The Theatre Going Experience

There are some people I know who don't like going to movie theatres to see movies because they never seem to have a good experience. I used to think they were silly, or just had a run of bad luck, but I am starting to come around to their way of thinking.

Saw Tron Legacy a few weeks back. The movie? Pretty. The theatre? Gah!

No one there to take our tickets. (In fact, a harried looking girl with a broom and a walkie talkie growled into her walkie "Seriously, for god's sake, someone man the ticket counter!"

No one had cleaned out the theatre, crap everywhere. Not literally crap, but vomit. There was vomit though. Vomit on a seat in the row in front of us. We could have sat further (farther) back from the puke, but we wanted to see if any poor unfortunate souls would unknowingly sit in the puke seat.

No one did.

Someone did sit in front of my lovely wife. Someone bathed in perfume. And wearing a hat. She done did herself up to sit in the dark.

And someone, somewhere forgot to close a door so the cold Saskatchewan winter was there in the theatre with us as well.

That was a better theatre going experience than yesterday's Harry Potter clustermuggle.

Never sit near old people. Their minds are gone. They don't know how to act in polite society.

One of the old men behind us asked my brother in law to remove his hat. Okay, I thought to myself, he's old school. That's cool.

Then they all talked loudly through all of trailers. Okay, I thought, lots of people talk through the trailers.

Then they didn't shut up for the entire fucking movie. Okay, I thought, this sucks.

I din't yell at them, because they were old. Maybe a little early onset dementia or something. But they didn't look that old when the lights came up at the end. Old enough to chew and breathe loudly, and to need a potty break during the movie. They were thoughtful enough to not all go at the same time. Old fucks. One of the old fucks knocked over a girl's drink and popcorn. Didn't apologize. Probably didn't even notice. Senile old shit. He also giggled every time someone died or something dramatic happened. I wanted to move, but we were trapped in the middle of the row. And there weren't any good seats anywhere else.

And they discussed everything that happened onscreen. They always seemed surprised when someone did magic. Also: "What's that, a sword?" "Yep, that's a sword."

Guh. But halfway thru the film, a switch got flipped and I stopped being annoyed by the horrible old people and just being amused by them.

Afterwards, my sister-in-law mentioned that she overheard some of the annoying people behind us talking in the bathroom beforehand. This group behind us was comprised of an older couple taking their parents out for a movie. Also: they stuffed their ears with cotton cuz movies these days is just too dang loud. Also also: they didn't wash their hands.

Gross. Gross old people.

The new Harry Potter movie? Good.  8:28 PM