To Find this Woman in the Cinema Rude

[LessMissAbs]

Me and my friend were watching a film in the cinema tonight. She doesn't wear a watch and must have been checking her phone for the time - its a habit of hers to do this, or to ask people the time. I was sitting next to her and I didn't notice it.

There was an empty seat to her other side between her and a woman. The woman suddenly boomed out in the middle of the film, "If you want to play your phone, you can go outside and do it instead of in here".

It was mortifying, and she interrupted the film for me. I was really embarrassed for my friend, but we didn't say anything.

At the end of the film, as we were standing up to leave, I said to the woman "I don't really care if you were disturbed by a light during the film or not, I don't want to have to the film interrupted by your booming voice". She then started arguing back (she said something like "Oh you'd like to be a cheeky one, wouldn't you, and some other stuff) but we turned our backs towards her and her husband so that she was talking to ourselves, put on our coats and left.

Kind of ruined the film for both of us. Normally I find going to the cinema relaxing!

Is there a limit on the number of adjectives that must be used as well as insistence on silence and no movement in cinemas now Newt?

I like film. You illuminate. Disturb me. I smash.

I like film. I don't care if people illuminate. I do care if people use wanky words to talk about it. Or clap at the end. Or refuse to move so they can read all the credits. Or look disapprovingly if you do want to leave before the credits end (Edinburgh Filmhouse customers, I am talking about you.)

Na, but a bit of honesty might not go amiss.

I do wonder how the booming woman's thread on the Internet is going. One thing for sure, it'll be nowhere near as good as this one.

Actually, I lied. I don't really care about any of those things.

You see if booming woman did an AIBU she would be flamed to a crisp. Something along the lines of 'lady with the mobile was being an arse, yes but no need to boom in the middle of the film and disturb the whole cinema'.

I was wondering if the phone checkers at the cinema are the same breed as the phone checkers in restaurants etc. when in the company of others. Someone else has beaten me to it, but not sure if any of the hardened in-the-cinema phone users have answered yet.
And sorry, but if you 'need' to check your phone during those two hours or so, you shouldn't be in the cinema. At the very very least, sit on the back row to create less disturbance.
Bottom line is a)nobody in a film's audience NEEDS to be in the cinema. It follows that b)nobody NEEDS to check their phone.

Sparkling

Pah. One boom compared to repeated flashing. No contest.

Also, OP boomed/ranted at the end as well.

Sparkling

Although you are right about the AIBU. But it would be a different set of people.

What have we had so far? Ranting, bawling, boomed, bellowed, shrieked, scuttled?

What a dreadful woman. And how loud it must have been to have drowned out the cinema sound! You must be quite traumatised

"Perhaps the silent film devotees would care to suggest how someone in the position of me during the film, immersed and enjoying it, completely unaware of this supposed vast, occasional flicker of light similar to the sun emanating from my my friend's phone, should avoid having her film going experience disturbed by a loud ranting woman?"

I can suggest a way to avoid this OP. Don't go to the cinema with your friend anymore.

That way, she won't be there to spoil the film for other people by constantly checking the time and they won't have to speak up and ask her to stop it.

Or, tell her to leave her phone alone and just watch the film.

Problem solved.

Sorry, scuttled was what LessMiss and pal did on exit while the cinemagoers laughed behind their hands.

I think BoomingRantingBawling woman's version would be more like

"Two girls came into the cinema and sat next to me and my husband. They looked as if they could have been foreign too. The cheek! So we moved. The girl nearest me ate popcorn which I found really annoying. Then, because I was watching her rather than the film, I caught her doing something I could complain about! I couldn't believe it when she put her hand in her handbag twice to check something, probably on her phone. I could tell this because I could see a small dull light for a moment. So I told her! What do they think they're doing, coming and going in a cinema as they please! They can go and play outside if they think they can get away with that! I've had a really bad day today too and I see the cinema as an extension of the rule of law I exert over my living room"

HaroldTheGoat if I were sitting near you in the cinema, and asked you politely to stop checking your phone as I was finding it distracting, what would you do?

As usual on MN it's gone from someone checking the time on the phone to them playing a couple of games of angry birds and updating their facebook. The former I find acceptable the latter not. But then I have a reasonable amount of toleration for human behaviour in the cinema. I find sniffing, coughing and laughing too loudly at unfunny bits worse.

The Headless lady of Cannock I'd have trouble playing on my phone as I don't have a smartphone because I can't be arsed with all this social media but I have checked the time on my phone in my handbag on occasion unless it is light enough to read my watch. It takes less than 10 seconds. Next time I will get up make sure everyone round me is disturbed go outside switch on my phone, check the time and go back in again disturbing everyone again as I sit down. Will that satisfy everyone?

As for the theatre last time I was there (in Edinburgh) there were so many old dears checking their phones for the time (as they can't see in the dark) the place was like a disco.

To be honest, STD although your question is directed at HTG I'd think you were a bit of a nutter stalker if you did that because texting on a phone, however irritating, is something too much of an invasion of a person's privacy to call them out on.

I think there is a third to be had here-

1. OP
2. Bawling shouty woman

And for number 3 in Chat....

'OMG I went to the cinema today, and it got all fighty. It was brilliant!!'

Or it could be:

We went to the cinema today but found that we were repeatedly disturbed by a girl in the row near to us checking her mobile phone. The light was very bright and it was impossible to ignore it. Eventually I asked her quietly but firmly to go outside if she wanted to keep looking at her phone. At the end the girl's friend came up to me and dh and aggressively told me that I had disturbed her and her friend. I tried to explain how difficult it had been for us and to suggest that the problem would have been avoided if her friend had acted with normal consideration, but they clearly did not want to hear that and walked away.

The term "rant" implies a sustained and loud complaint over a period of time. It cannot sensibly be applied to someone using one sentence.

Tobiasfunke, why do you need to check the time during a film?

How rude and inconsiderate This sort of thing really annoys me.
IMO people who use their phones in a darkened room/cinema/theatre should be shot.

To be honest STG I'd really honestly doubt you would ever notice. I totally agree that face booking and texting is a bit much but it take seconds to quickly check nothings come in from the sitter. I have my bag stashed under my seat slightly open someone eating a kernel of popcorn would make more of a distraction.

If you did notice, and asked me politely not to do it I would of course stop, and apologise.

If you bellowed at me like this woman there would be no apology.

Should be shot. Wow.