Last week, my wife and I saw the Disney-masturbates-to-itself film Saving Mr. Banks. It was a sweet, heartwarming tale about how alcoholism, daddy-issues and mental illness led to the creation of the timeless classic Mary Poppins.
Seated in the middle of the back row of the theater was a 30-something white guy who was clearly high as a kite on meth (or similar). For the first ten minutes of the movie, this guy was loudly humming along to the movie’s score. He also reacted out-loud to everything that happened. Whenever the Emma Thompson character would say something obnoxious (which she does throughout), the meth guy would shout, “You stupid bitch!” And, worse, he was rhythmically stomping his foot on the floor.
A family of four — husband, wife and two teen-aged daughters — were seated immediately in front of this goon, and after everyone in the theater had taken a turn asking the guy to quiet down, the dad leaped out of his seat and shouted at the guy, “Shut the fuck up!” I had a clear view of everything and, yeah, I thought there was going to be a brawl.
Long story short, theater security entered and asked the man to calm down or be ejected. Gratefully, he stopped what he was doing, moved to the end of his row, and that was that. Back to the, you know, Disney movie.
Now that I think about it, maybe someone should’ve shot the meth-head. You know, with a concealed firearm.
No? Too much?
Well that’s what I learned from the internet yesterday after news broke of a shooting at movie theater in Tampa where a retired cop, 71-year-old Curtis Reeves, shot a husband and wife for texting during the movie. The husband, 43-year-old Chad Oulson, died from the gunfire.
But in various comment threads, missing was the barrage of comments calling for more gun control measures or a repeal of Florida’s infamous “Stand Your Ground” law. Instead, I read comment after comment in which the victims were blamed for the shooting. Because they were committing the obviously death-worthy trespass of texting in a movie theater… [CONTINUE READING]