I was just gonna let this go without making a comment until I saw some people leaving our local theater and the screaming that was going on.
I had went to see Freddy vs Jason and much to my surprise there was a young woman and a baby , about a year old if that, there to watch the movie. This baby was crying throughout the movie. Whether it was a tired cry or a hungry cry or a cry of terror cause of what the young child was watching or able to see was not the point. The point was the child that young should not have been in the movies in the first place let alone at a movie like that. This woman was asked several times to take the child out to stop crying and she refused. She said she paid to see the movie and that was exactly what she was doing whether anyone liked it or not.
Today however was a different story. I had stopped to pick up something toi eat cause it was way to hot to cook. When out the exit door came a woman and 6 kids all between the ages of at least 2 and 6. I mean the oldest did not seem older than my 6 year old. They were screaming and crying about the movie. I mean they were just scared I think. This woman was like you just shut up it was only a movie and now it is over so shut up. I just wanted to go over and knock some sense into her head. I thought it was wrong but maybe I am just over-reacting,
I guess maybe it would have been different if it had been a children's movie.
I agree that kids below age 10 should NOT be taken to a movie especially if it's anything other than G rated.
I've only reacted negatively once to such a thing and that was when I went to see "John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars" with a friend.
Some woman had brought a newborn into the theater.
The baby & it's mother, seated in one of the front rows was quiet through about half of it...then it started to wail and I mean LOUD!!
From the sound of it I would guess that it's face had turned red from screaming so hard.
It probably s**t itself from the strain.
After about 10 minutes of suffering it's cries...I, who was in the back row cupped my hands to my mouth and yelled at the top of my lungs, "SHUT THAT f**kING KID UP NOW OR TAKE HIM OUT!!!!!"
I remember seeing several people in front of me turn their heads back to look at me.
I remember glaring at them not knowing if they were angry with me or thankful that I had raised my voice.
She got up, left and did not return.
I felt a little guilty after I did that but then I reasoned that I did ALL of the audience a favor.
I myself have no children and if there's one thing that will drive me insane...it's the incessant bawling of a kid. I absolutely DO NOT have the patience for it.
When I do eventually have a kid I'll have to learn to live with it...until that time comes....NO WAY!
It is beyond me as to what would possess a woman to bring a small child into a theater when she knows damn well that the possibillity exists that the kid will start screaming.
Get a f**king babysitter I say!
Post Edited (08-21-03 01:35)
Maybe there should have a room for the people with babies like some churches have.
I think kids should only be taken to see a movie like that (gory, scary, PG-13 or R) if they've SEEN movies like that. I remember being 7 and renting ALIEN and ALIENS every 3 weeks because I loved them and the gore. I remember not being scared of Freddy or Jason (yet I was of Chucky, because my sister gave me a Cabbage Patch Kid doll), not scared of zombies (even as a tyke I thought zombies were cool), and not caring about decapitation or the spilling of entrails. And you know what? My parents didn't care either. They took me to see JUDGE DREDD, SPEED, SCREAM, etc.
Your first mistake was going to see "Freddy vs Jason" tsk tsk tsk. I mean, come on! At least the crying baby put a little life into a film that should've been shelved long before production.
Complain to the manager.
We came very close to doing this when my parents and I saw SCREAM, luckily, the mother finally got some sense and took the kid outside--though I think she came close to fighting with another audience member who told her to "Take the baby outside" while she was walking up the aisle. "Why don't you shut your mouth!"
This happened another time at JASON GOES TO HELL, surprisingly enough, though this time the kid was fairly quiet---probably too young to be able to really watch the movie.
BTW, I think some theaters do have "baby rooms...."
back in college I saw Jason Goes to Hell and I saw a mother with her kid (couldn't have been more than 6-7) who came out of that theater looking like he was in a coma.
This is not limited to the "normal" world, it seems. I used to work in human services and one of my coworkers offered to take 3-4 of our kids (special needs) to the movies. I thought this was a fine idea, yet when they came back, I had one kid who refused to get out of the car, had massive behavior problems that night, etc.
Turns out the movie they saw was ANACONDA. Why they chose this one, I'll never know...
There are 3 places where babies do not belong:
* Movie theaters
* Airplanes
* Churches
Yeah, the baby should not have been there. But I can feel for the woman who wants to get out of the house but can't because she has a small child. I saw a news report of a theater in New York that has a special showing of some movies Just for people who have babies or small preschool age children. The showing is usually Tuesday Morning, a normally dead time for the theater. It has now become one of the best ideas, not just for people with young kids, but for the movie theater too.
(Some of the rated G Disney Movies scare my 3 year old.)
Back before I had my own kids, when I would hear someone else child crying ot making noise or something I would wish the parent would do something to quiet the child.
Now that we have our own chilrden, when I hear someone else's child making noise, I'm just glad it's not one of mine...and ignore it.
If they can't afford to hire a sitter, they probably can't afford to be going out to the movies anyway. I see no reason why everyone else has to have their moviegoing experience ruined because of a few inconsiderate people.
That "special baby showing" is a good idea, though.
I've come to the conclusion that people with small kids have simply gotten used to the racket to the point where they're completely oblivious to the fact that it might be bothering other people. Some of them also get pretty cranky about the idea that there are places and activities that aren't suitable for kids.
I used to be one of the organizers of a local outdoor dance. Live band, huge beer garden and about 2,000 people. We provided whatever family activities we could, but you would not believe the number of people who b***hed because they couldn't bring their children into the beer garden. We're talking about 10,000 square feet of fenced-in blacktop, packed with drinking, smoking, swearing, rowdy people. Beer everywhere. These people didn't like having to choose between the family activities and the p**s-up, and felt that it was all right for their kids to sit in the middle of this while they had a few. It wasn't even our rule. The liquor licence didn't allow kids, but you couldn't tell them that.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic.
My worst experience with a noisy kid in a theatre was sitting through the first Charlies Angels movie next to a family with a son who was surely old enough to know the difference between a theatre and his own living room. Spent a good part of the movie talking loudly: "Here comes the part that was in the commercial! Did you see it? Mom! Did you see it?" At least he was old enough to understand the words "be quiet," if his idiot parents had ever bothered to say them. Babies, on the other hand, simply don't belong in movie theatres. They get nothing out of the experience, and they disturb a lot of people who've paid to be there and deserve some silence.
Maybe I'm fussy. I mean, I get p**sed off when people talk during the trailers. I arrive at the last minute to ensure that a noisy group doesn't sit down near me at the last minute. I only go to showings that will be more sparsely attended and sit in the middle of the biggest open space I can find.
Still, I'm not asking anybody to show me any more courtesy than I show them.
By the way, I do think the special showing for moms with kids is a great idea.
My most recent experience involving a noisy family was a mother and her pre-teen daughter in Seabiscuit. Apparently the woman felt the need to explain everything about it to her kid who was old enough to go home and read the stinking book.
I had to sit next to these 2 during a nearly 3 hour movie listening to, "those are wild horses, he's going to round them up", etc.
I had no problem with the kid it was the mother I wanted to smack.
People seem to forget that although they paid $8 for a movie, everybody else in there did too. They think they are at home and can have discussions, make comments to the screen and even talk on their cell phones with no regards for anyone else. It's just plain rude behavior and it's what keeps me home most times waiting for the dvd to come out!
Someone should have pointed out that they, too, paid to see the movie, not listen to her kid scream and that she was being rude.
You can't really get mad at the children when it's actually the adults who have the problem. It's pathetic how many people lack common courtesy these days. I feel sorry for those children but mostly I feel sorry for people like us because those children are not going to know any better and will act like that when they grow up and teach their children that same behavior. We're screwed.
To be fair, though, I've had just as many problems with noisy senior citizens at the movies as I have with noisy infants. I'd rather sit in front of a bunch of teenagers any day than I would a bunch of senior citiziens...they talk all the way through any movie, asking questions like "What happened?" and "Who is that?"
I've seen some that were so bad that teenagers would move to another part of the theater so THEY could enjoy the movie in relative peace!
If you think thats bad,I went with a friend back in December to see The Two Towers.All she did was yak here and there about certain parts in the movie.She even had the nerve to cut one,and try to blame someone else.I wanted to smack her one for that crap.She's 24, she should no better.I swear I could feel angry eyes glaring at us.An adult can sometimes be worse than a kid.
If you think thats bad,I went with a friend back in December to see The Two Towers.All she did was yak here and there about certain parts in the movie.She even had the nerve to cut one,and try to blame someone else.I wanted to smack her one for that crap.She's 24, she should know better.I swear I could feel angry eyes glaring at us.An adult can sometimes be worse than a kid.
I guess I'm lucky. The theater I attend has a Baby Room, and the staff will not allow families with babies to sit in the main theater with the other paying customers. While only the mother and baby usually end up in The Pit... err, I mean "Baby Room"... the entire family is allowed to stay together there to watch the film.
BTW, I don't have children. The wife and I love having a place where we can attend the latest releases, and watch said movie in Peace and Quiet. People with young children simply need to understand that while their lives may revolve around their crumb-cruncher, the rest of the world couldn't care less about the little screaming machine.
That's nothing. How about a whole family. Picture it, two unruly 4 and 7 year olds crying and screaming. Then have the guardian/mother/father/both try to scream over their kids screaming just to tell them to shut up. Wash, rinse, repeat throughout the movie.
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Bulls**t, I still can't hear you sound off like you got a pair.
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I'm sorry, but I don't agree. If my parents had subcribed to that I would have missed a lot of movies in the theater that I have great memories of - the original cut of E.T., Amy (w/ Jenny Agutter), Empire Strikes Back, Return Of The Jedi, Never Cry Wolf, Great Muppet Caper, Muppets Take Manhattan, just to name a few.