I went to see Flight the other night with a friend of mine. The most I'd heard about the movie up until that point was that it made people never want to get on a plane again. I was anticipating some hybrid of Final Destination and Snakes on a Plane, so I most definitely was not impressed when I realized that the majority of the movie focused on a man's struggle with drug and alcohol abuse. Don't get me wrong, Denzel was fantastic, but 150 minutes of 'will he? won't he?' and watching a man basically destroy his life with substance abuse wasn't necessarily my idea of a good time.
However.
I probably would have enjoyed the movie a lot more if I hadn't been stuck in front of not one, but two sets of couples who felt it completely acceptable to talk in their normal speaking voices throughout the entire. freaking. movie.
Imagine this, if you will. My friend and I took our seats, ecstatic that we were able to nab seats behind the railing so we could put our feet up. Speaking of which, I'd like to interject a side note here: you just KNOW that even if the entire theater is empty save for you, if you sit in a row with seats in front of you and put your feet up, someone will walk in and absolutely have to have that seat that you're innocently resting your feet on. When you're sitting behind a railing, you can avoid this altogether, hence our excitement. Kelly had popcorn, I had my Ring Pops, and things were looking good.
The previews hadn't started yet, so we were chatting innocently about what we'd been up to and how excited we were for Christmas, when I started to notice that I could barely hear her over the guy sitting in the row behind us, just to the right, who was also talking to his wife/girlfriend/prostitute. (No judgment, but you just never know.) And as I started to hear more of their conversation than my own, I also happened to notice that the couple behind us and to my left were pretty damn loud as well. I turned around in a seemingly innocent manner and spent a moment looking at each of them while I very clearly and concisely used my eyes to communicate the following message:
"Talk all you want now, but once that movie starts, if I hear so much as a peep out of you, you're going to become reaaaaal good friends with my fists. The right one is lightning, and the left one is thunder, and it will storm ALL up in here."
| A visual map of the seating arrangement, minus Kelly, and where I am an angry man with short blonde hair and glasses.
|
The previews began, and both couples talked, loudly, through all of them, to the point where I understood each word of their conversation. Now, as you can imagine, this is no small feat, since the volume in movie theaters is usually cranked up to levels that are apt to make ears bleed and small children cry. Still, I let it slide, hoping that if I just let them have their moment, they would behave themselves once the actual movie started.
Boy, was I wrong.
The first part of the movie passed by with minimal issue, however, judging by their behavior through the rest of the movie, this may have been because the majority of the beginning involves a very loud plane crash, so I may just have not been able to hear them over all the ruckus happening on-screen. It wasn't until we got to the heart of the movie - the part that pulls you in and makes you really feel what the character is going through - that they decided to totally ruin the experience. While poor Denzel was up there struggling with his demons, drinking himself incoherent and trying to avoid life in prison, the peanut gallery was commenting on the scenery, (Couple #1: "All that farmland is so beautiful. I wonder what it'd be like to own a farm? I don't like animals enough for that, though. Ha ha ha.") and his clothes, (Couple #2: "Oh my gosh! I have that same shirt! That's, like, totally insane!") and the fact that they were out of popcorn (Couple #1: "Shit, we're out of popcorn. No, I'll go get it. No really, it's ok. Well maybe we shouldn't get any more. Do you want more? Are you still hungry? Ok. I'll go. No, it's ok. I'll go.)*
*Author's Note: I was thisclose to turning around, grabbing the bucket of popcorn, and screaming at the top of my lungs, "NEVERMIND. I'LL JUST FUCKING GET IT FOR YOU."
Arguably my favorite part came right before Denzel's trial. He'd been clean and sober for 8 days when they led him to a hotel room to relax and spend the night before meeting for breakfast in the morning. In what I'd consider a very smart move, his lawyer and friend had made sure to have all the little bottles of liquor removed from the mini-fridge. Unfortunately, they failed to notice that the previous occupants of the connecting room next door not only had left the connecting door unlocked, but had also left a window open so the door was swinging and banging and thereby alerting Denzel to its unlocked state. (So convenient, right?) And you can bet your sweet ass they hadn't emptied the booze from the mini-fridge next door. Denzel slowly opened the door to what could be called a booze-filled paradise, picked up a small bottle of vodka, and a good, solid two minutes of silent deliberation ensued. Well, it should have been silent deliberation. That's the way the writer and the director and the actor had filmed it. Unfortunately, this is what I heard.
"Oh no. No, no, no. He won't do it. He won't do it. He's not going to do it. He won't. No, he won't."
(Denzel puts the bottle down)
"Oh man, I told you he wouldn't do it. Didn't I tell you? I knew he wouldn't."
(Denzel returns and snatches the bottle back up and proceeds to get hammered)
"Oh fuck. He did it."
In fact, I'm fairly certain that I could more accurately quote their conversations than I could replay back to you anything that happened on-screen. However, I'm sure you're all going to be very proud of me, because I took a deep breath and let it slide, regardless of the fact that, to me, it's one of the most. infuriating. things. ever. I didn't even turn around to glare at either of them. Not once. But I mean, seriously. If you need to talk, that's fine. WHISPER. I have no problem with the occasional whisper. But to talk in your normal voice at normal volume when other people are trying to lose themselves in a cinematic masterpiece is just plain bad manners.
'Aint nobody got time for that.
I really think the Oatmeal is on to something with their illustrated depiction of how movie theaters should REALLY be laid out. I'm totally on-board.
Enjoy.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/movie_theater_layout
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