rant/etiquette
Last night I saw
Intolerable Cruelty at the theater in Richmond. Now, it's the closest theater to me, and is new and clean with stadium seating and 16 screens. However, judging from the clientele it draws, it must have been built on an ancient Indian burial ground or possibly been the site of Satanic rituals and witch-burnings. (I wouldn't rule out
five John Denver Christmas specials, either.)
I've already complained about the parents taking their very young kids to such family films as
28 Days Later and
Kill Bill. This was not a problem last night, presumably because young children watching
Intolerable Cruelty will merely be bored rather than traumatized. Last night, the problem (besides the guy who kept falling asleep and snoring) was a violation of one of the unwritten rules of cinema etiquette: if the theater is nearly empty, one should not sit down
right next to another party. If there are plenty of seats you leave at least a one-seat buffer between you and anyone else, right? Apparently the couple who came in after the opening credits were not familiar with this rule. Also, they were
talkers. The sort where one member of the couple felt compelled to explain the implications of every plot development to the other. Which would have been fine if they had been sitting in the back corner rather than right next to me. (I should admit that since I arrived 15 minutes early when no one was in the theater, I took one of the two most centrally located seats, so the one next to me was the obvious choice for anyone who doesn't respect the buffer-seat rule.)
Also, the first preview was for
Love Actually, and so annoyingly cute that I would have preferred spending the time listening to a soothing Sonata for Fingernails on a Blackboard in D Minor. (In the future, visiting the concession stand might be a better option.) They pacified me by showing the
Return of the King trailer immediately afterwards, but followed
that up with
Something's Gotta Give. I paid $8.50 for this?
I'm done ranting, but while I'm here I want to link to
this guy's hilarious deconstruction of the first three pages of
Left Behind. He gets a lot of mileage out of just the first two words.
Posted by Arcane Gazebo at October 19, 2003 5:00 PM | Tags: