck sitting in front of a lady who talked throughout the entire movie.  Her comments ranged from the very profound, "Ooh! That's Billy Bob Thorton," to the vital, "Oh, he's Davey Crockett! He's gonna die."  Without this woman's running play-by-play, my wife the TEXAS HISTORY TEACHER would have just been so Dazed and Confused.   Thanks so much for you help.   Why didn't you just come right out and give away the ending by saying, "The Mexicans Win!"

This afternoon the problem wasn't just one lady... it was an entire chorus of ladies, all seated in the very center of the auditorium.  When Julia Stiles finally appeared this quintet sang out in perfect harmony, "There she is!"  What?  Like we didn't read the credits or see the trailer? Like I'm blind and need somebody to interpret pictures for me?  And everything predictable about The Bourne Supremacy seemed to come as a total surprise to them.  "Oh, my!  They shot the girl!" Please!  The girl is question was so dead her name might as well have been Goose and the movie called Top Gun.

What are these people thinking?  Are they so selfish, self-absorbed, and self-centered they don't realize they are causing disturbances?  The play-by-play became more than I could bear during the most anticipated scene, a scene in which Bourne fights the only other remaining Treadstone assassin.  The chorus of "ooh's and ah's and ow's and ouches" were just too much of a distraction.  We got up and moved to the back to the theatre.   Shortly thereafter, another couple just left the movie altogether and demanded their money back.

Still, not a single representative of the theatre came in to escort these troublemakers out.  Actually, they didn't even send somebody in to ask them to stop their rude behavior.   Since when did theatres just quit caring about their customer's movie going experience?   The name of the theatre in question is CENTURY 12 in Odessa, TX.   I repeat, the management of the CENTURY 12 theatres stood idly by and did nothing to stop these women from ruining the movie-going experience for everybody else.   One more time and for the record I was at the CENTURY 12 THEATRE in ODESSA, TX, for the 2:50 showing of The Bourne Supremacy on Friday, July 23, 2004.   

Folks please remember even at a matinee showing, it costs at least ten dollars for a couple to watch a film.  Add to that the enormous costs of a popcorn and coke and your talking well in excess of 20 bucks and to be honest with you folks, if I wanted to here Al frigin' Michaels I'd watch Miracle.  I have no need or desire to hear your asinine comments and foolish ruminations.  Let me let you in on a little secret--you don't know anything about movies.  In fact, everybody in the theatre probably knows more than you so keep it to yourself.  The mere fact that you blurt out this stupid nonsense demonstrates your complete ignorance and your complete disregard for other people.

Ah!  I feel much better now!