My wife and I both like going to a good movie. She may not ramble on afterwards about a pic’s artistic nuances and production values like I do, but we both dig that immersive moviegoing experience. When it comes to obnoxious seatmates at the cinema, however, our viewing public sensibilities diverge.
Where I usually bite my tongue and shift about in my seat, she has no problem telling the teen girl popping her gum next to us that she’s ruining everyone’s evening. And she won’t hesitate to tell the 6-foot-6, bald-headed refugee from a steroid test program that he needs to shut up. (While I silently try to indicate that I love a muttering underscore to my movies … sir.)
But regardless of how we might approach theater disturbances, there is talk of one possible change at the cinema that could be a deal-killer for a lot of people: Texting. Apparently some theater bigwigs, at least those who attended the recent CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas, are debating whether to allow those thumb-twitching texters into theaters with open arms. A blogger for the Los Angeles Times blog 24 Frames wrote:
Several prominent industry figures seemed to endorse the idea that, at a time when teenagers are going to the movies less and less, it might be time to relax our prohibitions against texting in theaters.
The writer also went on to mention how more and more cellphone applications are being developed to facilitate getting young people into the moviehouse—from an app that coordinates meeting times with friends at the local theater to an app that tells you the best times in any given film to run to the restroom.
Now I understand that today’s tech-savvy world finds it hard to disconnect. The last time I went to a movie with my youngest daughter she found it almost painful to shut off her phone for a full two hours! I mean, how in the world will she know what her friends are thinking at any given moment? Why, Jackson may have decided to stop playing Skyrim for awhile. Or Sarah Beth could be needing help picking shoes. But somehow I can’t help but think that a two-hour break won’t ruin anyone’s life or bring modern society to a screeching halt.
Why, when I was a kid we had to walk three hours to get to the local theater in a swirling snowstorm … with bare feet … and no coat. OK, overkill. But still, going to the movies is supposed to be a special experience, isn’t it? A two-hour respite from shoe-shopping and who’s going out with whom-ing? I can’t help but think that this kind of enjoyment will be stunted if you’ve got your eyes glued to more than one screen at a time. (Not to mention all the tongue-biting and seat-shifting noise that I’ll be making from behind you when your smartphone screen blazes in my direction.)
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