up in the air

Today I went to the 12:05pm showing of "Up In the Air". I wanted to see what all the hype was about after hearing that it was the best movie of the year. It was good, but I thought it was terribly sad. Yes, there were lots of funny parts, but overall, I just felt it was sad.

Anyway, that's not why I'm writing. When you go to a 12:05pm movie, you usually encounter one of three types of people if you're not alone in the theater: 1) old and/or retired people; 2) stay-at-home moms; or 3) out-of-work people.

Today was my day for the old people. I walked into the theater about 12pm and there was just one other couple. They were talking at normal conversational levels, so I heard everything they said, despite the fact that I was one row down and 5 seats over and despite that fact that those loud pre-preview commercials were running. They talked about "the best golfer in the lowcountry", "Mr. Simmons", "doing work with the DAR", something about "business models", etc.

They were bad enough.

Then three old people came in just before the previews started. I will be the first to admit that the volume might have been a little on the loud side. But when the first preview ended, I heard the man from the back row say really loudly, "well, I hope they got that sound up loud enough."

To make it even worse, the people on the row behind me talked at normal conversational tones and volume the entire way through the previews and into the opening scenes of the movie. Now I know a lot of people hate previews, but I happen to be one of the few who love previews. And I particularly love the opening scenes of movies, so do us all a favor and shut up as soon as the announcement comes on that says "Be courteous and zip your lips" or something to that effect.

And then, to make it even worse, I could hear one person in each group having to explain the dialogue (some of which was racy) and repeat lines to the men in the group every so often.

Maybe I need to push back to the 2:30pm showings?