When it comes to movies, for 364 days a year I’m in your corner, rewarding merit, providing context and calling out cynicism, hypocrisy and pretentiousness to the best of my critical abilities.
Today? We need to talk.
(Mikey Burton/ For The Washington Post ) - New rules for the modern film-goer — Rule No. 1:Turn off your phone. That means texting, too. Seriously.
To quote the musical “Nine,” the cinema today is in a crisis — and “Nine” itself notwithstanding, the worst isn’t necessarily always on or behind the screen. In fact, a distressing proportion of it is coming from an audience in apparent need of tutoring, not only in how to behave in a movie theater, but in managing its own aesthetic expectations.
It’s hard to believe that we still have to go over the no-texting rule, but device addiction has only worsened in recent years, making it all but impossible to watch a movie without something beeping, blinking or lighting up. As the notorious Alamo texter shouted, welcome to the Maglited States of America, baby.
Andrew Mencher, director of programming and operations at the Avalon Theatre, has declared tactical defeat in the battle against texting. Zero-tolerance, he says, is no longer an option. “Our feeling is that to try to accost somebody in the middle of a show is more of a distraction than it is to hope that whatever they’re doing is going to be brief,” he says. “It’s frustrating, but unfortunately it’s probably the way of the world right now.”
Far more troubling for Mencher and other presenters is a newly aggressive stance that leads filmgoers to blame the theater — and, yes, their local critic — when a movie doesn’t live up to the hype, or when they simply don’t like it. New technology has helped condition filmgoers to see movies how, where and when they want. But that user-centric ethos seems to be curdling into the irrational expectation that the movies will be what they want.
Based on interviews with local exhibitors, Washington filmgoers are mostly exempt from this rant (and those who aren’t . . . you know who you are). Mencher admits that, once in a while, his regular patrons will express dissatisfaction at something he’s shown (least popular in recent years: “Borat”). In those cases, he’s given his managers discretion to hand out movie passes, to better to keep faith with the Avalon’s loyal guests.
Things are also pretty quiet over at Landmark’s E Street Cinema, although they have put up a preemptive sign warning patrons that “The Artist” is indeed silent. (The last time they went to such measures was with the 2010 movie “127 Hours,” which, they warned viewers, contained a potentially troubling sequence of a man amputating his own arm.) “Not that we’ve had problems,” says Landmark publicist Stephanie Kagan, before quietly mentioning that a few viewers complained about the nudity in “The Iron Lady” — nudity that amounts to a brief shot of a topless woman in a newsreel. To which one can only respond: Really?
Whether it’s the metaphysical meanderings of “The Tree of Life,” or a relatively tame, Margaret Thatcher biopic, a small but vocal segment of the filmgoing public — even in cine-sophisticated Washington — won’t be happy unless a movie conforms flawlessly to their unique, preconceived notions of what that movie was supposed to be — either in their heads or based on reviews they’ve confused with beat-by-beat synopses.
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