In fact, I wouldn't go see The Birds on the big screen because I nervously crack wise throughout just to keep from freaking out over the entire concept.
Which I understand! And there are moments of deliberate humor in The Birds, often in that nervy way—the famous scene where the crows settle silently behind Tippi Hedren as she smokes and glances edgily around, never in the right direction until it's too late and the playground is a bristling, black-feathered mass, is the malicious inverse of her first few scenes in Bodega Bay, where she's the one stealthily observing Mitch, waiting for him to realize only too late about her. The know-it-all drunk in the diner who keeps cheerily singing out, "End of the world!" is classic comic relief, although he's also (like so many fools) the character who tells you what kind of film you're really watching. The suddenness with which the gas station attendant drops is funny, it's so marionette-limbed and unexpected, until you realize it's because a bird has essentially icepicked him on flyby. But the people who not only laughed, but started to applaud when the crows mobbed the children, I don't know what the hell. Next time I am yelling for everyone to shut up.
I had a very similar disheartening experience at the Brattle (of all places!) when they were showing The Dark Crystal a week or two back.
I'm so sorry! I saw Labyrinth there in 2007, I think, and the audience noise was mostly in appreciation of David Bowie.
(An example of the high wit on display: "My name is Jen." "THAT'S A GIRL'S NAME, HURR HURR")
*somebody else's head desk*
I was annoyed and very much felt Get Off My Lawnish about it all (I saw the film first-run in 1982; this film was older than these moviegoers by a third fer crying out loud.
Next time, maybe you should bring a cane just in case.
(My introduction to The Dark Crystal was actually the illustrated book, which they had at the Cambridge Library; I didn't see the film until I was in college. Jim Henson properly warped my childhood, though.)
Happiness at seeing local movie theatres do good business at war with annoyance at local movie audiences who just don't know how to behave. I'm very sorry it had to happen to you at a Hitchcock film.
Thank you. I just keep thinking that people who come to arthouse theaters must not come there explicitly to be dicks . . .
no subject
Which I understand! And there are moments of deliberate humor in The Birds, often in that nervy way—the famous scene where the crows settle silently behind Tippi Hedren as she smokes and glances edgily around, never in the right direction until it's too late and the playground is a bristling, black-feathered mass, is the malicious inverse of her first few scenes in Bodega Bay, where she's the one stealthily observing Mitch, waiting for him to realize only too late about her. The know-it-all drunk in the diner who keeps cheerily singing out, "End of the world!" is classic comic relief, although he's also (like so many fools) the character who tells you what kind of film you're really watching. The suddenness with which the gas station attendant drops is funny, it's so marionette-limbed and unexpected, until you realize it's because a bird has essentially icepicked him on flyby. But the people who not only laughed, but started to applaud when the crows mobbed the children, I don't know what the hell. Next time I am yelling for everyone to shut up.
I had a very similar disheartening experience at the Brattle (of all places!) when they were showing The Dark Crystal a week or two back.
I'm so sorry! I saw Labyrinth there in 2007, I think, and the audience noise was mostly in appreciation of David Bowie.
(An example of the high wit on display: "My name is Jen." "THAT'S A GIRL'S NAME, HURR HURR")
*somebody else's head desk*
I was annoyed and very much felt Get Off My Lawnish about it all (I saw the film first-run in 1982; this film was older than these moviegoers by a third fer crying out loud.
Next time, maybe you should bring a cane just in case.
(My introduction to The Dark Crystal was actually the illustrated book, which they had at the Cambridge Library; I didn't see the film until I was in college. Jim Henson properly warped my childhood, though.)
Happiness at seeing local movie theatres do good business at war with annoyance at local movie audiences who just don't know how to behave. I'm very sorry it had to happen to you at a Hitchcock film.
Thank you. I just keep thinking that people who come to arthouse theaters must not come there explicitly to be dicks . . .