If you're going for a movie, you better follow these cardinal rules

Dubai - Jostling, blocking view, shaking of leg, munching loudly on popcorn is not included in the price of a cinema ticket

Stop it, all ye boors at the cinema! All that jostling, blocking view, shaking of leg, munching loudly on popcorn and chips is not included in the price of a cinema ticket
Let's lighten up this morning and laugh a little in the column. A change from all my preachy stuff. Went to see Baby Driver in the hall and was inspired to share these thoughts.

Remember the radio. It died and then was revived by FM. For years, as we shoved in video tapes and scratchy DVDs, the movie halls teetered on the brink of collapse.

No one wanted to go to the movie hall so they had to reinvent the visit to make it attractive. Turned into an experience rather than just a film. And it seems to have worked. Go to the mall, buy stuff then stuff yourself, then watch the latest stuff on the screen.

For sure, there has been a revival and it is back to the movies and the pleasures of the big screen and I have to say this about that. All these metroplexes and popcorn and plush seats with blankets and attendants are great and it is a super family outing but.moviegoers have lost the rhythm for it. They cannot keep time. For example, and if you are one of those incandescent geniuses who has figured out that theatres start films on their time schedules, unlike your iPad, and playback films and fetch up before the curtain rises, here is what happens.

You get people 'scoozingme' past you for the next twenty minutes and shoving, pushing and elbowing you as they hunt for their seats. They also have the option of kicking you in the shins, hitting you on the back of the neck with shopping bags and generally creating mayhem as they locate their seats. Then they have a little cameo performance as they shift around so they can sit next to their choice of partner. So much for WW II.

That means you lose the beginning of the film and then have to contend with amateurs settling down as you are rubbing the back of your neck after which you have to combat that pressure from behind on your seat back as that patron of the arts presses his feet against your chair. Of and on you get a crying baby or a kid who spends the whole movie twisting and turning restlessly in his chair.

And I believe that this is a stress situation that demands redress. If you want to see a film in a hall with other members of the human race then you should not only be on time you should follow these cardinal rules.

Please visit the cloak room before you enter the theatre so that you don't have to rise and grope your way in the dark just when the heist is taking place and we do not have to watch your calibanesque shadow blocking my view. The to and fro-ing is annoying.

By that token, do not shop and bring your bags to the hall, like an overweight economy class passenger. Shoppers spread their paper bags all over the place and the crackle of crushing paper can be heard in aisle twenty two.will you stop that racket. In fact, like at the airport, there should be left luggage department where folks can store their bags before entering the movie hall.

Also, if you must eat, then eat silent food. Like marshmallows. Snap, crackle, pop and slurp should be made punishable offences. Here you are trying to catch subtle Bruce Willis's punch lines and losing out to masticating teeth on crisp potato wafers and popcorn. Jalapeno peppers and melted cheese are redolent and never finished so that sticky stuff you just brushed against is the remnant of the earlier cinegoer's tuck in. Yuck.

There should also be this hygiene test at the entrance and conditions like body odour, bad breath and other smells should be eliminated at source. Imagine sitting through a three-hour Hindi movie with someone whom you do not know and will never know as he exhales waves of garlic and onion in your direction.

If you have this fascinating story to tell then tell it before entering the hall. Don't sit down and re-launch your chat show, especially if it is replete with humour so that the next thing we know as strangers in your vicinity is this funny giggling, keening stifled sound coming from the back and it does not go down well with cars screeching in quadrophonic sound on the screen.

Also, if you have seen the film before, do not keep informing your seatmate about what is going to happen next.like watch, watch, watch this.I am watching. I paid good money to watch and I do not wish to be told this is the exciting part.I shall wait for it to unfold in due course.

Also, if you have a cold, cough or any other noisy affliction or throat clearing tic stay home and stop ruining it for the rest of us. I once sat next to a person who kept shaking his right foot right through the movie and it got so bad I had to leave it unwatched. The movie, not the foot.

Now, I'm all for young love but if you want to play footsy, go do it in a car, not in back row of the movies where we have paid good money to watch Tom Cruise do it in technicolour.

Me, I'd rather watch Netflix.


Bikram is former editor of KT. Everyday humour is his forte

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