A Night At the Theatre

The movie theatre, that is.  I took my wife to see Valentine's Day, and although it would be tempting to comment on this cinematic masterpiece, I'd really prefer to rant about the theatre patrons.  To be fair, there were at least two important factors I'd failed to anticipate:

1. The impact of the two Taylors (Swift and Lautner).
2. The early time of the movie (7:00 PM).

In other words, there should have been plenty of warning for the teenage apocalypse that followed.

At this point, I should make a disclaimer that not all teens are bad.  I'm sure there are a few that are organizing trips to Haiti to help earthquake victims and the like, but tonight's experience has fed my cynicism to the point where I was ready to finally write off this entire thieving, whoring generation ala Henry Winkler's character from the original Scream movie.

Who, you may ask, was the object of my angst?

A half dozen 13-year-old girls.  I actually started with a sense of hope, as one of them actually excused herself for walking in front of my wife and I as she left our aisle to get refreshments before the movie started.  To quote Hannibal Lecter, she was "courteous and receptive to courtesy."  I felt my anxiety level start to rise, however, when the movie was about to start, and the commercial started about turning off your cell phones.  All around us the theatre was aglow with the dim lights of cell phones defiantly powered on in what I can only assume was some act of tween rebellion against the system.  A second warning appeared on the screen, but to no avail.  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the cell phone lights seemed to illuminate the entire theatre and the din of prepubescent voices made me wish the theatre would crank up the movie volume to the level of the Metallica concert we went to in December (that made my ears ring for about a week).

That, however, was only a preview of things to come.  In the middle of the film, several of the girls suddenly decided it was necessary to leave the theatre.  I guess they just couldn't wait until after the film to go to the ladies' room and gossip about their friends with stronger bladders.  After about 20 minutes, they returned to again block my view of Jessica Alba.  [My wife had used Jessica Alba as a pretext to get me to see the movie.  I don't even care that she dumped Ashton Kutcher in the film.  Not that I'm a big fan of Ashton Kutcher, but c'mon - that was "slap-your-momma cold".  Anyway, I digress...]  The same group of girls then left the theatre again 15 minutes later, then returned again.  I figure they probably missed about half the movie in total.

So why, you may ask, am I so bothered by these young ladies?  Because like Dennis Miller, I believe that the lack of civility in our society is a sure sign that the end is nigh.  Miller once famously said, "This country is like a hotel room, and The Who are in town."  Presumably, he meant The Who that used to smash guitars and stuff, not the recent Super Bowl halftime act.  I would actually feel better about it if these kids were purposely disrupting the film just to piss me off.  I would rather face that than the horrible truth that they simply didn't care that their behavior was bothering anyone else in the theatre.

Yes, I know that teens are prone to selfishness, and I should be thankful they weren't smoking crack and having sex in the aisle.  I'll be the first to concede that I've become increasing grinchy as I approach the big 4-0.  Perhaps they have no parents to teach them the basic rules of social interaction in a non-solipsistic universe.  Perhaps  I should be more tolerant of their teenage hijinks.  Perhaps I'll make sure I only attend movies they won't want to see that are shown during the day while they're all in school...

MM