We got to the theater early enough to be first in line, only about 20 minutes before they started seating. I like getting to the movies early. It reduces the stress for what's supposed to be a diversion. It also helps to get perfect seats. Our showing was in The Cary Grant Theater at Sony. I made sure we sat in the row closest to the mixing console in the center. This is key for two things. First, Marie can't sit close to a screen with a lot of activity going on and second I wanted to hear the sound as close to the way the mixers heard it. From a technical point of view, these seats were perfect. No motion sickness and a perfect surround sound experience.
However my perfect movie going experience was one of the worst theatrical experiences I've had. The showing we went to was at 12:45 on a Saturday afternoon. I wound up sitting next to three children who looked to be no older than 6. Their guardians (parents? grandparents?) didn't seat the kids between them but rather to the right of where they sat, meaning there was no one between me and the last kid. They talked and made noise before the movie, but I was hoping once the bright shiny things showed up on screen they'd be into that and would be quiet. That didn't happen. To be fair, even the kid I was sitting next to was asking his friend to be quiet. I also asked him, which really made me feel like a bully. It didn't matter, he was never quiet. Even annoyed friend made sounds with a plastic wrapper during critical quiet scenes and I know I missed lines of dialogue. So please don't ask me what I thought of Spider-Man 2. My experience was so tainted by these little brats that I didn't enjoy my time out and I don't know what I think of the movie. Maybe I'll watch it again when it's out on video.
Oh, that really sucks. People who bring kids to the movies need to be prepared to control them. If they, can't, they don't belong there. Sorry you had such a bad experience.
ReplyDeleteI didn't want this to be a lecture about raising a child, as I have no experience with that, but clearly, these children should have been better supervised. Leaving them next to a stranger was a bad call.
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