Cinematic calamities: the worst things that can happen in a flea pit

Going to the movies should be an unforgettable experience. It certainly was when I was a kid: every trip was full of wonder and awe, whether in the suburbs of south London, the West End or the length and breadth of the country.

In the past 10 years, movie-going has still been an experience for me, but the wonder and awe is frequently matched by disgust.

With due thanks to Stevie G for his suggestion of this blog post, here is my list of the top 10 things that have gone wrong, the cinematic calamities if you will, that have soured my enjoyment of movies.

I might follow this post soon with one about the best things to happen to me in a cinema.

Talkers
This really is a development of the past 20 years. The occasional snatched whisper to your cinematic companion is fine during a film – recalling everything you did during the day or last night is very definitely off the agenda. If you can’t sit quietly, get the hell out of my cinema!
Perhaps idiots would talk less in cinemas if they knew they would have to wait a year – rather than three months – for that film to become available on DVD.

Texters
Turn that effing phone off before I stick it down your mouth, you inconsiderate ****!

Callers
Worse than talkers and texters is that special person who not only leaves their phone on, but also, when the phone rings, answers it and proceeds to have a conversation…
That means you, ****face, at the Odeon Leicester Square during Gran Torino on 27 February 2009.
If I owned and operated a cinema, I’d hire a sniper to take out any patron who committed this, the greatest sin of all.

Wrong reaction
There’s nothing worse than a film that you’re completely down with, it’s got you in it’s grip, the tension is mounting, the tragedy that has been playing out for the past 90 minutes comes to its wretched conclusion – and some Neanderthal laughs (when you’re ready to cry) and completely destroys the moment, shatters the illusion. Git!

Poor projection
Films presented too high or too low on the screen or indeed in the wrong ratio, the volume too loud or too quiet: poor projection is everywhere. Especially at the multiplex in London’s Trocadero: I haven’t been there for years after six consecutive films I saw there were poorly projected.
One of the most recent howlers I experienced was Fish Tank in 2009 at the Renoir (part of the usually excellent Curzon group). The ads and trailers sailed past, and the film began – although it wasn’t the film me and the rest of the audience had paid too see, it was a cosy Italian family drama rather than an incendiary slice of east London realism. Thankfully, after three minutes, someone somewhere realised their mistake.
And the worse form of poor projection? Projecting a foreign film too low, such that the English-speaking audience can’t see the bleedin’ subtitles…

My friend hates the movie
You take a chance on a movie: sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. In the latter case, you may still find positives, indeed you may still find some real pleasure, but all that is lost if you become aware that your film friend is very definitely not enjoying it.

Latecomers
While I have on occasion been a late arrival at the cinema, the time has surely come for us to revert to the theatre-style rules Hitchcock insisted on for screenings of Psycho: no one allowed in after the film has started.

Weak bladders
If you’ve got a weak or small bladder, go to the loo before the film starts, not while it’s on, you fool!
If you know you won’t survive a movie that’s more than 2 hours long, then watch it at home on DVD when you can have as many comfort breaks required without destroying everyone else’s enjoyment of the film as you fight your way out of the row and then back in again.

Losing your girlfriend
99.9% of the time, the darkness in cinemas is just right, but every once in a while it can cause an issue.
One such issue befell me, or rather I should say that it befell an ex-girlfriend. We were in the local multiplex, halfway through a film that had attracted very few other patrons. The GF in question suffered with a small bladder, so she had to dash to the loo. Off she dashed. She was mercifully brief, returning swiftly to the all-encompassing darkness of the auditorium, and sat down three rows ahead of me next to a guy who wasn’t me. With a somewhat hysterical shriek, she realised her error and looked around the cinema to see me laughing like a drain, knowing she would be pant-wettingly embarrassed.

Cheese sauce
Why anyone needs nachos covered in a strangely yellow ‘cheese sauce’, I do not know. If that’s cheese sauce, I’m a banana.
I swear my nostrils crawl back inside my skull upon their first sniff of the ‘cheese sauce’. Eat nachos in a cinema if you must, but don’t put me off my game with your malodorous dip!

Let me know if any of this chimes with you.