Today’s post is just for fun. This has nothing to do with self-esteem, body image, or health at every size. It has to do with how I FREAKING HATE when people text in the theater. There is a local group of theaters in Austin called “Alamo Drafthouse”. In addition to showing new releases and serving food and alcohol they do all kinds of cool kitschy things. For example, they do a Lord of the Rings butt-numb-a-thon wherein they play all of them in a row and serve all the hobbit meals. They do Spaghetti Westerns with all you can eat spaghetti. They are just a cool place and what makes them cooler is that they also have a very strict no talking or texting during the movie policy. They do a whole PSA about it before every movie. Their most recent one was created using a voicemail from a customer who got thrown out for texting. It makes me so happy, I’m sharing it with you all. They are playing this before all of their R rated movies this weekend. Just another reason that I love Austin. (Just for the record, I am not affiliated with Alamo in any way, except that I like going to the movies there!)
Possibly NSFW due to language:
If you want to read more about it, here is the post in their blog.
Dances With Fat 
Oh man was she using to get to her seat or text!
I have just this week endured the same thing together with talking, getting up and wandering around during the movie and exiting and re entering the theater multiple times while the movie is on. Will now never go during the weekend or holidays or anytime young people go.
Its another reason why I do not go to concerts in sporting arenas and such anymore because of all the talking, crowd movements and bloody mobile phones they are not in the living room.
Just for the record, there’s no way that she was just using it to get to her seat. They warn you before they kick you out so she would have had to do it repeatedly. Also, by the sound of her message she was a few drinks in to her Alamo experience 🙂
I almost always go to the latest movie possible so as to avid people with their ill-behaved kids (although I have encountered toddlers at midnight movies…) I just don’t understand where we lost our sense of what is appropriate behavior in public but I’m glad that some businesses still enforce basic manners.
~Ragen
Alamo – has an enforced no kids without parents and no kids under 6 at all* rule that is as enforced as the to talking or texting thing.
The layout is also good as there is wiggle room for all humans that the ‘cram as many seats in as possible multiplex theaters’ don’t have. Most humans would be hard pressed to kick the back of your seat, much less a still growing one.
* (other than baby Tuesdays where they even turn the too loud for little ears volume down) .
LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT! CIVILIZATION ENFORCED!!!!
We love our Alamo Drafthouse down here in San Antonio, too! You gotta love any business that protects its good customers from the lousy behavior of the few bad apples.
I hope the no talking is limited to no talking on cells, because with the way Hollywood has been lowering the volume on the dialog so that the explosions and music tracks are more impressive, it’s gotten to the point where my husband and I can’t make it through a movie (or heck, even a tv show) without him needing to ask me to repeat a line because it was so quiet he couldn’t quite hear it.
Although if I had my choice I’d take the texters over the people with kids any day… a lot easier to ignore a little square of light than it is to try to make out the super soft dialog while some kid is screaming, fidgeting, going “BORRRING… I wanna see more SPLOSIONS!!!!” every ten seconds, and kicking the back of your seat heh.
This is so hilarious. I just had to facebook this. Everyone knows you are not supposed to have your phone out while the movie is playing. Every theater in America shows the warnings. She sounds like a brat.
I love it!! Please please PLEASE can we have an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Albuquerque?? I promise, I’ll never go to the movies anywhere else again!!
I wish we had those up here. Not only for the policy, but for all the other cool things they do that you mentioned.
Our theater in our wee town could be cooler….I keep trying to talk them into doing a classic movie series. The last imaginative thing they did was in conjunction with the hotel next door (which is a 100 year old hotel with a mahogany lobby, etc)– when they showed Titanic you could get a ‘dinner and a movie’ ticket and eat at the hotel, and they served the same meal they served the night the Titanic sank.
Seriously, why can’t you text at a movie?! It’s noisefree. I’m seriously confused here and not just being difficult! lol
xo Susie
Hey Susie,
It’s because when you text the face of your phone lights up and interrupts the darkness in the movie theater which is distracting an annoying (at least to me and the people at Alamo Drafthouse)
~Ragen
I saw this originally when someone posted it on FB, but was at work so saw with the sound off. Even funnier to hear her voice. What a piece of work. Yes, texting in theaters is one of my major pet peeves–and yes, Susie, it’s like lighting up a flashlight in the middle of a dark theater and distracts everyone around you from the movie–but the other is people talking loudly, like normal conversational levels, in movies. From time to time, I will lean over and say something very quietly into the ear of my companion at a movie, but cannot imagine just carrying on a conversation throughout, which I have sat through several times now. Oy.
On another note, Alamo Drafthouse sounds like a fantastic place. In the SF east bay area there are theaters called the Parkway which are similar–food and drinks served during the films, and there are couches to sit on if you like. Wish we had something like that here in Santa Barbara!
So awesome. I love to see a business that enforces a little etiquette. And says flat out that NO, the customer is NOT always right! This chick should not have been using her phone even to find her seat, if it’s that dark it means the movie has started and no one wants to see that bright screen floating around in the dark when they’re trying to watch a movie. If she had just been patient and waited a minute for her eyes to adjust or a brighter lit scene onscreen, she wouldn’t have needed the phone. It’s called Consideration For Others, or The World Does Not Revolve Around Me. And as a former projectionist, I must mention that projectionists can see everything you’re doing in the theater! I caught a lot of people smoking in there…among other things. I vote for an Alamo drafthouse in my town too.
You’re going to a movie theater to watch a movie…why in God’s name do you feel you need to text while you’re there? I could see if the movie was bad or boring, but you do have the option to walk out, and not be a jerk to the others who are actually trying to see what’s on the screen. The theater enforces these rules for a reason. If you think you can’t abide by the rules, than stay home!