Manners in a movie theater

Excerpts from an excellent essay by Washington Post movie critic Ann Hornaday:

...the cinema today is in a crisis... a distressing proportion of it is coming from an audience in apparent need of tutoring, not only in how to behave in a movie theater, but in managing its own aesthetic expectations...

Far more troubling for Mencher and other presenters is a newly aggressive stance that leads filmgoers to blame the theater — and, yes, their local critic — when a movie doesn’t live up to the hype, or when they simply don’t like it. New technology has helped condition filmgoers to see movies how, where and when they want. But that user-centric ethos seems to be curdling into the irrational expectation that the movies will be what they want...

Whether it’s the metaphysical meanderings of “The Tree of Life,” or a relatively tame, Margaret Thatcher biopic, a small but vocal segment of the filmgoing public... won’t be happy unless a movie conforms flawlessly to their unique, preconceived notions of what that movie was supposed to be...

Michael Kyrioglou, director of the Washington D.C. Film Society, agrees that manners have declined in recent years. Simultaneously, he says, unrealistic expectations have risen, creating a dynamic more akin to demanding consumers rather than adventurous connoisseurs. He attributes the shift not just to those ever-present “tools of disruption” but to a mainstream entertainment culture that has catered increasingly to pre-sold markets and niche demographics...