This person is overreacting. "The reason why we can't have nice things" means "the reason why I can't enjoy this to my subjective ideal." Sorry, but going to the movies isn't like going to church. People are going to react their own way and not do so in unison with you.

Today must be sandy vagina day.

"For the utterly uninitiated, a kung fu movie is jarring, even silly. "



It's silly! Except when it isn't!

My take on it (possible Mansplaining)

If this was the only image of facial expressions and emotions in martial arts movies that we had been exposed to I think people might not have laughed at it. However, since the genre has been so heavily parodied (e.g. Kung Fu Hustle), with exaggerated facial expressions being a running joke, Bruce Lee's facial expression reminds us of those parodies, not realizing that in this scene he is damn serious.

I'd give it an affectionate smile. It's a great scene and a great moment, but it's also a little ridiculous and, c'mon - CAMP. I love this movie and recognize it's artistic merit, but this isn't like laughing at Schindler's List.

Gonzo freaking awesomeness can handle a few guffaws.

Stop appreciating pop culture differently than I appreciate it!

True story: I once left a date sitting alone in a cinema after he inappropriately laughed at the dock worker being crushed near the start of On the Waterfront.

And then I spent 10,000 years professionally mocking Showgirls.

So 6 has got it right.

My reaction to art is a constant high decibel squealing and loud non-stop farting. Sometimes my reaction is to get on long yelling matches with the screen or to take out my cell phone and call my friends and tell them my "art reaction." I can't help it, right?

Thank god this is a-ok with everybody on SLOG.

Are we gong to pretend there are not acceptable boundaries on how we conduct ourselves in a public?

Certainly venue, and subject are part of the context, but we can all agree that movies with dialog can be interrupted and spoiled by loud reactions, right?

Laughing out of place or too loudly is bafoonish and disruptive. It's not too much to ask to control your reactions in a public setting. You're adults. Not kindergartners.

That short of behavior betrays epic levels of entitlement and poor manners.

"My reaction to art is a constant high decibel squealing and loud non-stop farting. Sometimes my reaction is to get on long yelling matches with the screen or to take out my cell phone and call my friends and tell them my "art reaction." I can't help it, right?"

Yes, that is completely the same as having a small chuckle during one scene. Way to go!

"Laughing out of place or too loudly is bafoonish and disruptive"

When someone laughs, likely out of surprise of the scene (if they've never seen it before), its kind of hard to control. Its not completely voluntary. That said, the winy bitch who wrote the letter is saying they are, "a shitty person", because they aren't reacting in the way that they want them to react (even if they're making silent jerking motions).

"That short of behavior betrays epic levels of entitlement"

Talk about entitlement, you're the one saying that people shouldn't have their own personal reactions to art because you disapprove of them.

Author is POS. People who are too loud in theaters are POS. People who get pissy about other people's reactions because the don't agree with those reactions are POS.

@ 7, I'd say that's the right call. We shouldn't police the audience, but it's something else entirely to date someone like that.

@10 You have poor reading comprehension as well as bad manners. It wasn't one small chuckle.

The poster said:

had people openly guffawing

guf·faw
ɡəˈfô/
verb
gerund or present participle: guffawing
laugh in a loud or boisterous way.

It would be one thing if this was a known cult film presentation where loud interaction was expected or even a comedy. But it was not. People can laugh, of course. But mocking loud laughter out of place is disruptive.

I was there, btw. Though I don't feel quite as strongly as the LW, he's right. There was a crowd of four or five people talking loudly and deliberately mock-laughing extremely loudly at weird moments.

Anyway. Next time read the fucking letter.

Alternate title: Movie nerd so butthurt over people laughing at silly kung-fu movie acting, he had to write us about it

Another fun fact, inspired by the incantation at the end of 10: Yesterday I saw truck advertising "POS Equipment."

@12 "You have poor reading comprehension as well as bad manners."

Boy, talk about bad manners! Assuming something about people is bad manners.

"But mocking loud laughter out of place is disruptive."

Seeing as I wasn't there, I can't assume that these laughs were particularly intentional. I can envision people seeing this and, being surprised by the moment, gaffawing unintentionally. Does that mean that they are, "a shitty person"? No, they're just individuals who were overcome by an involuntary reaction.

Now, if it was intentional, then they would be POS. But I think its safe to say we can't really prove whether that was true or not without having been there.

"There was a crowd of four or five people talking loudly and deliberately mock-laughing extremely loudly at weird moments.

Well, LW should have focused on telling us about this small group of people instead of the general "laughter".

"Next time read the fucking letter."

Perhaps you shouldn't place what you know to be true into the letter. The author didn't make it clear as to how intentional the laughing/mocking/whatever was and it took your clarification to do so. Laughing out of surprise /=/ laughing to intentionally mock the piece.

Anyway, next time don't start posts with false equivalencies.

The place to comment on movies aloud is in your own home, outside after the movie, or at Central Cinema's Quote-a-long nights or other nights where you're encouraged to talk or text funny shit or laugh openly. We live in a society. Anon should have told them to STFU (or gotten an attendant if they felt threatened by the group) when it first started instead of writing this PA exaggerated letter.

Some people laugh when they're uncomfortable or excited, and some people are just immature dicks. Expressions of emotion are funny, you don't know what's behind them without knowing the person well.

I love that scene. It's over the top for sure, but he projects a real sadness with his eyes.

Laughter is highly correlated with being uncomfortable- the audience was reacting to the emotions on display.

@17 You didn't even read the letter, did you.

He said "had people openly guffawing." Right. There. In. The. Letter. Okay?

It's not my problem you don't know what "guffaw" means or re-interpret that to mean "one chuckle."

He even said he didn't care that people laughed but they were laughing disruptively. He used what we happen to think is a rather over-top scene to illustrate his point and David made a joke out of it. But I was there and yes, these clowns were being disruptive.

The point of these letters is that we take them at their word. You're the one reading into his letter your own absurd bias.

So. Next time read the fucking letter, which you clearly didn't do, and invest in a dictionary.

I was there too. There was definitely general laughter in several places throughout the film during scenes that probably weren't meant to be funny (case in point: Jim Kelly's clothes), but I didn't notice anyone laughing overly loudly or mockingly. During the scene in question, I had a huge grin on my face because it's an awesome scene, and while I appreciate the emotion of the moment, it's also pretty over-the-top and not an example of what I would call great acting.

Honestly, it was a screening of a classic kung-fu film for a large crowd of Bruce Lee fans. The theater was full of people who had doubtlessly seen the film multiple times (myself included) and were there to share the awesomeness of the film with hundreds of other people at once. I sympathize with the letter-writer's passion for film, but it's kinda unfair to tell someone they're a shitty person for laughing at an iconic bit of camp.

Also, the crowd cheered when Jim Kelly beat up the racist honky cops and stole their car, so there's that.

@21 "He said "had people openly guffawing." Right. There. In. The. Letter. Okay?"

You do realize this doesn't mean that they were intentionally guffawing. There's a lot to be desired for the clarity of the letter.

For example, during the scene where Javert kills himself in Les Miserables, I made an unintentional guffaw that may or may not have seemed open. But it certainly wasn't intentional nor controllable. The sound of his splat was just so very out of context with the rest of the film that I unexpectedly laughed. Now, am I a terrible person because I had an uncontrollable reaction to that scene? No. Did I try to minimize it? Yes. Was I particularly successful? Eh.

So it all comes down to the clarity of the LW. You do notice that most comments, as well as the poll, are revolving around the acceptability of the laughter, right? Not that it was disruptive. You, being a person who experienced the event, input what you knew automatically into the post and expected everyone else to see the same thing as you.

You know what I call that? Self-absorption. You don't realize that people can't read your mind and then you get upset when they don't agree with you. Had the LW been clear, I would think that most people would have thought their behavior was inappropriate. Instead, we're talking about laughter in its most general form.

Next time get your head out of your ass and realize people aren't psychic, you self absorbed shit.

oh come on!
I am a huge Bruce Lee fan. He is the reason I started doing martial arts when I was a kid. I still do it, and I even teach it this day.
Many times I have used this exact scene as an example to try to convey some intense emotion when they are practicing kata.
But its just drama, and its also fun and corny.
Lighten up and quite being so damn serious! ha ha.

@21, see what seilo posted? That was a clear and concise post that helped define the context of the situation for the reader. And they did so without acting like a prissy little prat. Perhaps you and LW could learn from them.

Reminds me of a late night showing of The Two Towers which I attended when it was first out. There was this group of people who could not get over Gollum's near nakedness and verbal tics. I think eventually they peaked and got more sedate.

I was there too and I while I didn't think it was as bad as the author states I think the context the author puts it in makes sense. Heck, Badass Digest posted about this last week:



http://badassdigest.com/2014/10/02/find-…



'Don't ironically laugh at old movies.'

Does anybody else think he looks like Joseph Gordon-Levitt in that shot?

This is why I own a projector.

Lee has some amazingly good reactions in the film for how campy it is, but that one never really got to me beyond it being funny.

That person cares so little that they typed out a wall of text and had it published on a blog!

It's his kung fu noises that ruin the dramatics of it. Even if Bruce Lee were kicking my ass I'd still have to laugh at his kung fu noises and tell him to stop tickling me. Let's get real here, Bruce Lee made great kung fu movies, but he never made a great movie. His stuff is awesome while also being kinda bad. In fact, there are very few if any martial arts movies where one could reasonably stroke their chin and say "hmm, yes, that was a fine piece of cinema." Even Rocky, which is a great story, was ridiculous because none of the fighters in that film actually put up their dukes and blocked any punches. Rocky's perseverance was manifested in TAKING EVERY SHOT TO THE FACE. I mean come on, Enter The Dragon was basically set on Kung Fu Island, owned by a sinister mad man. How is that not funny? How could every old James Bond movie with a ridiculous villain not be funny? One of my *favorite* kung fu movies, Tai Chi Master, was practically ruined by the dubbing (everyone pronounced "tao" with a hard t, including the last effing line of the movie)! Also, who the hell walks into a crane kick? It's like that whole movie was a set up for that one joke. I would have a problem with people that find kung fu movies to be serious entertainment except that they're in the minority while everyone else around them is laughing and having a good time.

I am celebrating Bruce Lee Day every year from now on, now that I know about it. I'll probably fill out the yellow jumpsuit about as well as Jim McDermott did, but oh well.

Last weekend I saw The Shining and they superimposed the film-in-reverse over the forward-playing reel. The sound was played normally (start to finish). Anyway, it meant that scenes like Jack's interview, where everyone is polite and genteel, had a crazy, grotesque diaphanous Jack on screen simultaneously. I found it to be profoundly disturbing and ironic but man, people laughed. Hard. I glared and glared but to no avail. They mocked my sacred cow, and I thought they were stupid. C'est la vie.

@14: Having worked in retail I enjoyed that all of our point of sale equipment came labeled with such a succinct detailing of its quality.