Parents, please, for the love of everything, if you're planning an evening out at your local cineplex, art house theater, wherever, LEAVE THE KIDS AT HOME. Please.
Your three-year-old doesn't want to see District 9. She does want to run around the theater and make as much noise as possible, distracting all around. And your newborn doesn't want to see the new Harry Potter film. AT ALL. It does want to cry, though, making the film impossible to hear.
Now, the children are not entirely at fault here. Kids will be kids. But you, dumb parent, should know better. If you want to go to the movies, you have two options: control your kid or leave them at home with a babysitter. If you can do neither, you forfeit your movie-going privileges until you can. Sorry, but thems the breaks.
Coming next week: Quiet with That Popcorn, Mouthbreather, or: The Birth of the Anti-Movie Theater Concessions Movement
- Phil Morehart
*image shamelessly stolen from unrealitymag.com.
6 comments:
That's Phil Morehart at:
Facets PR Disasters
1517 W. Fullerton Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614
Reminds me of when I went to see the re-release of The Exorcist a few years ago. There were kids of all ages in the theater. There were infants who cried at the noise level when the Devil got ticked off; there were 4 and 5 year olds, who became freaked out as they thought about what could be waiting in their bedrooms when they got home that night; and there were young adolescents who just couldn't quite get what little Regan was doing with that cross. Parents: films are rated for you to pay attention to, not for the rest of us.
Suzi, I had a similar experience at the "Exorcist" re-release, but with young adults...who didn't quite get that even though there's no dialog in the first few minutes, they should still be quiet and listen to the fantastic sound design. When we asked them to stop talking they literally said "but...there's no dialog..." Agh.
That's off-topic, sorry. As y'all were.
Great point, Joe. I can't tell you how many times I've had the opening sequences of films ruined by ding-dongs yapping away, thinking they're doing no harm because the segments are dialogue-free. it's disrespectful to the audience and ultimately the filmmaker. the scenes are such for a reason, ignoring them or talking through them is just pissing on the filmmaker's intent.
when i went to see "Scarface",right when dude fires up the chainsaw there was a bloodcurdling scream from an obvious toddler. my thought,"therapy for decades".
I think my favorite "small child at inappropriate movie" story was last Summer's Terror in the Aisles event. I returned to the auditorium after buying a soda at the concession stand and walked past a stroller with a screaming toddler in it, turned to face the screen while Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer was playing.
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