As we’ve seen, people using their cell phones during screenings has become a contentious issue, and can even get you killed. A recent incident during a screening of Mr. Turner at AFI Fest in Hollywood didn’t escalate quite that far, and I guess we have non-lethal weaponry to thank. A man reportedly told a woman to turn off her cell phone, and got maced for his troubles. Thank God this wasn’t Florida.
From Mashable:
“He was saying ‘Excuse me sir, could you please turn off your screen'” over and over, the eyewitness tells Mashable (he had apparently mistaken the woman for a man). After repeating himself several times, and without a response, the man then tapped the woman on the shoulder.
The woman reacted angrily to being touched, and “flipped out” on him, the eyewitness said. “She stands up and starts cursing, saying ‘You hit me, you hit me, I’m going to call the police.” She then turned the phone’s flashlight function on and pointed it directly at the man’s face.
The awkward standoff lasted for nearly a minute, the witness said, and she continued shining the light even as people all around implored her to turn it off and sit down. As the man was calmly defending himself, she then told him she had mace and started digging in her bag.
Without hesitation, she took the cap off the bottle, pointed it directly in his face and sprayed him at point-blank range. The man and the woman sitting next to him sat for a moment in shock as she sat back down. As the couple left, the man slapped the woman on the arm and said something to her, the eyewitness said.
The movie was never stopped, and the woman continued to sit and watch for another 20 minutes or so before volunteers and security with flashlights came to escort the woman, who was not immediately identified, out of the theater. She did not put up a fight as she was leaving, the witness said.
See, this is why I rarely shush people, even when I want to. We all want to be the hero that helps enforce the baseline standard of considerate behavior, but half the time you try to keep someone from texting or talking and distracting from the movie, and it just turns into a way bigger distraction. That’s why I usually just sit there gritting my teeth and impotently wishing silent death like a battered spouse. Ideally, the theater staff would deal with it.
The Alamo Drafthouse probably has the strictest and best policies for dealing with texters, where theatergoers are encouraged to alert theater staff by writing it on the little order cards they give you, and security has no qualms about removing people. On the other side of the coin, somehow this happened in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, during a film festival, at one of the most famous theaters in town, where there was a 20-minute altercation in the crowd and they didn’t even stop the movie. Good luck to the critics trying to review it. Or maybe that was part of the plan?
“I bawled my eyes out,” raved one critic.
“I couldn’t breathe, I curled up on the floor trying not to vomit,” gushed another. What a powerful, powerful film.