Last night I went to see a midnight show of Bruno.  Perhaps my expectations were not as high as they were for Borat (I believed Borat had the potential to be the funniest movie of all time), but I thought it was insanely funny.  There is a lot more sexual crudeness in this film (I will refrain from saying anything that might spoil surprise/horror/shock/laughter), but it is the hardest I’ve laughed this year (apologies to The Hangover and Drag Me To Hell, especially).

But in a movie that featured many shots of male genitalia and several explicit scenes from a swingers club the most shocking thing I saw last night was about four minutes before the show started when two sets of young parents (late 20s/early 30s) came in to the theater with three small children (none older than 4).  There are a couple of problems with this:

1. It’s midnight – you could be coming to watch Veggie Tales and it would still be wrong (I’ve often wondered about theaters with 10 pm showings of kids’ movies).
2. It’s Bruno – not to seem all puritanical, but 3 and 4 year olds probably should not be watching anal penetration and blow jobs.

When are movie theaters going to finally step up and start helping parents be parents?  I mean if a movie is R children must be accompanied by adults.  If a movie is NC-17 (not really sure how Bruno got an R rating) then children under 17 CANNOT see the film, which is why the movie industry tries to avoid those ratings at all cost.  Why can’t theaters say – no children under 10 after 10 pm?  Why don’t they?   And why not say if you are under 10 you cannot see an R rated film?  I was once at the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a man brought his 2 year old in.  naturally when a woman pulled a gun out of her vagina in the opening scene and killed herself the young child began bawling.  Clearly the tot knew he shouldn’t be there.  Parents can have plenty of time and opportunities to fu-k up their children.  But movie theaters do not have to have to help expedite the process.

It’s simply being responsible for parents who clearly are not and it helps consenting adult movie goers enjoy the film without hearing children talking and/or crying.  To the credit of the kids they did not say anything during Bruno, possibly because one of the fathers responsibly said, and I quote, “Shhhhhh, you need to be asleep right now.”  I agree sir, but in a bed with stuffed animals, not in a theater with images of bleached, stuffed anuses.

The movie is really really funny and I recommend it highly.  And I also recommend movie theaters start taking a modicum of responsibility for their viewers, both the ones that should be there and the ones that shouldn’t.