The New Road

Unbelievable

Going to the movies has gotten really bad for me. Tonight I went with Mel to see Flight of the Pheonix. The movie was bad all on it's own. It didn't need any help. But it sure got some from the audience. The people directly in back of us editorialized through the whole movie. The people on my left couldn't understand parts of the movie, so they discussed each scene to make sure they got each element of the critical plot figured out.

Amazingly enough, this was not the worst of it. Before the movie a couple walked past me on the way up a couple of rows. They had a two year old with them, who, to my surprise, didn't want to be in a dark quiet room cramped in with a lot of strangers, and signaled his or her discontent consistently and loudly starting about twenty minutes into the movie.

To make matters worse to the right of Mel a man sat down, alone save a one year old child, complete with bottle of milk in his jacket pocket. That kid seemed to like the movie even less and only slept in the last ten minutes or so. He/she spent most of the time either simpering or crying and being shushed by Dad.

As a finale some folks started laser pointer tag on the screen as the credits rolled. Nice.

Seriously, this is crazy. I spent $10 seeing this movie. It's bad enough that the movie was a train wreck. When did it become ok to take toddlers to late night mature themes movie? Answer. Never. It never became ok. When I want to go out to see a movie, Lori watches the kid. When Lori wants to go, I watch the kid. If we both want to go then we hire a sitter.

Kids don't want to go to mature theme movies late at night. They are loud, boring, scary (or both), cramped, crowded, and just plain not fun for them. And it's not fun for the parents who spend more time watching the kid then they do watching the movie. And it's certainly uncool for the other patrons who have to listen to the kid as they rightly complain about how silly their parents are being.

Kids at Spongebob... ok. Kids at special showings meant for toddlers... ok. Kids on planes... ok, because it's a necessity. Kids at a reasonable restaurant... ok, because that's a necessity, too. But come on, have a little decency. Leave the kids at home when you go out to see the latest guns and boobs flick. Seriously.

I can understand if the guy wanted to get the kid out of the house. That's ok. But take the kid to a Starbucks. They are open late, it's less noisy, not as scary, and people expect kids to be there.