Talking movies

Do you go to the movies to enjoy conversations? Other people's conversations, that is.

It may seem odd to some but I don't. I've never understood why some people pay up to $32, or whatever the latest charge is, for Gold Class cinema seats so as to sit in the dark and have a loud conversation during a movie. I cringe when someone sitting near me continues a conversation when the lights have gone dark and the trailers for forthcoming attractions have commenced but I'll put up with it on the assumption they will stop when the main feature commences.

On one occasion, before the commencement of the movie Knowing, a young patron asked his companion what that movie was about to which his friend started a complete minute by minute rundown of the story until I interrupted him and insisted he cease his spoiling conversation.

The other day two elderly ladies sat to my left in a packed cinema prior to State of Play and engaged in a lengthy conversation about their friends, shopping and other dramas of concern to them but of no interest to the rest of us. When the trailers started their conversation turned to a commentary of those movies and their stars.

Then came the Universal logo signalling the commencement of State of Play. To my relief their conversation died away and for the next hour we were able to focus on the film but after that point as the movie suspense started to build these two women recommenced their conversation as they anticipated each new twist in the story. "Watch out, he's going to be shot!" one surmised. "Whose wife is she again?" queried the other. And so it continued to the very end. In fact even the end credits rated all sorts of commentary with this pair.

I've never been slow in the past to tell other patrons to keep quiet and on several occasions have even more loudly than the offending talkers called out "I haven't spent $15 to listen to you two talking so please keep quiet".

I said nothing to the two ladies. I suspect there was a touch of early dementia somewhere in the mix and that any complaint would have proved useless. Others in the auditorium may have thought the same because although they turned and glowered at the women no one else spoke up either.