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How to not be annoying in a movie theater
By
Martha Brockenbrough
MSN Cinemama
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The good old days are mostly overrated. Who'd want to give up refrigeration, antibiotics and cell phones with Internet access?
But there is at least one reason to lust for a time machine.
In the good old days, a person could get thrown in jail for misbehaving in a movie theater.
That's right, jail. A century ago in Bangor, Maine, they arrested a man for spitting. Another moviegoer was ejected from his seat because he was hissing along with one of the songs. And the pair of rapscallions who sprinkled sneeze powder in the theater? To the clink!
In short, you could see a gol-durned movie for a nickel and feel relatively secure that your good time wouldn't be spoiled by a patron behaving badly, or a woman in a giant hat (those were against the rules, too).
Nowadays, we have no such luck. People bring laser pointers. They talk on their phones. They bring on the crazy. At a recent screening of a G-rated flick, one nut-job stood up and bellowed that he wouldn't watch the movie with a bunch of [insert hideous racial epithet here]. Nice.
The ushers escorted him out. But, really, wouldn't jail have been a more satisfying ending?
With that in mind, here's our list of things no one should do in a theater. No one, including you.
Don't Talk!
Just because you brought your mouth with you doesn't mean you have the right to use it. There's no talking in movie theaters. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. We will tolerate it during the previews, but barely.
Nonetheless, we encounter all sorts of audible eruptions in the movies.
There are the Repeaters. You know the kind of people who watch "Saturday Night Live" and then come to work or school the following week repeating all the jokes? Movie Theater Repeaters are worse. They repeat the jokes right after the people on the screen say them. Repeaters: Stop doing this. It does not make you a comedian. You're supposed to laugh at jokes.
And then there are the Murmelsteins. These are the people who try to let the heroine know there's a man with an ax hiding in the closet. They say, "Nuh-uh. Don't do it. Mmm, no!" to the screen, or they have a particular sound effect for every emotion that's coursing through their veins.
Here's the thing, Mrs. Murmelstein. The actress can't hear you. Also, she is well aware of the man hiding in the closet, and chances are they're having sex in his trailer between takes. But the people sitting next to you can hear you, and they want to pull your lower lip over your head.
The Murmelsteins are cousins to the Fretniks, people who take themselves to scary movies even though they have no business doing this. If a movie makes you want to say, "Ohmygah, ohmygah, I am so scared," just leave the theater.
Worse, though, are the Kreskins. They're the ones who make audible plot predictions: "When she opens her robe, you're going to find out she's a man!" Hey, Kreskin, the movies are not part of your Mensa application. Prove your prognosticating powers elsewhere.
And, finally, we have the Explainers. Most often, these are people who've brought their children to overly complicated movies without briefing them on the story outline beforehand. If your child is too young to understand what's happening on-screen, he's too young for the movie. Nobody thinks your darling Skippy is cute when he says, "What's happening? I don't understand," during moments of high drama. And if it's not your darling Skippy but your date doing this? Break up already.
Don't Make Other Noises
Seriously. The crinkly wrappers? The crunching, one agonizing kernel at a time, of the barrel-sized bucket of popcorn? The slurping on your soda? The interminable shifting you keep doing because you drank all thirsty-two ounces and now have an angry bladder?
Shh. Just, shh.
Don't Abuse Technology
When you go to the movies, turn your phone off.
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