Ruthie Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle was telling me yesterday about watching The Brothers Bloom the other day and getting more and more irritated at this guy sitting a seat or two away who wouldn’t stop laughing at the damn thing. He was having a great time. Every line that was intended to be wryly amusing or half-funny, he howled at.
After a while Stein started giving him death-ray looks. Her thoughts (which she didn’t express in words at the time) were in the general ballpark of “what the fuck are you laughing at? Will you stop it please? What’s wrong with you?”
I park my car in Stein’s garage. I’ve been there. I hate people who laugh uproariously at marginally funny movies. A couple of weeks ago a guy sitting behind me at a screening of Mike Leigh‘s Happy-Go-Lucky wouldn’t stop with the fucking giggles, and I had to restrain myself from turning around and saying, “I’m sorry but could you give it a rest? Please?”