God Save The Queen (From Dentures On The Lam)

I went to see "The Queen" with Liz and Amanda yesterday in West Palm Beach. The movie was, not surprisingly, good. You should see it, etc. etc., but that is not what I will be discussing today.

I want to talk about the audience that was watching the movie. More specifically, I want to talk about the people sitting behind us. They were complete nightmares: a group of elderly people who insisted on talking throughout a great deal of the movie. Talking at full volume, and for extended periods of time. Exchanges such as this:

OLD MAN: "Who's that?"
OLD WOMAN: "I think that might be her husband."
OLD MAN: "WHAT??"
OLD WOMAN: "HER HUSBAND! IT'S HER HUSBAND!"
OLD MAN: "Whose husband?"

And so it continued. If you have seen the movie, you know that this is not a full-sensory-experience blockbuster: there are extended periods where there is no sound at all. No sound except the sound of the audience, that is. No sound but old people discussing who the guy SLEEPING IN THE QUEEN'S BED IS!!! "Oh, well, that's her pimp. He likes to get a piece of that red-hot action every once in a while."

Also, any time any of the characters insulted the queen, the woman would say, "YEAH!" Or, "THAT'S RIGHT!" Or, "SHE'S JUST JEALOUS OF DIANA!" Clearly the woman missed some of the point of the movie, which is not surprising, since she talked through the point of the movie. She was not bashful about expressing where her sympathies lie.

But if that were the worst crime committed, it would have been merely irritating. What thrust the entire thing into the realm of the absurd was when the woman's denture container fell out of her purse during a particularly important part, spilling her dentures on the floor. What followed was five minutes of them shouting at one another, rooting around behind us, trying to find her teeth. There was no effort to try to be quiet about it, there was no consideration for those of us whose teeth were not on the floor of the cinema.

And then, to top it all off, they clapped when the movie ended. Why did they do that? The same thing happened when I saw "Dreamgirls", and I was as puzzled then. Who were they clapping for? The projectionist? Because the picture was shaky for the entire duration, occasionally making me feel sea-sick. Were they clapping for themselves, for providing such a distracting floor show? I just don't know. Surely they recognize that Helen Mirren isn't actually in the theater, performing solely for our benefit. Good Lord, just imagine these people at a live performance!

It's bad enough when one has to contend with obnoxious teenagers making snide remarks throughout "Brokeback Mountain"; now the elderly have decided to get in on some of that irritant action. Is there no one left in the world that recognizes that seeing a movie in a theater is not the same thing as watching it in the privacy of your own home? Has this society been completely overrun with assholes?

I ask that question rhetorically, by the way.