I like the silver screen as much as the next guy.  

But let’s face it. As long as there are slack-jawed idiots who go to movies, at-home streaming will always beat the theater experience.  

The reason why the previews include little reminders that people should turn off their devices is because people are not aware that there’s anyone else in the room.  If I believed in an open canon, this would be in the Bible.  

I am pretty sure that Gibbon mentioned this kind of behavior in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  It’s a sure sign of the end of democracy.

Let’s talk about parents who let their kids play in the aisles while they sit in the center and stuff their faces with popcorn and grin like a Michael Jackson meme.  It’s not my job to watch your kid.  Two words: duct tape.  

If you decide to bring your grandmother to the movies, and she dumps her drink all over the floor, it’s really OK to just move her to another empty seat as quickly and quietly as possible.  You do not need to hold a ten minute conference in front of me while you decide what to do.  I’d rather watch C-Span.  

And if you bring your entire extended family to a film it is not a rule that every single one of them, including the emotional support animal, have to make contact with my seat every single time they get up to buy more overpriced popcorn or use the potty or play in the aisle or run laps through the theater like their hair is on fire.

There are not enough perky clips of Maria Menounos pitching films that could make me feel better about this experience.  If she could figure out how to get the box office mob to sit down and shut up she would get a well-deserved Academy Award.  

If people showed up in my living room and acted like this, I’d call the cops.  Wait, no I wouldn’t.  In Texas, we don’t call 911.  Our homes are our castles and we have the laws to prove it.  

Which is why streaming at home on a counter-top black and white TV through an antenna is better than that freak show.

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