Movie Theatre Rant

Yesterday afternoon, Mom treated me and Jimbo to a date night. We wanted to see three movies but finally settled on one I wanted to see, Across the Universe.

Across the Universe, summarized in a nutshell, follows the story of youths in the revolutionary era, during the Vietnam war. It's a love story, a political story and a musical story. The entire movie is laid out and told using Beatles songs.

Now for the rant. There were groups of four, 2 couples each that sat to either side of us. The couple to our left decided to place their feet on the back of seats directly in front of them while the couple on the right chose to do the same but also decided to remove their shoes and have socked feet hanging in the air. Each group had one huge thing in common, they both had things of paramount importance they obviously had to discuss.

I let the gabbing slide during the trailers, hoping they would settle down. They never did. I waited 30 minutes after the movie had started, during which I got to listen to them talking (and I mean that literally, if the movie was in song, they would simply talk over the movie itself) and one of the girls to my left decided it would be a fantastic time during "With a little help from my friends" to start texting someone.

Frustrated, I stood and made my way to "tattle" on these people. Personally I wanted to call them out. I had it all mapped out in my mind. I would stand up and mosey on over to the couple to my left first. I would walk to them and make eye contact with a smile before saying, "Hi, I was wondering if I can sit here. Obviously the money I paid to see a movie isn't important and the conversation you're having is. May I?" But alas, my husband would have been mortified, so it was left up to the professionals.

I approached a girl that was checking tickets, explained exactly where I was sat, who was gabbing and asked her to send someone in. She motioned over to a guy and he promised to come check it out. I made my way back and sat down, anxiously waiting for these rude youths to be "busted". Yet even as they continued to gab on...nothing happened. I waited and waited. I tried to become emotionally invested in the movie and the characters but couldn't. It was too hard with the light from cell phones and laughter and silliness to pay attention.

Eventually I had enough, I told Jimbo I wanted to leave and get our money returned. We both stood up and I resisted the urge to say something. We exited the theatre and I didn't "ask" for my money, I told them I wanted my refund. I was nice but let the manager know how extremely disappointed I was. She apologized but I couldn't help feeling she didn't really care as I walked out the door, cash in hand and a movie running unfinished through my mind. We had probably 40 minutes to go until the movie concluded...you can imagine how disappointed I was.

This is why I don't go to the movies very often. Too many parents take their children to the theatre, choose different movies to "watch" and leave other innocent movie goers to suffer. In this circumstance they were teenagers, very young and very loud and very rude. I'm not sure why today's youth think that behaving silly to draw attention to themselves is cool or acceptable. It's rather arrogant.

So now I'll have to wait until the DVD comes out to finish the movie I started but at least I'll be able to do so in peace.