My goodness, are moviegoing teenagers annoying.

Where: Capitol 6 in Victoria
When: 6:30pm for the overly talky, overwritten film "P.S. I Love You" (**/****)

So when teenagers arrive late to a busy movie and can't find a seat, what do they do? Why, they sit on the floor of course! Oh, and right next to me. And then, of course, proceed to text on their cell phone, make ignorant and annoying comments throughout and be incredibly oblivious to anything that is occurring on screen.

In the film "P.S. I Love You", we follow the exploits of a woman (Hilary Swank) who has a boyfriend (Gerard Butler) who has a brain tumour and dies, but has written a series of letters to Swank's character pre-death. The death happens off screen and we visit his character through flashbacks which are a part of Hilary Swank's imagination. So the first time this happens, one of the idiot teenagers goes:

"So is like, the guy alive again or something? I don't get it."

The reason this was asked was because they weren't paying attention. They were fiddling around, focusing more on their overpriced popcorn and, oh yeah, sitting on the freaking FLOOR, blocking the aisle for anyone that wanted to get by.

Part of me wanted to do something about this, but since the film was not that good and I didn't feel like picking a fight with teenagers, I instead just watched them out of complete curiosity and wondered if the surrounding crowd would do anything about it. The fact they were sitting IN the aisle (which is illegal as it presents a fire hazard) really added to my curiosity. And the cost for all to get in was nearly $40 plus concessions, and they could sit on the floor at home with a DVD for significantly less than that.

And what did the surrounding moviegoers do? Nothing! A group of three ladies kept shooting them stares thinking that would quiet them down, but nothing happened. There was even a theater check by a staff member about half an hour in, and he did nothing about it.

This reminds me of a book I recently read, "Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler", where the writer went to various cinemas in New York TRYING to anger patrons in the cinema. He talked to himself, he chewed outside food loudly, he even sat directly behind a stranger in an empty cimema. And the patrons did next to nothing to stop him, besides a few requests to quiet down. I know that people by nature wish to avoid conflict, but this is also the reason why a lot of people like to stay home and watch the DVD.

Note: this post is in no way articulating that all teenagers are out of control in cinemas. Your mileage my vary, but this is certainly one of the annoying aspects of moviegoing. Seniors are bad, children are bad, and even those regular adults are awful too. Future articles on the Cinemaphile will be covering all the bases in the hopes that something can be done about it.

Jason