Summoning the Patron Saint of STFU at the Movies

sistercelluloid ♦ January 1, 2026 ♦ 4 Comments

Happy New Year to my classic movie family! May this year be better than the last (talk about setting a bar low), and may all good things come your way!

Yesterday afternoon, my husband Tim and I bid a relieved adieu to 2025 by going to see SONG SUNG BLUE, which was the perfect year-end cleanse. We got to the counter, chose our seats (there were only a handful taken), dropped our bulky coats, scarves, and sundry other baggage onto the seat next to mine and settled in with our popcorn. Soon after, two women who might have been played by Margaret Dumont and Kathleen Howard at their haughtiest bustled down the aisle and into our row. “You have to move these!” Margaret barked. What? Why? “We’re sitting here!” Honest to God there weren’t enough people in the whole theater to field a pickup softball team. And we’d picked our seats pretty much at random, since wherever we sat we’d have lots of space (or so we thought). It’s not like we’d hit some kind of magic lottery of movie seating that the whole town would want in on.

I shlepped everything from the seat next to me to the one next to Tim, and the two of them plopped down—with Margaret sending my bottled water, which was mercifully capped, spinning furiously in its little cubbyhole. Then the trailers began. And so did the talking. They chattered loudly over every one of them, as if what was on screen was just a minor impediment to their riveting conversation. “Okay fine, it’s just the trailers,” I told myself. “Maybe they’ll stop when the movie starts.”

But… no. The yammering bled right into the opening scene. I already kind of loathed them, so I reminded myself to stay calm. Then, just as it does in the movies, an inspiration flashed before me: Liam Neeson in TAKEN.

Without raising my voice, I summoned every ounce of menace I had in me and growled, “Okay this is where the talking STOPS. You’re not in your freakin’ living room.” They sort of froze and looked at each other, appalled. (Did I hear a harrumph? I believe I may have). And then… utter, blissful silence. At which point a guy somewhere behind us, in a voice usually reserved for the Knicks making a three-point buzzer-beater, cried “YES!”

The bombastic biddies spoke not another word for the rest of the movie.

I should add that I’m not one of those movie nazis who erupts when people make passing comments during a film or quickly catch someone up on the plot if they’d stepped out to the restroom. But these two were… not that. And it is my fervent wish that anyone trapped next to them in the future summon St. Liam of Neeson to be their savior.