Stop doing this in movie theaters immediately

An announcement by AMC Theatres caught a lot of people’s attention. We’ve always played a little game with movie theaters, where they tell us our movie starts at 7:00, but we knew from the movie trailers for upcoming releases that it didn’t start until maybe 7:10.

Over the years, those coming attractions periods got longer, and other product commercials were added in. Soon, we were pushing 20 minutes.

Now AMC has finally owned up to their scheduled time not being anywhere close to the actual start time of the film you’re paying to see, and that the period of that pre-game may go on as long as 25 minutes here on out.

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One, thanks for finally warning us about what we already knew. Two, this brings up an important question.

There’s always been this social compact among movie watchers in public theaters that you do not talk during the movie. But what about the gray area no one ever discusses?

That being…is it okay to talk during the movie trailers? Some of us find them no more important and just as annoying as the Pepsi ads on the big screen. But many others look forward to those coming attractions. I’ve known people who talk about the art involved in making a gripping trailer.

And they’re certainly important as a first peak on a big screen of something movie-goers are deciding whether they’ll see.

So is it really acceptable to talk over them?

I say shut your mouth. The moment that first movie trailer starts rolling, zip it.

Context clues? Ever notice the house lights in the theater will still be on during the first few product commercials but they go dark right as the first trailer is about to play. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that’s when you need to shut your mouth.

Sure maybe I don’t care about the new Lilo and Stitch movie but someone else does, and they don’t need to hear more of your droning on about whether to bring potato salad to your cousin’s house this weekend.

If we could all be on the same page with this it would settle a lot of anxiety. It’s not just about enjoying watching the trailers. When someone keeps talking into the third or fourth movie trailer you also naturally have that building inner tension of wondering if this is how they’ll behave when the actual film starts.

That brings about the debate of when and if to “shush” someone. Oh those can get ugly real fast. But you also can’t let a jerk ruin your night.

Once someone right behind was still talking 10 minutes into a movie and I turned and stared at them until they stopped.

“Can I help you?”

“Give me the $30 I paid to hear this movie if you’re not going to stop talking. Let’s go.”

They grumbled but they shut up. But then, of course, the tension is there for the next two hours.

So again, please folks, in the name of decency, when the lights go down that’s the time to shut up. Are you with me?