Two Is a Crowd

I went to see Charlie Wilson's War yesterday in the beautiful new Bay Street AMC movie theatre. Eight of us attended, near as I could tell.

Over the first 15 minutes of the movie, the two women on my left talked to each other. About half an hour in, the guy in front of me answered his cell phone. He took it over to the hallway so that we could hear his conversation. He did this once more. When he came back each time, he climbed over the railing.

About half of the people in the theatre left at some point and came back later.

At least there wasn't a baby in the theatre. That was the day before, when I had watched Atonement. The baby was actually a pretty good baby, not crying but moaning and chirping for about the first 10 minutes of the film. And in that theatre, a couple of cell phones rang.

These are not kids who are going to this movie. At Charlie Wilson's War, all eight of us were older than 40, including the guy who climbed over the rail. They should know better. They should know that when I pay $10 to see a movie, I would like to see the movie.

It's for reasons like this that I'm not going to the movie houses as often. My friend George tells me that he believes we used to believe in a private space around us, and now we don't. I think it's a television mentality, that we go to the theatre with whomever we want, a baby included, and make as much noise as we wish. We answer our cellphones, we take pictures from our cellphones of interesting moments in the film, and we never stay for the credits.

I just don't understand that. Clearly I'm from a different planet.

I've been going to a lot of recent releases because I want to watch the Oscar-nominated films. Soon I'll be able to go back to my own home theatre, relax, and shove a DVD in the slot. At least I won't be imagining gleefully of shoving something else somewhere else.