Some Rants from Movie Grouch

Occasionally, Old Grouch receives e-mail rants from Movie Grouch. With MG's permission, these are hereby posted for One And All to see, with swearing omitted.

(from April 2007)
I am still appalled from last night at MOMA, when I attended two Rainer Werner Fassbinder movies. Now, I know this is nothing on the order of the war in Iraq, or the grief of Virginia Tech families, but it is yet more evidence of the decline and fall of what we used to call Western Civilization. To emphasize: This is the Museum of Modern Art, with one of the most sophisticated film programs and audiences in the country, not some Cine 22 in the suburbs showing Lindsay Lohan movies. Ready? The man three seats to my right fell asleep immediately and began snoring, but only intermittently, so each time I was on the verge of tapping him, he would stop snoring. The woman behind me on the left was snacking or eating dinner and kept crinkling paper slowly and maddeningly. Two rows in front of me a young woman kept turning on her cellphone or Blackberry to check whatever, with the blue light painfully obvious, and she was either answering or reading, because she didn't turn it off. Ahead on the left, another young person kept turning her cellphone on and off, but finally another furious patron told her to stop it. I am not even including a couple of cellphones going off during the film, despite warnings on the screen that food, drink and cellphone use were not allowed. I could not simultaneously attack three different people for bad manners without seeming like a lunatic, so I just stewed in my own anger and reported the incidents to the House Manager at the end. He said that audience rudeness had been getting worse and worse and it was difficult to know what to do about it, especially cellphones and snacks. During the weekend showing of "Berlin Alexanderplatz," some a--hole in front of me actually brought his laptop into the cinema and worked away on something, with the bright light shining in my face, but at least he had the courtesy to turn it off when the house lights dimmed. And both the New York Film Society and the Film Forum wonder why their earned income has been nose-diving: Yes, it's because of DVDs and computers, but it also has to do with how unpleasant it has become to attend almost any event at any cinema. And this is NYC: Can you imagine if we were in Springfield, Missouri?! I am unable to remember the last time I sat in a cinema in absolute uninterrupted silence with the rest of the audience.

And here's a very recent e-mail from Movie Grouch, just received this past week:

Subject: Well, It Was Bound to Happen!

Today I asked our young female intern who was going to the local post office to get me a sheet of Bette Davis stamps, and she ACTUALLY ASKED ME WHO BETTE DAVIS WAS!! I explained but my heart wasn't in it.