Don't worry, I'm not posting any Batman spoilers here.

So last Friday I went with my boyfriend to see The Dark Knight. Obviously as it was opening day the theater was pretty busy, however we went to an earlier showing so it wasn't too crowded. As the movie was about to start a pair of grandparents with their ~6 year old grandson sit down next to us with the kid sitting immediately to my right. I'm already unhappy about this, and right off the bat the kid starts talking and squirming in his seat. I hoped he would at least quiet down once the movie started, but alas, it was not to be.

The kid talked and squirmed through almost the entire movie. Any time something was happening all I could hear was "That's the Joker!" or "That's Batman!" or "Why did he do that? What's that? Is that guy dead?" On top of that, every time the kid started talking grandma would tell him how he needed to be quiet, however it did nothing to quiet him down and only added to the distractions. No amount of evil looks to grandma seemed to motivate her to do anything else. They also bought the kid a box of Nerds, which as I know now is the noisiest candy in existance. Imagine the sound of little hard candy in a cardboard box as it's tilted up, tilted back, and then "crunch crunch crunch" as he chews with his mouth open. Do this for 15 minutes.

So after 2 hours of this my boyfriend and I are pretty pissed. He also said the people sitting next to him were also irritated by all the noise. We're getting towards the end of the movie with some seriously suspenseful scenes, and now the kid is obviously very bored. He starts using his straw and empty soda cup as a noisemaker. "Slurp...slurp...slurp...slurp." Grandma has either lost her voice from yelling at him, or has gone deaf from all his noise because she is no longer trying to stop him. After a couple minutes of the straw noises my boyfriend reaches over me and slaps his armrest while telling him to knock it off. Please take note that he didn't touch the kid at all. I repeat, he did not lay a finger on the kid, just his armrest. After that, the kid finally sat quietly for the last half hour or so of the movie. Unfortunately the movie had already been ruined for me. I missed out on key parts of the plot because of all the distractions, and because of that large parts of the movie don't make a lot of sense to me.

So my question is, what happened to movie theater etiquette? I dread going to the movies any more because more often than not there's someone completely obnoxious sitting near me, both children and adults alike. If a kid can't sit quietly for a movie, then they don't belong in a theater where the average age of viewers is in the double digits. I would be completely embarassed and would leave the theater if I had a small child with me ruining a movie for everyone around me. This is all ignoring the fact that Batman is a totally inappropriate movie for a 6 year old anyway, and there were many other kid friendly movies playing.

So, am I just being a grouch? Does anyone else feel the same way I do?