If only reality could be like this. I swear, I am THIS close to just getting a huge TV and never going to the theater again. But sadly I don’t entirely mean it because I still enjoy seeing films on a big screen. I went to see Brokeback Mountain last night and this comic represents a sampling of what I had to go through. Behind me were three girls giving running commentary during the entire movie. I did the head turning, the eye rolling and I think I even made eye contact one time to no avail.
It wasn’t even the typical heckling sort of person because I could tell they did actually really want to see the movie and sounded genuinely interested. It’s just that everything was stupid inane sort of talk like “Did you understand that?” “Heh, I stopped trying like an hour ago.” WTF??? I wish those seat ejectors in that Cingular ad actually existed. To my right I heard someone’s phone vibrating two times during the movie. Plus there was this beeping noise that didn’t quite sound like a cell phone, it sounded vaguely fire alarm-ish. Like maybe if a fire alarm was running out of batteries.
Then there was this guy to my right who halfway through the film unzipped his shoulder bag to get this piece of cake he had in some plastic deli container that he proceeded to eat with his fork. He seemed to enjoy it as evidenced by his breathing. The container was put back into his bag with a loud ZIP, no attempt made at all to be quiet. He also had a few moments of “Oh my god…” and during one sentence that didn’t seem to make much sense he had a very confused “WHAT?” He chatted a bit with his friend too.
Lastly there was this couple in front of me. The guy on the left was a heavy guy so he was leaning back so hard the seat was digging into my friend’s legs. His wife or girlfriend seemed to be either just dumb, had bad vision or a slow reader (Think Milhouse from Simpsons reading the silent film card “A chance for more mis-”). Because whenever something on screen needed to be read she instantly leaned towards him as he read it to her. Sometimes he’d put in his two cents if something seemed a little confusing “Oh, that’s what he’s thinking.”
Other thing was a more general audience vibe which I think would be unavoidable in any theater with an appreciable crowd. That being we all went into this movie knowing it’s about two cowboys who fall in love. Because of this knowledge people are looking for the first signs of the gay scenes or maybe innuendos when really they should just be digesting the film as it’s presented to them. People looking to pick up on innuendo or dialogues they think are funny just end up laughing or giggling at dialogues and scenes that aren’t meant to be funny at all but should be taken at face value. People can be so god damn immature.
Aside from that the movie was good.
I’d want to see it again without the running commentary. Like, maybe when I’m rich enough to buy out an entire theater. I did have a problem with Heath Ledger’s character’s speech patterns in that he mumbled almost everything. The character is supposed to be a man of few words but sometimes it was just indecipherable. The performances were good all around, I thought Jake Gyllenhaal might’ve been a bit too much at times, but that could just have been what his character was like. I thought the love story was very well done. I liked the understatement of things and how they slowly developed over time. There wasn’t that much dialogue in the beginning (except for the fargin’ girls behind me), but it wasn’t entirely necessary for the relationship to develop.
The main theme was also very good. One of those themes that when it kicks in it just works great. It’s actually the music in the beginning of the trailer for the film. Cinematography was also very good with some great wide expansive shots. In the beginning there are some really great cloudy sky shots.
I’d say this one is recommended, though not absolutely essential to see on the big screen.
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