What are you watching?

[Dirty Duck]

The worst is at showings of old movies where people laugh at the most benign or unfunny things but that seems to be a newish thing almost everywhere from what I've read.

I’ve seen a fair amount of old Godzilla films in the cinema. Naturally they’re quite old and campy and the effects can seem archaic by today’s standards. You’ll get some laughs and sometimes stuff in them does look genuinely funny (and a lot of the time the films are meant to be funny.

I went to see Destroy All Monsters at Japan House (which I perceive to be a slightly more middle class crowd compared to some of the other places I find these films on) and the crowd were laughing the whole film. Not just at select moments that were particularly zany looking but everything. Ghidorah flying. Godzilla walking. A monster destroying a train track. A lot of these effects looked good and I just found the whole thing so obnoxious. Like, you know what you’re getting into coming to an old monster flick. Get it out of your system and then just watch the film? Laugh when something actually funny happens instead of every second a guy in a rubber suit is on screen?

Also caught Singapore Sling for Valentine’s Day at an independent cinema I like and somehow it seems some drunk middle aged couple wandered in off the street and bought a ticket and were sat right behind us. They spoke through the whole thing at full volume and these were the most inane comments. “If it’s just them in the house who’s making all the food?” and a highlight after a character throws a wreath on a grave they just dug: “heh…wreath!” It was kind of hilarious to have this kind of crowd at a screening of Singapore Sling so I was aware of the comedy of the situation, but at the same time I was there to watch the film in the cinema. At the end I got up and said to my girlfriend “next time we want to hear wankers talk over a film we should just watch Gogglebox” loud enough for them to hear before leaving.