Theater Rager Slaps Movie Talker, Faces Jail Time

As much as I hate the movie theater talkers, cell phone texters, loud popcorn-chewers, backseat-kickers, nervous leg-jigglers, smelly food-eaters, and armchair hogs who combine evil forces to make going to the movies these days a distracting, living hell, I stop myself short of physical violence when it comes to laying down the law of theater etiquette. Which is what one enraged theater patron in the Seattle area did not do when he caught a case of theater rage and slapped an offending movie talker in the face. Making matters worse: The talker was a ten-year-old kid.

Per the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

King County prosecutors contend 21-year-old Yong Hyun Kim knocked out one of the boy’s teeth after the child and several other youths refused to quiet down and stop throwing popcorn in April.

According to charging documents, Kim admitted to hitting the boy and appeared ashamed when confronted by police with the boy’s age. Kim allegedly said he thought the boy was an adult when he slapped him in the face.

Kim has been charged with a felony assault and probably feels terrible, not to mention he might have to go to jail for slapping a child in the face. The offending kid may or may not have learned a lesson in unruly theatergoing, but he's missing a tooth. Who's also to blame, IMO? The management at said AMC Theater who did not stop a bunch of children from ruining another patron's movie before theater rage took hold.

Theater chains, take note: Policing bad behavior is on you, not your ticket-buyers.

(And let this be a reminder: Encouraging texting in theaters is still an awful idea.)

[Seattle PI via @thefilmcynic]