by Benn Ray
I call it "The Curse of The Twilight Movies".
When I have an outing of friends seeing the Twilight movies that I am in anyway involved with, I end up in a fight. I'm not sure why, but I blame the daywalkers. They know what I've been saying about their sparkly asses.
A few years back, a group of friends went to see the first Twilight movie in the theater, and I waited for them to get out of the movie at local dive bar, and it ended up in a barfight between me and some drunk anarcho-crust punk douche who was being obnoxious. I was being cheered on by friends made up of local reality tv show stars, writers and filmmakers and ... well, buy me a beer and I'll tell you that story.
I then skipped any involvement with the next couple of movies. I didn't meet up with folks, I didn't even so much as stream New Moon or Eclipse. Mostly, I just didn't care. But the vood00 was so strong after the first Twilight movie, I suspected something was up.
So in December of 2011, when I was dragged to the Landmark Theatres in to the Inner Harbor East, Baltimore to see The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, in the back of my mind I wondered I was instore for an incident.
Having not seen the previous two films, I didn't really know what was going on, but I knew how messed up the final book was and I was interested in seeing how many compromises they'd have to make in order to sell it as a movie to their audience.
We got there early, and while we waited for friends we took to the bar, my favorite element of this particular movie theater. Before the movie even started I'd had 2 beers and a shot and was taking another beer back to my seat with me.
So, the lights go down, the movie starts and we quickly realize we have a problem: we had a talker in the theater.
This was not my movie, I had zero investment in this experience, so I didn't really care. But when I noticed the women in the aisle across from me shushing the talker who was evidently trying to impress his lady friend with his wit (and was ignoring the shushing), I realized the situation wasn't just going to resolve itself - it was going to escalate.
"But this is the Landmark, surely they have ushers come through and check in on things," I thought. I figured sooner or later a Landmark employee would ask the dude to be quiet. But it didn't happen.
After awhile of hit and mostly-miss commentary from the talker, I asked the women I was with if they'd like me to get an usher. "Yes," I was told, "please get an usher."
So I went out to the front of the screening room we were in, but the hallway was completely empty. I went to the lobby, and the lobby was completely empty. Finally, I walked up to the bar and asked the bartender where the ushers were because we were having a problem person in the theater.
He directed me outside, where, in front of the theater, all the Landmark employees seemed to be hanging out.
So I explained the situation, and I figured an usher would go back, listen in and then say something to the guy, the guy would respect the theater authority and the threat of ejection and shut up and that would be that.
I went back to the bar and ordered another shot (my second), and then I headed back to the theater. That's when I noticed a small army of Landmark employees extracted the dude from the theater and were talking to him.
Quickly I realized I couldn't go back into the theater because the guy would see me, know it was me who ratted him out and that could create a conflict situation later. So I took the opportunity to go to the bathroom.
I came out of the bathroom and the ushers were still trying to explain why the talker should just shut the hell up in a movie theater. It dawns on me that at any point now, when I come back in the theater, he's going to notice me whether I wait it out or not, so I just go back in the theater and try to enjoy a few minutes of the movie without his jibberjab.
The talker comes back in shortly after, and within a few moments begins talking again.
"Christ, I give up," I think to myself. "This ain't even my movie." So I try to concentrate on the onscreen mess that passed for a film.
Finally, Twilight ends, the credits roll, the theater beings to empty and I notice it looks like my group is leaving the theater at the exact same time as the talker and his lady friend. My party seems completely oblvious to what I see as increasingly unavoidable.
I hang back and give the dude a few moments to leave the theater with his lady, and I see he is carrying with him what looks like a mostly empty pitcher of some kind of cocktail. Okay, so he's drunk. Noted.
He's hanging back too. He's waiting for me. One way in, one way out. And there he is in between me and the exit, so off I go to meet my destiny.
And as soon as I get near him he slurs, "Wait a minute, I want to talk to you. Why you have to get the theater people on me?" He's pushed me up against the hallway wall, and he's clearly in my personal space. He's also holding an empty pitcher in his hand. There's no way for me to turn my back on this and walk away without getting hit from behind.
Plus, I'm somewhat stunned that in his scenario, I'm the bad guy.
So I quickly intrude on his personal space, stand up straight to tower over him, put my hand on his shoulder and say, "Look dude, I really don't give a shit about this movie. I really don't. This wasn't my movie. But you were talking the whole time. It was distracting everyone. The ladies next to me were trying to get you to be quiet. You were annoying the women I'm with."
"I was just talking to my lady," he said.
"Yes," I said. And to everyone else in the theater." I'm talking fast now.
I find when you talk fast at drunk people, it usually confuses them. And depending on your tone, you can try to steer that confusion to a desired outcome.
"Now, you have a beautiful bass voice, I don't know if you know that, but there's no denying it. And when you talk, everyone in the theater, everyone, can hear you. Not just your lady. And that's what people were taking issue with. Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging you by the quality of your comments, some of them were spot on," and they were. "But most of them were just distracting for everyone else. And that was the issue."
Pushing me out of his personal space and back up against the wall again he said, "Well, all you had to do was tell me to be quiet."
Pushing back into his space again, I said, "We did tell you to be quiet. A lot of people told you to be quiet. That's what all that shushing was. Didn't you hear it?"
"Yeah. You were disrespecting me, so I had to talk more. I'm with my lady. You just need to come up and say, 'can you take it down a notch.'"
"That's what 'ssshhhh' means," I said, exasperated.
At this point one of the ushers are in between us, and I hear him say to Rachel, who's come back into the hallway, "Can you get him out of here?" She grabs my by my arm and starts dragging me out.
We exit the theater and stand out front on the sidewalk talking about what had just happened and the movie.
As I am about to suggest we move on because the talker I had just gotten into it with would be coming back out and it would probably be best if we weren't around exited the theater.
He gestured in my direction and mumbled something at me, so I stepped over to him again.
I've already had a lot of fun. At no time did I feel like I wasn't steering the situation, so I was going to steer a little bit more. I wanted a positive outcome, and frankly, I wanted to milk this situation for all the fun I could get.
I began quickly talking at the talker again, and I said, "Listen man, I really didn't intend to cause any trouble for you or your lady. I really didn't. Really, we just wanted to hear the movie we paid for without your commentary. That's not an unreasonable expectation on my part, so I'm sure you can see our point of view as well. So come on, let's hug this out, and we'll just go on and have great nights with our friends."
I outstretched my arms, and I could see a brief moment of confusion on his face before he conceded and we hugged manly hugs as the small army of ushers filed in behind us.
And that was it, we were off, they were off, and I wished him and his lady a great night.
A couple days later, I would run into one of the bartenders at the Landmark, and he would tell me the dude was shitfaced before he even came into the bar and ordered a pitcher of booze.
I can't stress this enough, but this was much more fun for me than sitting through that horrible piece of shit that was that Twilight movie.
So as long as the Landmark has talkers in their movies and doesn't really actively police their theaters, it'll be my go-to theater for shit movies I'm being dragged to by other folks. And there is one more Twilight movie coming .
At the very least, I'll be able to get into a fight to liven things up. Thanks Landmark!
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