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Film Critic Dreams Of Bashing "Bellowing Psychopath" Who Talked During Movie
By
John Del Signore
Published Dec 27, 2013
Modified Dec 27, 2013
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By
John Del Signore
Published Dec 27, 2013
Modified Dec 27, 2013
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Film critic and loose cannon blogger Jeffrey Wells sat near an obnoxious blabbermouth at a Wolf of Wall Street screening at Leows 34th Street yesterday and things did not go well. In a post on his website Hollywood Elsewhere, Wells goes on a virtual rampage against "a big black guy" a few seats away from his son Dylan. The post (which still boasts the URL basename "bellowing-psychopathic-ape") continues:
When Dylan asked him why he was talking so much and where are his manners, the guy was indignant…”I’m enjoying myself!” The guy’s wife or girlfriend was trying to get him to chill also, but he was off on his own cloud. There was no reaching him, no guilt-tripping, no winning through persuasion or threat — he was (and probably still is at this very moment) a stone sociopath, a complete animal…gone.
We all know that African-American culture has always accepted talking during films, especially in New York. As manners have decreased and society has devolved in recent years incidents like today’s have probably increased...
But before anyone accuses Wells of making broad, offensive generalizations about black people, he quickly throws in a dash of Don Rickles and declares that "the vast majority of New York theatre talkers I’ve run into in the past seem to be Swedish, Danish, Norweigan [sic] or Finnish." Oh and don't forget those loudmouth Icelandics—the only ones ruder than them are those obnoxious assholes from The Marshall Islands.
In my experience, the rudest moviegoing demographic is by far the humans (in particular the dreaded adolescent human). My solution has been to withdraw from public life, installing an HD flat screen with surround sound in my bedroom and simply watching everything on DVD, alone in bed like a Hospice patient who hasn't had a visitor in weeks. When I can't resist seeing something in the theater, like Gravity or the new Coen brothers film, I minimize my exposure to humans by sitting in the very last row—at least that way, there's no risk of any mouth-breathing popcorn munchers blathering behind me.
But Wells isn't willing to give up the joys of the cinema, and he proposes vigilante justice against inconsiderate moviegoers:
The only way to deal with psychos like this is for three guys to face him as a team. Two guys need to go the lobby and buy three 24-ounce drinks while the third guy goes to a nearby sporting goods store and buys three baseball bats. The friend returns and they all go into the theatre, each carrying a super-size drink and a bat. They drench the talker with three simultaneous hits, one on either side of his face and one on the top of his head, and when he howls like a bison and gets up they fend him off with the bats and if necessary whack him once or twice. I know that’s a ridiculous scenario but you have to do something when these assholes won’t shut up, and the managers of these plexes are candy-asses — they never do anything. So what do you do? Use a taser?
Can we all chip in and buy Wells a Taser for his birthday so he can make good on his threat in the New Year? That would be a blog post.
Previously on Wells-rant: Mentally disabled man ruins Gravity for Wells, Restaurant tries to charge Wells a fee when he brings his own dessert and OH HELL NO.
Tagged
hollywood elsewhere
jeffrey wells
movie etiquette
movies
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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