Great Moments in Parenting: Watchmen Edition
Jeff Kocan Monday, March 30, 2009 at 12:03 PM 
So we went to see Watchmen yesterday at the legendarily awful UA Court Street Stadium 12. This theater tends to draw particularly dickish moviegoers - the guy who uses his bright-ass cell phone as a flashlight to look for seats after the movie has started, the couple who rolls their infant in for R-rated horror movies, etc. But yesterday? Yesterday was a new low. One family had brought their son, who was maybe 10 or 11 years old, to the very, very R-rated film. At first I figured the kid had nagged his parents to take him to this "superhero movie." But no. Here's a sampling of the experience:
[On screen, a woman being beaten viciously by a man, who then shoves her over the side of a pool table and attempts to rape her.]
Kid: "Why do you have to pick movies like this? Can we go home?"
Parents: "Shut up!"
[A guy's arms are cut off with a radial saw. The camera doesn't flinch; bits of gore shoot all over the place.]
Kid: "Why are you making me watch this?"
Parents: "Sssshhhhhh! People are trying to watch the movie!"
[A man kills another man by repeated slamming his head with the business end of a meat cleaver.]
Kid: "Pleeease can we go home? I don't like this!"
Parents: "Shut your mouth!"
I hope that this kid keeps his head on straight, gets good grades, and gets a full ride to a college far away from these people. Also, I hope he reads the Watchmen comic someday, because that movie was pants.
Reader Comments (1)
Don't forget the girl who fixed her jangly bangle bracelets for a good, solid minute, the crying baby, and the party of four who came in after the movie had already started (which is a good 10 minutes later than its listed time) and loudly complains that there are no seats and they're going to complain to a manager, when actually there are just no seats in the very back, but an entire front section is available to them. I forget what it's like to enjoy a calm, uninterrupted movie these days.