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Adult moviegoers are the problem

From: SJ Dunlop, Reston, VA

In response to your recent posting about theater-going pet peeves, you quote a suggestion to "attend the matinees. If it is not a children's movie... the behavior of the audience is much better." Sorry. I'm here to testify that won't work either. Now that my husband and I are both retired, we now see almost everything at afternoon showings. It's not the kids who are driving us nuts, it's the folks our age or older who bubble and squeak aloud to each other throughout entire movies.

At ALL of the last five or six new releases we have seen at lightly attended weekday showings -- and we're talking about movies aimed at grown-ups like "The Three Burials" -- it's been the adult chatterers who have gotten on my proverbial last nerve. I'm tempted to try something desperate like making up my own flyers to hand out in movies to the effect that "You are not at home in your own living room. This is a Non-Talking Performance and yes, that means you." We are seriously talking about giving up on theater-going and just waiting for the videos like we used to do when we are working. Why won't theater owners get serious about this problem? Those silly little pre-show pleadings on the screen obviously don't help.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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