At any given moment, if someone were to ask me how I was feeling emotionally I would most likely respond: mad. It's not a big deal, though, because ever since I can remember, I have been furious about something. That doesn't mean I'm always flying off the handle—the fury ranges from mild (1) to righteous (10). I stub my toe: mild. I'm trying to assemble a piece of furniture purchased from IKEA: righteous. However, on rare occasions, I reach a peak of rage unbeknownst to most mortals. A violent orgasm of fury. At first I can feel the acid in my stomach begin to moil like the magical magma of Mount Doom; then I start to sweat for no other reason than my body has reached its red alert stage and is attempting to expel rage through my pores; my body then begins to seize, as if it has become host to a dark parasite that has latched onto my brain stem, controlling me like a marionette suffering from Parkinson's; finally, my jaw cracks and comes loose, a bouquet of the nine reptilian heads of a hydra emerge like a hideous flower blooming out of my throat, the skin of my mortal husk falls in a puddle where my feet used to be; I devour all. This only happens when people don't display proper etiquette at the movie theater.
As a professional moviegoer, I've had time to hone my craft (e.g. creating optimal seating charts, making a best guess as to where the talkative douches will be sitting, etc.), and create a 'code,' if you will, that dictates what is and what isn't appropriate to do at the movies. I would like to outline some of these rules and relate to you some of the more harrowing and infuriating moments I've experienced at the theater in my young, angry life.
For teh lulz
Everyone likes to think that they are funny, but, to be honest, many people aren't. Some people are born funny and some aren't, that's just how it goes. When I hear people trying to crack jokes during movies, I get really pissed off. Not only are they talking during the movie but they are making bad jokes. I don't know about everyone else, but I didn't get the memo that said, "Hey, instead of shutting the fuck up and watching the movie, use every lull in the action of a movie to work on your stand-up routine!" There are very, very few cases where someone has told a joke in the theater and got more than a noncommittal chuckle from an annoyed friend. An example that perfectly illustrates my point was when I went to go see Drag Me to Hell. This douche nozzle behind me would not shut the fuck up with his biting social commentary and what I'm sure he felt were top-notch jokes and when a fly flew into Alison Lohman's mouth, he delivered his comedic payload with, "I hear flies are full of protein. Yum." It was then that I popped open the lid of my friend's giant cup of diet Coke and drowned myself in it. I'm going to the movies tonight, and if I even catch a whisper of some cocksucker saying, "What's the deal with airline food?" during the movie, I'm going to cut his dick off with a spork and shove it in his goddamn mouth.
A new and terrifying phenomenon I've been witnessing over the past year or so are people yelling "OWNED" or "PWNT" (which when spoken aloud sounds less like a hilarious internet saying and more like a verbal tic) or, and this one is getting archaic now—"SERVED". I recently had the opportunity to witness someone saying, "OWNED!" at a movie. It was during Star Trek and this throwaway redshirt is sucked into the engine of a giant drill and you could tell this guy was just waiting for the opportunity to go for the cheese because the very second this character died, the wretch yelled, "OWNED!" No one laughed. His friends shifted their bodies away from him and the offender scratched his neck nervously. It was a beautiful sight to see even this bastard's friend's turn on him. Sadly, this rarely happens. It's the Haley's Comet of social situations.
Malodorous motherfuckers
I smell good because I wash daily and wear deodorant. Do people think that dousing themselves in obnoxiously pungent chemicals makes them more, I don't know, desirable. I'm here to tell you that it does not. Perfumes and colognes remind me of a few things: guid's that use so much of this shit that their sweat actually begins to smell like it, stoners trying to disguise the fact that they are stoners, and old people. My grandparents reek of the most caustic scents known to man. It doesn't matter how much of that shit you spray on yourself, grandma, I still know your life is eroding! There is nothing worse than having to mouth-breathe the entire night because the woman sitting beside you smells as if she has just crawled out of Coco Chanel's rotting vagina.
Despite my aversion to ungodly stink, there are a number of scents I expect to smell at the theater. For example, I expect to smell are anything you can buy at the concession and the one guy who hasn't showered lately, but what I don't expect to smell are KFC (sure, they sell that shit at the theater but nobody buys it) and enchiladas and sushi. I went to the movies with a friend the other night and, since she was running a little late, she hadn't had time to eat dinner. I didn't really pay it any mind until she whispered, "I brought sushi!" and proceeded to take the lid off her vat of spicy sauce and dip her sushi in it. I was mortified. The spicy sauce was toxic and when it opened, a mushroom cloud of gas that singed nose hairs was released into the atmosphere. Shadows of bodies that had been incinerated in the blast radius were etched into now empty, scorched seats. I forgave her, sure, but I think I will always be subconsciously mad about it.
Didn't you hear, four is the new fourteen
In my final guideline, the blame is divided between the people who work at the theater and the people viewing the movie.
My worst movie experience would have to be seeing Eagle Eye (love you, Shia) in September of 2008. I knew it was going to be trouble when a young boy of around nine or ten asked if the three seats beside me were taken. I said they weren't, thinking that maybe his parents were coming. NOT THE CASE. He had, against the wishes of his parents--who had no doubt instructed him to take his brothers to see a kid-friendly film-- I'm sure, brought his six-year-old brother and four-year-old brother with him. I was willing to give them a shot. I thought maybe instead of teaching their children about Feng Shui and how to really appreciate good sushi, his parents had taught him how to behave in a movie theater. NOT THE CASE. Throughout the entire movie, the older brother was explaining what was happening in the story to his overwhelmed brothers who acted as if they had never been in public before. The youngest one was slurping at a drink that was long gone, his lips puckered, eyes bulging in vain. Pretty bad, right? It gets worse. They had kinder eggs. If you have ever had a kinder egg, you know it is not about the chocolate, it is about the toy. You might be wondering how one assembles microscopic toy in the dark? Well, you don't. You flip open your cell phone and use the LCD that looks as if it's being powered by a nuclear generator, a radiant beacon of assholery in the dark, and attempt to construct all three at once. I kept looking over at these kids with a WTF look on my face, but that shit don't faze a 4 year old. The icing on the infuriated cake was during the climax of the movie when Shia is shot (SPOILER ALERT!), the littlest fuckwad whispers to his brother, "Did that boy just get shot?" It's probably a good thing I keep being denied a firearms licence or four boys would have been shot that night instead of just Shia. And I would be blogging this from prison.
I don't mind if you let a thirteen-year-old into a 14A movie or a sixteen or seventeen-year-old into an 18A movie, but I think four years old is pushing it, guys.
I'd like to thank all the people who follow these rules because, really, this shit is common sense. And for the villainous creatures that refuse to act like humans, there's a special spot in hell for you mofo's.
