Why I (too frequently) hate going to the movies

Annette and Will and I went to see Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit on Friday for a late afternoon matinee. First off, it was a great movie– far from a “kiddie flick,” and anyone who has ever seen any of the other Wallace & Gromit shorts will love it. A lot of fun and worth seeing in the theater.

However, I am increasingly irritated about seeing movies in the theater. The expense and such is part of it, but I guess most of it is the people around me who seem to have no ideas about the basic rules of how to watch a movie in a public place. Like I said, we were there in the late afternoon. Among a few others, there was a large group of people behind us, and as far as we could tell, all of them had brought fistfulls of candy wrappers with them to the show. We heard a steady krinkle-krinkle-krinkle-krinkle, sort of like a grass fire.

And then, to make matters worse, there was a couple in their late 40s/early fifties sitting to my right who seemed to be in the theater not so much to see the movie but because they were looking for a place to sit to carry on other business. I mean, this woman was on her cell phone off and on, they were talking and talking about God knows what, and then, when they did notice that there actually was this movie going on, they would make loud and stupid proclaimations like “hey, LOOK at THAT!”

Idiots. And for the three of us, we paid around $30 for the pleasure of dealing with these kinds of people. This is why a really good big-screen TV/home theater seems like not only a good idea but ultimately cost-effective.