So, I’m sitting in a full theater during my second viewing of There Will Be Blood. No real problems with the sound or picture, and the audience has been decent (for the most part). The film is climaxing, I’m talking one minute until the end credits, and then this wretched, haughty middle-aged woman sitting in the chair next to me starts yelling to her husband and knowingly to the rest of us, “I don’t think I can watch any more. This is the most hideous, boring movie ever!” She then blabbers something else, which I didn’t hear because I’m shouting at her to shut up.
She does.
Thirty seconds later the movie is over and she huffs, “Finally!”
I don’t know how to react. Part of me wants to go off on her. The other part wants to physically bludgeon the shit out of her with a hand-held “Double Dragon II” video game from the ’90s that recently found its way in my coat pocket. However, she and her fat boar of a husband scurry out before I make up my mind.
I see this shrill pill out in the lobby as her husband waddles into the pisser. I don’t say one word. Then, of course, the entire drive home I’m regretting that I didn’t – but obviously it comes off so much cooler in my mind than it would have in reality.
It isn’t that she disliked the film that bothers me (full disclosure: I believe There Will Be Blood is the best film of 2007). I couldn’t care less what her opinion is. What pisses me off is she felt that I, along with the audience, actually gave a rat’s left testicle about her opinion. So much so that she felt important enough to screech her verdict to the audience during the film… and ruining the climax for the rest of us. Where do these arrogant assholes come from?
I used to love watching movies with audiences. My buddies and I would always aim for the 7 o’clock showing on opening night for the latest flick, hoping to see it with a fire-code breaking sized audience. There’s something about experiencing a film with a large, excited, yet courteous, audience that can’t be summed up in words. However, I’ve had so many incidents like the one this weekend, and some much much much worse, that when Friday rolls around these days, you’ll see me at the 4 o’clock or earlier show in anticipation that I’m almost alone in the auditorium. Home theaters have modified people’s behavior. If it’s okay to act like an ass at home, folks feel like it’s acceptable to drag that living room mentality into the public theater. It’s an extension of the “Culture of the Cell Phone”. Oh yes, we are doomed, my friends.
A few years ago during some drinking game or whatever, I was asked which movie character I identified most with. I thought it about for a second and it was either Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Grumpy Bear from The Care Bears Movie, or Anakin Skywalker. Considering I’m pretty much a gigantic ball of tightly wound, repressed rage (and a Star Wars nerd), I went with Skywalker.
However, this utter hate for humanity only seems to boil up when I’m at the movies (and perhaps Wal-Mart). Maybe it’s because I love cinema and revere the experience of seeing a movie on the big screen, and when assbags disrespect that it triggers the Incredible Hulk button in me, who by the way has always been the comic book character I’ve always identified with (minus the green skin and anything resembling physical strength). Otherwise, outside of the movie theater, I’m your average even-tempered dude, a guy who enjoys books, good discussion, and most of all, milkshakes.
With all of that said, I’m curious in hearing about your worst movie going experience – maybe sharing it will be sort of a cantharis – and since this column was two fold, what movie characters do you identify with?
