A new service (and I use ’service’ in the loosest sense of the word) has been created to enhance (and I use ‘enhance’ in the loosest sense of the word) films at your local fleapit, according to Textually. Called MuVChat, its creator Rien Heald calls it a ‘mashup between Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Twitter’.
Hmm, you can probably guess my thoughts on it by the title of this post…
Basically, the film plays, but has a little extra added black bar at the bottom of the screen. And you, dear audience member, have a short code, to which you can text comments, and have them appear on screen, kind of giving your own rudimentary commentary. Meanwhile, the guy up in the projection booth has a PC set up, with filtering software, so he can approve and decline comments on the fly.
Ok, granted, that could get interesting if the projectionist was Tyler Durden (anyone who’s seen Fight Club will get that joke)…
So, we come to the main point. Why? More specifically, why the hell didn’t anyone tell Rien Heald this was a bleedin’ stupid idea, when he showed it to them? Let’s take a look at his concept model, shall we: “MST3K meets Twitter”. Well, no, it’s really, really not, for the simple reason that MST3K is incisive, witty and hilariously funny. The people sending in comments on the film while they’re watching it really won’t be. It’s bad enough when the gobby little morons are sat on the row behind you, ruining the entire film for your row, but give them a phone, and they can ruin the film for absolutely everyone!
It’s not even as if they ever have any good phones, either. Not the HTC Touch HD for these people, no, the height of mobile technology is a 3 year old Nokia 7370, with bleedin’ Jay-Z at 1800 decibels as the ringtone.
I’m assuming, of course, that the comments on screen aren’t going to be in the same league as Shakespeare…
So, I send out a really heartfelt plea to any cinema chain reading this. Please, for the love of Pete, do not put MuVChat in there. It’s bad enough when the gobby little morons are sat behind you in the cinema, but at least you can move seats. But please don’t let them spew their strange little minds onto the screen. And in the cinema, mobile phones must be turned off, or put in flight mode, or in some way made so that I don’t hear Jay-chuffin’-Z blast into my earholes in the quiet bit in Cloverfield…
Otherwise I’m buying a cattleprod, and it will get used…
Do you hate it when people ruin your film-watching? Leave us a comment and have your say!
May 14th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I think you missed the point. Most young people text during movies anyway and the movies they provide this for are not meant to be first-run films. They are movies that the collective public quotes and loves. Granted, not everyone can be witty, but the cool thing is that you can connect in a unique way with fellow audience members.