I promised myself I wouldn’t waste money on popcorn when I went to the cinema last week. Most of the time it’s been sitting there all day and developed a subtle taste comparable to cardboard. And it’s so expensive- I’d spent the day scrounging an Orange Wednesday code off my mates so why should I lose the money I’ve saved on popcorn? A relic of the Great Depression it became popular in cinemas during this time as it costs mere pennies to make but people will pay much more for it. I was so sure this time I wouldn’t be taken in by this exploitative capitalism.
Yet as soon as the smell of popcorn wafts over from the gauntlet of snack counters in the foyer I’m hooked, I’m like Pavlov’s Dogs- and I don’t just mean dribbling. Ten minutes later, there I am in the back row shovelling it into my mouth, surrounded by fellow grazers up to their elbows in popcorn tubs.
Having popcorn in the cinema is a tradition which is clearly too ingrained in my psyche to fight. But you know what’s not a tradition…? Talking during the movie. As far as I’m concerned the only noise I should hear in the cinema is the sound of the film and the soft nibbling of the aforementioned snack.
When did talking in the cinema become so common? I conducted a survey amongst my vast array of friends to see if they had been bothered by it. Both of them had. In fact they said that in recent visits to the cinema they’d always had some level of talking. It’s clearly on the verge of becoming an epidemic.
My first bad experience was having the man beside me, between sending text messages, explain the plot twists and story layers of Wanted to his girlfriend throughout the film. For those of you who’ve not seen it, it’s no Inception and about as twisty as a ruler and has about as many levels as an ice rink. I would have told him to shut up but he was huge, he looked like someone who might ask you for ID when you’re going into a club and you’d give it to him even though you’re clearly at least twenty-five. So I asked my boyfriend to tell him to shut up. On the plus side the fight that followed was actually more entertaining than the action sequence on screen at that moment.
Since then I’ve been nervy about asking people to be quiet and tend to put up with it. Once, in a particularly dodgy Cineworld, I was surrounded by a crowd of guys who proceeded to heckle throughout Ironman. I gently advised that it was unlikely Robert Downey Jr. would react to their taunts but this only made them worse and they developed into a kind of frat party in the cinema. I decided to find an usher to quieten them as during the golden age of cinema peacefulness I remember being ‘shh-ed’ by many an usher. The only one I could find was sulking in a corner and, after laughing at me, followed me into the cinema to attempt to discipline the rabble. Turns out he went to the same school as them and a few minutes later he took over as chief heckler. Iron man and I didn’t stand a chance.
So what happens now for those of us who enjoy the quiet?
We can go and see movies at 3am to try and avoid the crowds. We can commute for an hour and pay fifteen pounds for a ticket to see a film in a high-class regional cinema. We can wait for the film to come out on DVD. My best suggestion is to use that lasting tradition of cinema to combat the talkers: Throw your popcorn at them.
Yet as soon as the smell of popcorn wafts over from the gauntlet of snack counters in the foyer I’m hooked, I’m like Pavlov’s Dogs- and I don’t just mean dribbling. Ten minutes later, there I am in the back row shovelling it into my mouth, surrounded by fellow grazers up to their elbows in popcorn tubs.
Having popcorn in the cinema is a tradition which is clearly too ingrained in my psyche to fight. But you know what’s not a tradition…? Talking during the movie. As far as I’m concerned the only noise I should hear in the cinema is the sound of the film and the soft nibbling of the aforementioned snack.
When did talking in the cinema become so common? I conducted a survey amongst my vast array of friends to see if they had been bothered by it. Both of them had. In fact they said that in recent visits to the cinema they’d always had some level of talking. It’s clearly on the verge of becoming an epidemic.
My first bad experience was having the man beside me, between sending text messages, explain the plot twists and story layers of Wanted to his girlfriend throughout the film. For those of you who’ve not seen it, it’s no Inception and about as twisty as a ruler and has about as many levels as an ice rink. I would have told him to shut up but he was huge, he looked like someone who might ask you for ID when you’re going into a club and you’d give it to him even though you’re clearly at least twenty-five. So I asked my boyfriend to tell him to shut up. On the plus side the fight that followed was actually more entertaining than the action sequence on screen at that moment.
Since then I’ve been nervy about asking people to be quiet and tend to put up with it. Once, in a particularly dodgy Cineworld, I was surrounded by a crowd of guys who proceeded to heckle throughout Ironman. I gently advised that it was unlikely Robert Downey Jr. would react to their taunts but this only made them worse and they developed into a kind of frat party in the cinema. I decided to find an usher to quieten them as during the golden age of cinema peacefulness I remember being ‘shh-ed’ by many an usher. The only one I could find was sulking in a corner and, after laughing at me, followed me into the cinema to attempt to discipline the rabble. Turns out he went to the same school as them and a few minutes later he took over as chief heckler. Iron man and I didn’t stand a chance.So what happens now for those of us who enjoy the quiet?
We can go and see movies at 3am to try and avoid the crowds. We can commute for an hour and pay fifteen pounds for a ticket to see a film in a high-class regional cinema. We can wait for the film to come out on DVD. My best suggestion is to use that lasting tradition of cinema to combat the talkers: Throw your popcorn at them.
No comments:
Post a Comment