Cinema bastards

Today I will be mostly firing up my fires of fiery ire in relation to people who go to cinemas and ruin the experience for everyone else by having manners more at home in a farmyard than a movie theatre.

I'm not happy. I go the cinema very regularly and every time I go - and I mean every time, no messing - there's a bunch of knuckle-heads somewhere in the theatre laughing, talking, throwing food, chatting on their mobiles, kicking the back of my chair or going in and out to the toilet so often I wonder have they got prostate problems. Even the girls. They're always there, just the numbers of them vary. And they're not always teenagers either.

I went to see Death at a Funeral there last week and would have thoroughly enjoyed it but for the crew of thundering gobshites that decided to join me and natter their way through the entire film. I could see why they were there; the posters said it was a comedy so these neanderthals all came in expecting Superbad and fart gags and when they hadn't all seen a pair of tits by 15 minutes in they were getting decidedly edgy.

Not that it bothered the three girls in the corner right behind me who giggled and cackled maniacally at absolutely everything that happened - you know, laugh out loud, kick your heels up moments like the opening credits and the bit where the Irish Film Board classification rating appears. All of them were in the usual seating position as well - slumped down, with their feet perched on the back of the chair in front, jigging away and annoying the screaming bejasus out of the entire row. Part of me wished I had my cat o'nine tails so I could exact stinging retribution by flaying them to bloody ribbons but alas, I had left it in my other trousers and had to make do with glowering over at them instead. Which caused them to hyperventilate even further.

Eventually the film picked up pace though and themes like drugs, unrequited boners, gay dwarfs and old men shitting themselves began to emerge. This had a calming, sedative effect on the gallery of chattering monkeys, lulling them into gormless grins of contentment at finally seeing something on screen they could relate to. The appreciation was evident as most of them would gurn at intervals and nudge the simpering idiot beside them, at which stage both would point at the screen and go "uh huh huh huh."

It didn't last however, and eventually the movie veered towards 'boring' topics like sibling rivalry, property and other, 'adulty and mature people's lifey' things. The attention span of the skangers and their burds began to wane dangerously and soon we were back to conversations being held across the aisles, endless rustling, beeping mobiles and "argh fuck dis shoigh, I'm goin. Yiz comin?"

Meanwhile, the laughing gas crew to my rear (I had that typed before copping the double entendre. I'm leaving it in) were by then almost in need of resuscitation. At one stage someone turned around in frustration and said "er, it's not a funny bit yet girls" and this sent them into such a paroxysm of hysterics I nearly called an ambulance. Except of course, I had my phone off.

It was still a good movie overall but I'd have enjoyed it even more if I wasn't straining my ears to hear over the racket caused by people who should go to a pub and watch the telly if they want to act the eejit.

The cinema owners of course were too busy counting the profits from 600% markups on bags of popcorn to give a damn. It's €20 just for two tickets for me and Miaow Cow to go to the flicks and with these sort of ill-reared wankers steadfastly taking over unchecked, I'll be sticking to DVDs at home before too long.