Monday, August 22, 2005
I've been at work for a little more than 30 minutes
... and already I want to leave.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin is really funny. Consistently funny, even. Surprisingly sincere romance, too. I saw the trailer and thought for sure that the last half hour would be total shlock, but I was wrong. Really entertaining stuff. I recommend it greatly.
Hustle and Flow is decent. Terrence Howard turns in a very strong performance. My reaction to this movie, however, is tempered with one of the worst movie-going experiences of my life. This was in Phoenix with Brent. Here's his re-telling of the debacle:
So Alan and I are chillin' after dinner at his parents' place, trying to decide what to do with the rest of our evening. We are in the least conveniently located place in all of metro Phoenix, located an hour away from anything. So, we check the movie times, decide on Hustle and Flow and scramble over to the theater to enjoy the pictures.
Sitting in our row is a 16-year old (maybe) girl. She's yammering on her cell phone as the movie starts, finally gets off the thing and a guy strolls in. They start chatting it up for about five minutes, and as I'm about to get up to ask them to be quiet, the guy leaves and never comes back. 20 minutes later, another 16ish-year old girl walks in and they start talking like it's their living room. Eventually, one of them gets up, presumably to go to the bathroom, and as she walks by on the way back to her seat, I stop her and say:
Brent (politely): Excuse me, could you please stop talking, your disturbing my friend and me, and we're trying to watch the movie.
Girl: ...
B: Okay?
Girl (at a normal volume): Well I wasn't even talking.
B (staring at girl): ...
G (staring back): ...
And then she went back to her seat. And continued yammering on. A few minutes later, I notice they're whispering and looking over at me. I look back, one of the girls is giving me an awkward staredown, so I walk over to try to deal with the situation.
B (quietly, but stern): I don't know if you've ever been to a movie theater before, but talking during the movie is very rude. You're disturbing the people in the theater.
G (yelling): Oh my god! I wasn't even talking!
B: Yeah, you were.
G (still yelling): What, so your angry because we're laughing and talking about the movie?
B: Laughing? No. Talking? Yes, this isn't your living room. Please be quiet.
G (defiant and still yelling): I wasn't talking! See? Now you're disturbing everyone in the theater.
B: Look, just stop talking.
G: Or what?
B: Or I'm going to have somebody ask you to leave.
G: Are you done?
B: It depends on whether or not you're done talking.
G: Just go back to your seat. Move four seats down if we bother you so much.
B: No, you see, it's you who needs to respect the fact that you're bother us.
G: Just go back to your seat.
There's about a 60-second staredown and I move back to my seat. To my surprise, they shut up. For about 15 minutes, that is. Until three 14-year old boys sneak in to the theater (this is probably an hour into the movie).
The girl who was not throwing a shitfit gets up to go to the bathroom and one of the 14-year olds turns to me and says, "She looks good, huh?"
I laugh and say, "She's a little young for me, pal."
She comes back and the boy and his friend go over and start hitting on the girls...IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOVIE.
Evidently, Alan overheard one of them saying "You want me to beat him up," which is funny, because this is a 14-year boy we're talking about. He's 120 lbs. soaking wet with a brick in his back pocket, and he's trying to impress a girl by (idly) offering to fight me (and, by extension, Alan).
During this whole ordeal, I'm faced with the dilemma of telling a manager to have them kicked out or just tolerating it until the movie is over. The problem with telling a manager is that I'd have to spend 5 or 10 minutes finding one and explaining the situation. Then, the manager would have to come into the theater and kick them out. From my experience in trying to get them to shut up, I can only imagine what kind of scene that would have been in the middle of the movie. I'm thinking it would have cost me about 20 minutes of the movie before I could sit back down and watch the rest of it.
So, Alan and I just suffered in silence. I desperately wanted the movie to end, not because it was a bad movie, but because I wanted to get out of that environment.
In the end, we told out horror story to a manager and got free movie passes. I'm starting to think that this behavior in a movie theater should be punishable by death.
---
Like Brent, I also couldn't wait to be out of there. That's not a slight on the film at all.
Finally, leave it to a team that I support to blow two out of three against the worst team in baseball. Kansas City had lost 19 in a row before beating the A's twice. Twice?! Of course, no sooner do I start trumpeting Oakland then they go into a tailspin. Still atop the AL wildcard, but looking lousy doing it at the moment.
|
The 40-Year-Old Virgin is really funny. Consistently funny, even. Surprisingly sincere romance, too. I saw the trailer and thought for sure that the last half hour would be total shlock, but I was wrong. Really entertaining stuff. I recommend it greatly.
Hustle and Flow is decent. Terrence Howard turns in a very strong performance. My reaction to this movie, however, is tempered with one of the worst movie-going experiences of my life. This was in Phoenix with Brent. Here's his re-telling of the debacle:
So Alan and I are chillin' after dinner at his parents' place, trying to decide what to do with the rest of our evening. We are in the least conveniently located place in all of metro Phoenix, located an hour away from anything. So, we check the movie times, decide on Hustle and Flow and scramble over to the theater to enjoy the pictures.
Sitting in our row is a 16-year old (maybe) girl. She's yammering on her cell phone as the movie starts, finally gets off the thing and a guy strolls in. They start chatting it up for about five minutes, and as I'm about to get up to ask them to be quiet, the guy leaves and never comes back. 20 minutes later, another 16ish-year old girl walks in and they start talking like it's their living room. Eventually, one of them gets up, presumably to go to the bathroom, and as she walks by on the way back to her seat, I stop her and say:
Brent (politely): Excuse me, could you please stop talking, your disturbing my friend and me, and we're trying to watch the movie.
Girl: ...
B: Okay?
Girl (at a normal volume): Well I wasn't even talking.
B (staring at girl): ...
G (staring back): ...
And then she went back to her seat. And continued yammering on. A few minutes later, I notice they're whispering and looking over at me. I look back, one of the girls is giving me an awkward staredown, so I walk over to try to deal with the situation.
B (quietly, but stern): I don't know if you've ever been to a movie theater before, but talking during the movie is very rude. You're disturbing the people in the theater.
G (yelling): Oh my god! I wasn't even talking!
B: Yeah, you were.
G (still yelling): What, so your angry because we're laughing and talking about the movie?
B: Laughing? No. Talking? Yes, this isn't your living room. Please be quiet.
G (defiant and still yelling): I wasn't talking! See? Now you're disturbing everyone in the theater.
B: Look, just stop talking.
G: Or what?
B: Or I'm going to have somebody ask you to leave.
G: Are you done?
B: It depends on whether or not you're done talking.
G: Just go back to your seat. Move four seats down if we bother you so much.
B: No, you see, it's you who needs to respect the fact that you're bother us.
G: Just go back to your seat.
There's about a 60-second staredown and I move back to my seat. To my surprise, they shut up. For about 15 minutes, that is. Until three 14-year old boys sneak in to the theater (this is probably an hour into the movie).
The girl who was not throwing a shitfit gets up to go to the bathroom and one of the 14-year olds turns to me and says, "She looks good, huh?"
I laugh and say, "She's a little young for me, pal."
She comes back and the boy and his friend go over and start hitting on the girls...IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOVIE.
Evidently, Alan overheard one of them saying "You want me to beat him up," which is funny, because this is a 14-year boy we're talking about. He's 120 lbs. soaking wet with a brick in his back pocket, and he's trying to impress a girl by (idly) offering to fight me (and, by extension, Alan).
During this whole ordeal, I'm faced with the dilemma of telling a manager to have them kicked out or just tolerating it until the movie is over. The problem with telling a manager is that I'd have to spend 5 or 10 minutes finding one and explaining the situation. Then, the manager would have to come into the theater and kick them out. From my experience in trying to get them to shut up, I can only imagine what kind of scene that would have been in the middle of the movie. I'm thinking it would have cost me about 20 minutes of the movie before I could sit back down and watch the rest of it.
So, Alan and I just suffered in silence. I desperately wanted the movie to end, not because it was a bad movie, but because I wanted to get out of that environment.
In the end, we told out horror story to a manager and got free movie passes. I'm starting to think that this behavior in a movie theater should be punishable by death.
---
Like Brent, I also couldn't wait to be out of there. That's not a slight on the film at all.
Finally, leave it to a team that I support to blow two out of three against the worst team in baseball. Kansas City had lost 19 in a row before beating the A's twice. Twice?! Of course, no sooner do I start trumpeting Oakland then they go into a tailspin. Still atop the AL wildcard, but looking lousy doing it at the moment.
Comments:
Post a Comment
