Dark Knight and Hellboy 2 Reviews Are On Their Way...

I just got out of a double-feature, movie-marathon session where I saw both movies today.

I also just found out - about ten minutes ago - that one of my dearest and oldest friends, Daniel, just died.

I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not in much mood to talk movies right now. I'll write the reviews later, I promise.

For now though - because I think this would amuse Daniel given how we met through Rocky Horror Picture Show and because he loved George Carlin and any rants about people being stupid - here's a quick list of three socially unacceptable behaviors I'd like to see outlawed at movie theaters.

1. Attempting To Meet New People - There are many good reasons to go to the movie theater, but generally, making new friends is not one of them. I'm at a theater, I'm in the dark, I'm sitting on the back row in the corner, I want to be left alone to focus on the film. I do not want some frat boy with his beer pitcher plopping down next to me, trying to get my opinions on how sacrilegious it is that they are making another Terminator movie without Ah-nold.

2. Inconsiderate Parents- I'll admit this complaint is nothing new, but I found a new sub-strata in this ancient rock today. There have always been parents who refused to take their crying babies, bratty toddlers and inquisitive kindergartners into the lobby when they got noisy. Until today, though, I had never seen a parent who refused to take a child who was scared by a movie home. This one kid behind me was crying - scared, and rightly so, by the antics of The Joker. But this parent... they shhhhed the kid and told them to quit being a wimp.

3. People Who Try To Teach Narrative Awareness To Their Kids At The Theater- For those of you who don't know, Narrative Awareness is the technical term for knowing how a story works. It's knowing cause and effect, how actions lead to reactions and basically being able to have an attention span greater than that of your average summer blockbuster audience. It is one of the six key skills that make up literacy. It is also something that can be easily taught by asking a child questions as you read them a story or watch a show together. It is a very good and wonderful thing to teach your children as early as possible. However, I would venture to say - as a trained professional librarian, mind you - that there are certain places it should probably not be attempted. One of them is a movie theater on opening weekend at a PG-13 movie! And it definitely should not be a movie where you describe the action with the words "So Joker blows up the police station because he's naughty..."