This may be the funniest scene in Clerks II …

… but the scene in the jail is the heart and soul of the movie.

From the brilliant minds that brought you Henderson-Webb:

Where are you, Apostrophe Catastrophe? The Cranbrook Road apartment complexes need you!

(I’ve a good mind to find a marker and have some fun!)

The other day, I blogged on the recently-released on DVD Star Trek: The Animated Series. I found the opening sequences for both TAS and TOS — the latter being “The Original Seriess” — for your comparing enjoyment (if, y’know, you’re into that kind of thing).

Unfortunatly, I can’t embed the TOS opening, but click here to view.

Thursday’s Answer: Snow!

And today’s Riddle:

A house full, a yard full,
Couldn’t catch a bowl full

What Am I?

(No cheating!)

Attendance at movie theaters is down, and a lot of people will point to the high price of movie tickets, the high price of popcorn and drinks, and the relative inexpense of setting up a home theater. Personally, I think there’s a bit more to it than that.

When I went to see Clerks II in White Marsh — courtesy of Geisha — it was the last day of that movie’s showings, and the last showing at that. At first, the theater was very empty, but then people started coming in. One group in particular was very loud and noise — adults and young children (who takes young kids to see Clerks II?), getting up, running around, talking on cell-phones, talking over the movie, it was all very disturbing and I had fantasies of mowing them down with an oversized lawn mower.

It was a different story watching Snakes on a Plane — great film by the way — when audience participation heightened the enjoyment of the film.

Anyway, Regal Theaters — locally represented by their theater in Hunt Valley — has decided they’re sick and fucking tired of people showing no respect for their fellow movie going patrons:

Regal Entertainment Group (NYSE:RGC - news), the largest U.S. movie theater chain, is arming moviegoers with a new gadget that allows them to call in the ushers and remove unruly audience members with the press of a button.

“Cellphones drive us crazy,” Regal Chief Executive Michael Campbell told the Reuters Media Summit in New York on Wednesday.

“We had gotten to the point … where we have had people getting into physical battles in theaters. One customer will say to another ‘Shut off your cellphone’ or ‘Shut up’ … We’ve had people assaulted with bats, knives, guns.”

Regal is testing devices at 25 of its theater locations, handing them out to frequent customers and may roll it out nationwide in the next year if it proves successful, Campbell said. Regal operates 6,400 screens nationwide.

About the size of a pager, the gadget has four buttons. One alerts theater managers about a disruption in the audience, such as a fight over a cellphone.

A second button gives notice of faulty movie projection, a third button can be pressed if the room temperature is off and a fourth button, marked “Other” covers any other problem.

The device is part of Regal’s efforts to keep fans coming back to the box office by making sure they still enjoy the experience, even as the movie industry faces greater competition from other media such as the Internet or video games.

“The biggest problem we have is we don’t know when this (cellphone disruption) is occurring in your theaters until it’s too late,” Campbell said. “A lot of customers won’t say anything, they just will complain on their way out or in the worst case scenario, they don’t come back.”

Movie goers offered the tracking device tend to be more “mature” audience members and are given a free popcorn for their efforts, he said.

But the bigger problem seems to lie with a whole generation of youngsters who cannot disconnect from their cell phones, instant messaging and other devices even as they sit down in a public theater.

“Back when I was a teenager there was still a reverence … for the movie going experience,” Campbell said. “You knew when you went in that you weren’t supposed to talk, you weren’t supposed to disturb anybody.”

Today’s teenagers believe its fine to “multi-task” and use multiple devices at the same time as they sit in a packed auditorium.

“They think they can do everything at the same time and everybody else is going to be OK with that and it’s just not,” he added.

I couldn’t find any information if Hunt Valley Regal is participating in this experiment or not, but I hope it works, and I hope it finds wide-spread acceptance.

HT: Right Thinking from the Left Coast.

Reality Follows Fiction!