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Moviegoers ruin ‘credit cookies’

Posted on Nov 30, 2009 in Opinion

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Here’s some advice to the clueless, those that we might sometimes find sitting next to us in a crowded theater. Next time you see the ending credits of a flick, consider the possibility that the flick hasn’t ended yet.

It seems to happen too often. As soon as the screen goes black and the first wave of closing credits starts to crawl up the screen, everyone around you stands up, stretches their legs, and moves past you toward the exits and back into their lives outside.

But then, wait! The music goes down, the credits crawl to the sidelines, and we have more movie: epilogues, bloopers and deleted scenes. In other words, what I call “credit cookies” — more stuff to keep you in the theater.

I don’t have a problem with that.

What burns my over-salted popcorn are the people who freeze in place as they’re going for the exits, usually stopping in front of my still-seated keister, completely arrested by the new scenes that appear on the screen.

They can’t sit; they can’t move over. They are so alarmed by the fact that the movie isn’t over yet that they just have to freeze like some zombie under mind control until the movie finally says, in some way, “That’s it! No more movie!”

And of course you’re the one that’s gotta move to see what’s on the screen now. Isn’t it ironic that you’re the one who didn’t want to get up in the first place, who thought, “I better stay, to see if anything else’ll come up.”

It’s truly surprising to me when I find people who are so quick to get up after a movie’s over that they’ll literally be almost to the end of the aisle before the characters have even had a chance to walk out of frame, before the music swells and the screen goes dark.

I think, “Boy, I know somebody who didn’t like it.”

But then a new scene comes up, and they’ll stop all their immediate after-movie business; they’ll look up from the cell phones and half-empty Milk Duds boxes — freezing all possible movement — to see what else is going to happen in a movie they obviously never cared about in the first place.

I know venting about this kind of thing is like channeling Andy Rooney, or Dennis Miller for all you guys that didn’t spend your childhood watching “60 Minutes” with Grandma, but if you’re quick to get up like that, please continue moving.

No matter what they put up on the screen as the credits are rolling, it won’t be anything that will make you change your mind about the movie. I promise. If it were, then it would have been in the actual flick itself.

Please move along.

You are either blocking the view of someone behind you who did enjoy the movie and who had the patience to stay seated for any bonus stuff, or you are blocking the exit of someone who, like you, probably hated the thing and could not give a flying over-priced nacho tray about anything else that happens.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be in the theater during “Ferris Buellar’s Day Off,” still in the early days of credit cookies? I’m sure people were standing up in front of you for a full five minutes during the closing roll as Mr. Rooney boarded the school bus.

This is all I’m saying: when that movie is over, and you stand up to leave, you sign a social contract with the people around you to keep moving. And if another scene pops up as you are halfway out of the room, find another seat and take it. Just watch the scene and when it is over, leave. And if another scene happens to come up, repeat the process.

If we can learn to do that, then we can probably learn to do anything. Probably.

Email: diner822@yahoo.com

 




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