Michael: Talking During a Movie

The tambourine trees
Clamor throughout the long night
Of blustery winds.

Friday, December 15, 2017

On Wednesday Kimme and I went on one of our rare social outings and attended the Spiritual Cinema. At the small gathering of about 15 people, held at a very cordial couple’s house in the beautiful rolling hills just south of Volcan, Kimme was the second youngest member of the audience at 48. There was also a 30 year old there. And, even at 59, I was on the younger end of the spectrum.

Given this small sampling, and also given the fact that many of these people were friends or long time acquaintances of each other, I don’t want to draw any hard and fast conclusions about old people talking to the screen or to each other during a showing, but what I witnessed does concern me.

It concerns me because I’ve always felt like a bit of an old style Andy Rooney type curmudgeon when it comes to talking while watching any type of program. (And I know the reference to Andy Rooney and even the use of the archaic term ‘curmudgeon’ only serves to reinforce what an old grump I’ve always been.).

Ironically, that’s why, starting in my late teens, I would often drive to L.A. from the O.C. to go to foreign films in the dinky screening rooms at the Beverly. These films were usually sparsely attended by well mannered older people. Please, lord, don’t tell me that’s changing.

Thankfully, I’m not at all concerned that I might make it a habit of talking back to fictional characters or commenting about them to other audience members. But I am afraid that I could get grumpy enough to shush people or even slap my forehead in disgust and shout out , “Damned you old buzzards,  can’t you at least stop your cackling until the show’s over?”