My biggest pet peeves about American moviegoers right now: Part II

Earlier this week I penned a post about my pet peeves when it comes to how people consume and talk about movies today -- and guess what? I have more.

Yes, yours truly is in a bit of a funk these days and feels the need to vent his frustration. Apologies in advance. Here's the thing -- very little can diminish my love of going to the movies or discussing them, although these three issues have frequently pushed me to the brink:

Talking during the movie

I have gotten to the point where there are certain local movie theaters I have straight up boycotted after obnoxious audience members nearly ruined an entire film for me. At one particular cinema I saw Flight, where people in the crowd literally shouted at Denzel Washington (who plays an alcoholic in the film) to not drink booze at different points in the film.

Apparently the audience really was infuriated that the movie wasn't a 15-minute reel of Denzel looking and acting awesome all the time. Years later, at the same theater, loud chatters disrupted my viewing of the quiet thriller The Gift, and even after moving seats, the irritation didn't stop.

I get talking during a horror film on a certain level. I often mutter "Mmm mm" or "don't go in there" out of sheer nervousness, and it helps me be less scared. I also don't mind a loud "Ohhhh!" when there is particularly vicious kill in a bombastic action movie.

If you want to talk during a Fast & Furious film, be my guest, it's not about the dialogue anyway.

But in New York City, for some reason, there is an insanely high number of people who view movies in a theater the same way they would if they were on their couch at home. The larger dilemma is that in our DVR/pause-friendly/Netflix-dominant culture -- people have shorter attention spans and so if a movie requires more than just passing attention folks get restless. And when they get restless they start offering unsolicited commentary,

The only cure? Going to the movies ahead of the tweens but after the old folks, since both audiences are guilty of this unpardonable crime. Basically 5-6pm showings are my sweet spot, still get out with enough time for dinner.

Unrealistic expectations

I've written about this previously -- people hold films up to too high a standard now. It's fascinating how nostalgia turns movies that were once reviled, or at least dismissed, into classics and everything new is compared to them unfavorably.

People forget that the second and third Indiana Jones adventures were anything but critical darlings. But when the fourth film came out it was declared an abomination. Now I get that it was a disappointment in a lot of ways, but what did you expect from that movie?

The Force Awakens is another classic example of this phenomenon. Now this is a film that seemed to please everyone, but as time has marched on you hear more and more griping about this scene or that scene. There are actually fans boys flipping out over the fact that Princess Leia hugs Rey in a crucial scene instead of Chewbacca. But then again, Chewbacca is always getting snubbed.

I know people who seem to never like anything and yet they keep going to the movies, I guess because they enjoy hate-watching things.

George Clooney in Tomorrowland

I remember in college a friend of mine was frustrated because they expected Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing to tell them what they should think about racism. True story.

Yes, nowadays trailers can often be misleading. A lot of people flock to films that look terrific but turn out to be mediocre -- I get that. But people need to chill in general.

Citing box office as an indicator of quality

This has metastasized into one of the worst things to happen to the movies. Back in the day, audiences got a sense of whether a film was a hit by long lines and word of mouth, but no one knew specific grosses of the movies.

For some reason that became a part of our culture over the last 25 years, so much so that a movie's opening weekend holds more sway over the minds of many potential ticket buyers than reviews do. It's like how political advertising seems to determine who gets elected to public office, instead of a candidate's actual position on the issues.

I can't tell you how many times people have tried to defend terrible movies to me (including Tyler Perry's oeuvre) on the basis that they make a lot of money. Bad movies have always found an audience, so that is nothing new. An argument could be made that most movies aren't particularly good -- out of the hundreds released every year, probably 40 could be considered good to great.

And yet cash rules everything around me. And with each breathless report about another record breaking weekend for the latest superhero blockbuster I fear that my kind of moviegoer is moving out. Even more disappointing is that films are rarely given the breathing room to catch on and build an audience.

Take Tomorrowland, a very expensive and risky venture from Disney that will go down as a costly flop. It did decent at the box office, but never recovered from its disappointing opening weekend, which was covered exhaustively in the press. Was it a perfect movie? No. But it deserved a better fate than that.

So do the movies.