Of "Acrimony" and Taking Action

In years past I've said funny things in movie theaters, but last night beat them all.

For example, several years ago I was watching the "Elektra" movie and was bored out of my mind.  A lady sitting behind us must have been bored also, because she was talking VERY loudly on her cell phone!  The usher came down to tell her to shut it off, and I called him over to ask a favor.  "Can you turn the MOVIE down?" I whispered.  "See, I can't hear what  that woman's saying, but it seems to be more interesting than this movie."

Then, a year or so later, we were getting ready to watch "Ray," the Ray Charles movie, and we were sitting in the back row of the packed theater.  About 30 seconds before it started, the door flung open and an out-of-breath man, gasping for air, asked me "Is this RAY?"  Without missing a beat, I sang a line from the famous Ray Charles soda commercial from the 1980s...."You got the right one, bay-bee...uh HUH" (Lol.)

But what happened LAST night was perhaps the funniest thing I've ever said in a movie theater (in my opinion, anyway.)

My Beloved and I were watching Tyler Perry's new movie "Acrimony," a welcomed relief from the many things we have to take care of during the day for our upcoming April 28th wedding.

On three different occasions during "Acrimony," the screen went totally BLACK (though you could continue to hear dialogue.)  Of course, I brought it to the attention of the theater the first two times it happened, but when the blackout took place for the THIRD time I marched out of the theater and told some moviegoers I passed (still sitting in their seats) "This time I'm going to show THEM acrimony," Lol!!

Never, in all my years of moviegoing, have I ever encountered glitches like this when a movie was shown!

The sad thing is only one other lady, and one other guy (a short guy in a Camo outfit with a huge Napolean Complex), joined me in my trilogy of exits to inform the manager what was happening.

And that's the part of this story that's NOT funny.

Think of it, all of the moviegoers paid the same fee that we did, but none of them seemed to want to stand up and be heard when the theater, in essence, was delivering "damaged goods" for our money.

They sat there looking at the blank, black screen and then watched  OTHERS try to stand up for them...their minds apparently as blank as the huge, pictureless, once-silver screen.

We (those of us who protested appropriately) got our money back AND free passes to another movie.  I doubt if the lazy ones who sat inside the theater got any compensation at all, however.  It's hard to make a case that you deserve a refund if you accept the messed-up merchandise with complacency!

Yes, some of the still-seated ones laughed when I passed them and said my "acrimony" joke, but it was a nervous laugh....as if they were saying to themselves "look at THAT guy, what's the big deal?"  It always has been that way in life, there will always be those in the last row who speak up first, and those in "the front lines" who lag behind and yet see themselves as wise, so far ABOVE guys like me.

But I want you to know we hold no acrimony against them...we're too busy holding our total refund, and our two free movie passes, to do that!