If you talk in films you are the Devil’s reject

Talking in films? Worse than heckling in funerals…

by Deborah Taylor

Much has been said about the decay of society. No one seems to care about anyone else any more, with their iPods and mobile phones and bad attitudes and big cars. The World today has become an unfriendly place, full of drugs, swearing and bad manners. It’s a terrible, terrible place. It must be, Gwyneth Paltrow said as much in some tawdry magazine. Madonna agreed with her too. Britain is a cesspit, they say.

Nowhere is this moral decline more evident than in your local multiplex. Not the films they show, though you could, if you were bored enough, make an argument that someone eating nasal ejaculate from an unfortunate woman born in Chernobyl in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalo demonstrates how depraved we have become. In all honesty, it’s more a shining example that I’ve seen more and better culture growing on a six month old cup of coffee than anything we have in this country.

The films are not, directly, the problem here. It’s the noisy shits who go and watch them that are. For years, cinemas have been filled with people who will happily pay good money to ruin the whole thing for everyone else. Even though you may have a television at home with a bigger screen than the one in the cinema, this still isn’t your living room. So, as soon as the lights go down and the half hour of car adverts have finished, you stop talking. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp.

Whilst watching the brain numbingly dull Devil’s Rejects, there were a couple sat a few seats away, who held a conversation throughout the entire film. Though, maybe I was just jealous that they were at least getting some enjoyment out of their evening. Even then, talking in the cinema is an unforgivable crime.

If you want to have a chat with your friends, then God has given you marvellous places in which to do this. They are called pubs. There you can talk to your heart’s content and no one will be trying to strangle you with a bendy straw or force popcorn into your nostrils in the hope you’ll get the hint. I’ve often wanted cinemas to show a simple message before every screening. Nothing fancy, just in white letters that ill the whole wide-screen with a brief command. SHUT THE F*CK UP.

Of course, if the bastards aren’t talking to the person next to them (have they never heard of whispering?) then they’re answering their mobiles phones. Or texting someone. Or, as I saw very recently, taking photos of each other, whilst sat in the cinema. (With flashes.) Much as I like to think that people are recording the important moments of their lives, a trip to the cinema isn’t one I’d consider of immortalising on a Sim card.

How important do these sad-sacks really think they are that they cannot switch off their mobile phones for a couple of hours? For f*ck’s sake, it’s not like of the pre-pubescent runts are doctors or anything, who might have to go rushing off to perform an emergency tracheotomy on a small baby in Carlisle.

Each and every mobile phone has a screen that is roughly a thousand times brighter than the cinema screen. Each one illuminates its owner’s gormless, curmudgeonly face as it stares intently into it, as though it was going to reveal the secret of life or next Saturday’s lottery results. It doesn’t. It tells you that some vapid excuse for a human being has texted an even more vacuous cretin who hasn’t the common decency to switch off their phone.

You may also be aware of the phrase justified homicide. That phrase was created for people who answer their mobile phones in cinemas. Please remember this.

So, I have to agree with Gwyneth and Madge on this one. The country is going to the dogs. Mind you, it’s still better than any of their films…