I want to start this off by saying that I love going to see movies in the theater. The smell of popcorn, the sound of the awesome speakers and of course seeing your favorite heroes on the giant screen, the movie theater is so full of stimuli, it is borderline sensory overload. And I cannot get enough of it. But let me ask you this, what is the almost universal problem with going to see a movie in theaters? The simple answer is the other moviegoers.
I normally do not have an issue with the occasional comment or gasp in amazement that inevitably comes from the peanut gallery, but the last time I saw a movie really took the cake for the worst movie going experience I have ever had.
A couple weeks ago, my mom drove up to visit with me and to go to dinner. I told her that I needed to see a movie to review, so we worked a movie into our schedule. We had both wanted to see the new Kevin Hart movie “Night School,” so I bought the tickets, we got our popcorn and we headed into the theater.
Now, for whatever reason, this pretty popular movie was put in one of their smallest theaters, so we got there early and got some pretty decent seats. The other moviegoers started to trickle in and we were soon packed into the theater like sardines.
The previews finished up, and the obligatory “turn off your cell phone” message came on the screen, which most of these people must not have paid any attention to, because in the middle of the movie, a person in the row down from my took a phone. I have been in movies where people text the whole time, and that can be distracting enough, but once this woman started her conversation, all I was focused on was that. While this may have seemed like the most annoying thing that would happen in the next hour and a half, I was wrong.
Throughout the movie’s runtime, this absolutely putrid smell wafted in and out of the theater. It would not be there, and then suddenly, BOOM, I couldn’t breathe through my nose. Both my mom and I noticed this, and when the movie was over, it became pretty obvious that the people in the back of the theater were definitely smoking marijuana. This may be my naive backwoods upbringing talking, but never in my time on earth have I been more surprised at something like this. I could not believe the nerve of these people. All I am trying to do is watch a movie with my mom, and here they are filling the theater with rather pungent smoke, and not having the decency to do what they were doing somewhere that it would not have the possibility of bothering other people.
The moral of this story is that I cannot wait until I have enough money to set up an advanced home theater of my own. I can supply the popcorn, crank up the bass on the surround sound system, and even if I can’t compete with a theater sized screen, I will sure as hell try to find a screen cloth and projector that will fill up a wall. I may have to wait until the newest movies come out on Blu-Ray, but I think that is a small price to pay to not have to breathe in marijuana smoke for two hours.
BENJAMIN HAYLETT
