Let’s talk about movie theater etiquette.

A wide variety of people attend the Sundance Film Festival (including yours truly and Mrs. Libertine). While many are movie fans, anxious to take advantage of the opportunity to see documentaries and feature films that they may otherwise never get a chance to see, it seems that some come merely to annoy the general Sundance populous. For those people, I have put together a short list of movie etiquette.

1. Even if you think you’re more important than everyone else standing in line in front of you, it is still considered a common courtesy to say, “Pardon me” or “Excuse me” when you blithely push others aside in order to tell the ticket taker that you have to get into the screening (and attempt to push past them as well, forcing them to chase after you, thus, leaving the rest of us peasants waiting even longer).

2. The same applies when, after the tickets are taken and people are moving in an orderly fashion into the theater, you push past those in front of you, only to stop dead in your tracks, bottlenecking the entire procession, while having some sort of extended discussion with their girlfriend about where you should sit. Those who know me know that I am no xenophobe (or Euracist?); however, I would like to take this opportunity to say the following: HEY EUROPEANS! LEARN SOME FUCKING MANNERS! Every year you I’m-so-cool-and-important-I-wear-my-sunglasses-inside douchebags think you own the fucking place and butt in line in front of me or throw your $3000 ski coat on my lap if I’m sitting next to you while yammering to each other for the entire fucking movie. If I spoke your language I would tell you to SHUTTEN DER FUCKEN UPPEN!, because you don’t seem to respond to the more subtle REALLY!?! stare. Let’s move on.

3. If the movie starts at 3:15, and for whatever reason you get there when the movie is just about to start and the theater is pretty much full (for example, you’re last in the wait list line, or you’ve never been to one o’ them picture shows in a big fancy movie theater so you don’t know you have to get there before the movie actually starts to get a seat), the fact is, YOU’LL HAVE TO SIT IN A CRAPPY SEAT! and/or split from your companion and find single seats! So, in the interest of saving other moviegoers some time and frustration, here’s what to do: (1) If the uber-patient Sundance volunteers tell you that the only seats are in the front section and stand blocking the access to the upper section to emphasize the point, don’t walk to the other side of the theater and spend five minutes wandering around the upper section looking for a seat, because the volunteer ALREADY SAID THERE WEREN’T ANY SEATS UP THERE! So guess what – YOU HAVE TO SIT IN A CRAPPY SEAT! Accept your fate. If you wanted to get a good seat, you would have planned ahead like the rest of us. (2) If you have to separate from you movie going companion because there are only single seats left, don’t sit down and immediately start asking the people around you if they would like to trade seats with your wife/husband/girlfriend (or whoever would go to the movies with an over bearing, uncouth motherfucker like yourself). This breeds animosity among those who were, again, forward thinking enough to get to the theater on time. And (3), just because you have put your Blackberry on silent mode, doesn’t mean it’s any less distracting when you are sitting in front of me, constantly text messaging for the entire movie. News flash – YOU ARE NOT THAT FUCKING IMPORTANT! GET OVER YOURSELF YOU POMPOUS, SELF-CENTERED JAGG-OFF! I HOPE YOUR FUCKING THUMBS FALL OFF SO YOU’RE NO LONGER ABLE TO HOLD A FORK AND FEED YOURSELF AND SLOWLY STARVE TO DEATH! And when that happens, I shall text you and say LOL! UR 1 S2PD FKR! CNT W8 TILL UR DED!

OK, now onto the first movie review, more to come.

The first short we saw at Sundance yesterday was called, “My Surfing Lucifer”, and let me just say, this could possibly be the worst thing that has ever graced the big screen. This abbreviated look at an upcoming documentary about Bunker Spreckels, a teenage surfing phenom turned millionaire Los Angeles party boy who died at age 27 in 1977, is like a poorly thought out Hunter S. Thompson vignette. In it we get to see Bunker surfing, smoking, big game hunting, parading around in tight jeans, and yes, urinating (full frontal, now that's art!). The score (if you could call it that) is straight from a bad 1950's sci-fi movie, and the psychedelic video effects are just pointless. Really, crap is too kind a word. It was directed by experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger, and let me just say, Mr. Anger should experiment instead with mixing bleach and ammonia and save the rest of us from anymore of his cinematic disasters.