By Ace Hunter

“I want to be alone.” - Greta Garbo

I long for the communal movie theater experience of my youth. A time when audiences came together to view a film and treated it like a live event similar to a Broadway show, or an opera. They were caught up in the energy of what they were seeing, yet remained respectful of those strangers seated around them that were there for the same experience. When the lights went down, everything outside the film ceased to be, and several hundred viewers became one with the cinematic images.

We cheered the hero. We booed the villain. We laughed, we cried, we applauded when it was over, then we basked in the glow of the end credits.

The advent of VHS tapes, DVDs, big screen TVs, and internet services like Netflix have made movies more accessible in this day and age, but they cannot recreate the unique kinetic energy generated by an excited movie audience waiting to see their favorite characters upon the silver screen. I would easily give up these creature comforts and brave a crowded movie house again if audiences today weren’t so damn ignorant of everyone around them.

The public’s behavior in movie theaters has disintegrated to the point where I now regulate myself to going only when it’s the first or second matinee showing of a film. This is a self imposed exile of sorts for a Film Warrior, but one born out of necessity. The fewer people in the theater, the better. In a recent screening I was actually irritated that there were more than ten people there, including myself.

Of course, can you blame me for being irritated when one couple brought a newborn baby into a loud, R rated film with a fully loaded stroller, which they then proceeded to hoist up into the aisles? Or how about the dude that sat directly two rows in front of me and spent the entire running time texting on his brightly lit cell phone? These and other examples of blatant rude behavior are compounded tremendously during evening shows.

Watching a movie in a theater has become like a sporting event, and I don’t like sports.

Twenty years ago I abhorred the idea of watching a big summer movie (“Batman”, for example. FW Uncle Billy related a great story to me when he attended a midnight screening of this film and the audience nearly tore the theater apart with excitement when the Bat Symbol first appeared on screen. I get chills just thinking about that.) in an early afternoon show with hardly anyone there. I wanted the full crowd experience, and I often went to evening shows on opening night. Imagine that!

You couldn’t drag me to one now, regardless of how big a film. Case in point: When “Iron Man 2” opened a few weeks ago I saw it at the senior citizen time of 11:30am. I’ve become the guy we used to make fun of as kids for going to early bird shows.

Am I saddened that I can no longer have these positive communal film going experiences on a weekly basis? You know it! However, even though we cannot go back, there are still occasional bright spots along the path in our endless quest. My last positive film screening with a full crowd occurred seven years ago (7!) for the opening of LOTR’s “Return of the King.” The theater was doing a full day event that screened the first two extended cuts of the films, then “Return’s” premiere at midnight.

That was about 11 hours of film viewing with essentially the same theater packed crowd, and it was one of the most respectful groups of fans that I had ever encountered. When the lights went down and the film came up, everything stopped. EVERYTHING. No cell phones, talking, unnecessary movement, trips to the bathroom, screaming, or even loud eating.

You could hear a mouse fart inside that theater, that’s how quiet it was. For 11 hours. That was the closest as I’ll probably get to cinematic heaven in this life.

I’m sure if Garbo were alive today she would amend her above statement to say, “I want to be alone…in a theater.” Nowadays that seems the only course of action for a Film Warrior.

Sometimes we must walk alone on the path, if only to hear the sound of our own hands clapping.

“Deeds, not words…”