Today's Times roots the surge in home theaters in its historical context: rich people don't like mixing with the hoi polloi. Never have. Not when television first started appearing in well-to-do homes in the 1940s. Not now.
The home theater has encouraged some people to reconsider the moviegoing experience. Pam Stuchin, 51, a psychiatrist who lives in Manhattan with her husband and two teenage daughters, is increasingly put off when she goes to the movies. She offered a litany of peeves: "The floor is all sticky, and you can't put your bag on the floor, and someone is always coughing or singing along. And there's always someone taller than you with a big head."
Stuchin lives on Park Avenue.
Larry Hertzog, a television writer and producer who lives in Los Angeles, has not bought a movie ticket in nearly a decade. A serious film buff, Mr. Hertzog finally decided that going to movies was too upsetting. "You'd go to revival houses to see old classics and they'd be out of focus and there would be babies crying. It ruined the experience for me," he said. "I like to be swept away by a Lana Turner and Clark Gable on the high seas, and that's hard when the person behind you is being an idiot."
Hey, Larry. You're a hack. Those idiots pay your salary. And nobody brings children to rep houses; they're all in first-run theaters ruining Spiderman and Master and Commander by shouting over the ear-bleeding THX sound.
