A recent article on USA Today’s website says a handful of movie theaters are making a bold move – banning teenagers from the property on Friday and Saturday nights. You might at first think that’s a pretty dumb move. But if you’ve ever been to a movie where you hear chatting and cell phones for the entire film, you know this rule is pure genius.
Seriously, go to any theater around here, and it seems like parents treat the movie theater as a “dumping ground” for their kids. Half of them just stand around on the sidewalks or in the lobby doing absolutely nothing… what’s the point? Then the half that do figure out how to walk inside and purchase a ticket can’t seem to keep their mouths shut. You just spent all day with these people in school… why the need for the conversations to continue throughout the movie? Or worse yet, the damn text messages! Even if you can’t hear them, it’s hard for one’s peripheral vision to ignore the illuminated screens and buttons popping up and down in nearby seats.
I sound like a grumpy 65-year-old man, but I’m not even 30. Basically, I guess I just missed the “text message revolution” by a couple years. When I was a teenager, we didn’t have cell phones. You went to the movie and you actually watched it without interruption. We survived the 2-hour blackout of contact with the outside world.
What’s even worse is when the theater plays that little commercial, explicitly reminding you to can the cell phones, and sure enough, someone will still get a call, and it’ll most likely be a teenager who still goes ahead and answers it, rather than silences it. Apparently that phone call involving 2 people is much more important than the movie 200 people are watching. Idiots.
Sadly, these rules aren’t going into effect anywhere near here. But I applaud the theaters that DO have them, and I hope the experiment proves successful enough to spread across the country. Otherwise, you’ll see more and more adults choosing DVD rentals over movie tickets. After all, it’s cheaper (the movie AND the snacks), you control the schedule, and you don’t have to worry about rude customers or some tall person sitting right in front of you!
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