Nightwatch: Declan Cashin
Do you want to know my pick for the best movie scene of all time? It's not the sight of Ripley fighting the queen with her power-loader suit in Aliens; or 'Here's Johnny' in The Shining; or the door being shut on Diane Keaton in The Godfather.
No, my choice is from the horror spoof Scary Movie. The magnificently sassy character Brenda is in a cinema watching Shakespeare in Love, where she proceeds to fidget, eat, talk and shout at the screen noisily ("Don't go in there! Don't go in there!"). The other patrons grow increasingly irritated, until, one by one, they take turns gutting her with a butcher knife.
Now I would never condone such violence in reality, but I must admit to feeling a guilty rush of catharsis as I watched Brenda take her punishment for violating the precious code of 'cinematiquette'.
I love movies. I go to my local picture-house as often as I can, sometimes three or four times a week.
The whole point of the exercise is to slink into a seat in a darkened screening room with a bucket of popcorn and a bin-bag full of Maltesers, tune out the outside world, and get totally lost for two-plus hours. Glorious.
For others, however, it seems going to see a movie is no different an experience than sitting at home in their own living room, keeping one eye on the TV screen as they talk on the phone, scream at their partner, eat a three-course meal, email friends, and update their various social networking accounts.
Well, today, I'm standing up like Peter Finch in Network and bellowing: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
There are few things more teeth-grindingly infuriating than being stuck next to some clown during a packed movie screening who spends the entire time texting and, for I've seen this happen, making and receiving phone calls.
Fair enough, the movie in question might be God-awful, but if you're that bored, why not just leave and let the rest of us enjoy (or struggle through) the movie in peace?
Similarly, on more than one occasion, I've had the misfortune of being stuck beside a couple or group where one or more members don't speak English, and so another spends the entire movie loudly translating each line for the non-English speakers' benefit.
Then, of course, there are the, 'Who's he? What was she in? That's soooo unrealistic?' brigade, who feel they need to give a DVD running commentary the whole way through. I remember another idiot standing up and calling out the twist ending right in the middle of The Sixth Sense a decade ago (I think he was lynched afterwards).
The worst offenders of all are -- gross generalisation alert! -- teenagers. There have been countless Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, especially, where a mixed-sex gang of hormonal teens bound into a cinema screening, all 'likes' and 'ya-ya-yas', all desperately trying to be cool and impressive, that proceed to wreak havoc for the next two hours.
Only once have I ever seen a cinema employee remove such a crowd, despite mine and others' complaints. It seems that cinema patrons are harder to oust than wasteful, job-for-life civil servants.
Having said that, there are times when a boisterous cinema audience adds to the experience. I had great fun watching others scream, squirm and laugh along with me during Drag Me to Hell; observing other punters' horrified reactions was just about the only thing that got me through Antichrist; and the howling laughter and incredulous audience repetition of the mind-bendingly appalling dialogue in GI Joe turned that viewing experience into a latter-day Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Those are rare exceptions to the rule, however. If you feel you can't possibly stay silent or disconnected from the world for a mere two hours of an evening, then can I kindly request you stay at home playing with your ringtones or, running through your hamster wheel, or whatever it is that people like you do to entertain yourself?
To quote a legendary T-shirt slogan from the Beverley Hills 90210 merchandising back catalogue: "Don't be a Brenda".
- Declan Cashin
