"If you don't stop that crinkling . . . "

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I'm not a regular Slate reader, but Bryan Curtis has a don't-miss piece on going to art houses in NYC. Titled "Cinema Purgatorio," it details the changes that have occured in the behavior of patrons of international cinema, and they're not good.

"The Crinkler is a mythic art-house figure-- perhaps you've heard of him. Or, rather, perhaps you've heard him. As the lights go down, he is the guy three rows back who crinkles plastic wrap, restlessly and maniacally, for the entire length of a picture. I have had the displeasure of watching two films that he crinkled through: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre at Film Forum, and then, a few months later, White Heat, the film noir, at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. The ethical dilemma presented by the Crinkler is that crinkling doesn't have an obvious rejoinder. At Film Forum, a man seated behind me screamed, 'If you don't stop that crinkling . . . ' and then trailed off, as if his brain were unable to fully process the problem."