Shouting "Fire!"

              The public cinema experience has degenerated into a sad state of affairs.  My own enthusiasm for going to the cinema has similarly devolved over the years, from awe and excitement, to increasing disenchantment, finally settling down to dread and distaste.  Next week, the long-awaited film Transformers will open in theaters across the globe and, no doubt, will be one of the biggest box-office smashes of this summer.  Droves of audiences of all ages will stand in line forever, shelling out $30 a head for their tickets, buckets of soft drinks, butter-drenched barrels of greasy popcorn, and mandatory packages of tooth rotting agents of all shapes and sizes.  As fun as all that sounds, I’ll be patiently awaiting the release of Transformers on DVD.  Oh, I’m sorry.  If at any time you feel the need to use the restroom while reading this article, go ahead.  It’ll be here when you return, and you can pick up where you left off.
         I recall the joy I felt as a child, holding my mother’s hand as I dragged her into the theater to see such epic masterpieces of film as Spaced Invaders, Critters, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The screen would come to life as I sat transfixed, cramming little handfuls of Skittles and Milk Duds into my mouth, both of which would be nearly gone by the time the previews were over.  Ignoring the growing need to use the restroom, I would remain in this trance to the very end and leave the theater truly moved and somehow changed for the better.  My mother, of course, would be in a completely different state altogether, wearily listening to my play-by-play recap of the show we’d just seen all the way home.
         With the passing of adolescence comes dating and the inevitability of countless trips to the cinema with the hope of reaching new frontiers of intimate human contact.  Uncomfortably I would sit, craftily checking my deodorant and breath.  Should I hold her hand?  I wonder if she likes my shirt.  She sure looks good.  Should I kiss her later?  What are we watching again?  Forty dollars.  That’s half the money I made this week at Kmart.  Why is the floor so sticky?  Never mind, I don’t want to know.  It’s hot ass hell in here.  Better check that deodorant situation again…  And so it would go, the social necessity of the boy-girl cinema ritual, more often than not with disappointing results.
         Perhaps age is catching up with me, supplemented by marriage, but I can’t stand the cinema experience anymore.  I spend the first twenty minutes stewing over the fact that I just dropped forty-plus dollars on tickets and nutritional garbage so my wife could haul me in to see Sense and Sensibility.  We could have had a decent dinner somewhere, maybe even had a meaningful conversation.  Behind me, somewhere, two young women are gabbing away about so-and-so and her relationship with her boyfriend.  Cell phones randomly come to life during the course of the show, their owners getting up to move to the rear of the theater and talk, but almost never getting that far.  There is a toddler in the room, arguably having a worse time than myself, and letting the whole audience know about it.  By the end, I’ve decidedly lost faith in the decency of humanity. 
         Transformers would be a great film to see on the big screen, if the big screen were set up in my backyard.  Admission would be free and exclusive, and the beer and hot dogs would be very modestly priced as well.  I have no intention of ruining the public cinema experience for society, but society has certainly done an effective job of ruining it for me.