Watch out for alleged journalists who giggle together after a screening of some popular, well-reviewed film that allegedly connects on some basic emotional level. I was sharing an elevator with a couple of people I know after a private screening of a film I really like, and they were giggling like 13 year-old schoolgirls….”Hee-hee-hee-hee.” That meant they were dismissing it for some perceived failing. “Fuck are you laughing about?,” I snorted.
After last Tuesday’s Anna Karenina screening at RealD I walked by a group of 20something giggiy girls. I gave them the dirtiest look imaginable as I silently muttered to myself, “You’re laughing…laughing at one of the most brilliantly conceived and stylistically audacious films of the 21st Century?” (Movieline‘s Jen Yamato was standing with this group, and confirms the women were “mixed” on the film, “but I wouldn’t say it was because the material was heavy…if I was giggling post-film (and that’s totally possible) it was probably because I was basking in the afterglow of Aaron Johnson‘s man beauty.”)
If you’ve just come from a private screening or an allegedly strong, emotionally intense film or one that obviously stands out in terms of ambition if not execution, try and find the class to not giggle in the elevator on the way down or in the hallway outside the screening room. If you didn’t like it convey your views and feelings in subtle tones of regret, but don’t have yourself a cheap laugh. I’m suggesting this as a form of etiquette. You don’t have to show politeness, of course. If you want to devolve into teenage giggling spasms, knock yourself out.