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Text-Message Commentary Coming to the Movies?

by Ian Rowan on April 20, 2009 at 01:28 PM


Thought movie hecklers were annoying? Well, if a new project takes off nationwide, prepare to be uber-annoyed by heckling via texting/Twittering projected directly onto the movie screen. MuVChat creator Rien Heald describes his Frankenstein-like creation to the Chicago Tribune as "a mash-up of 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' and Twitter."

At MuVChat screenings (currently only in St. Charles, Illinois), ADD-afflicted Gen Y-ers and Millenials can text their thoughts and heckles to a central number, and then the comments are displayed via a live scrolling feed at the bottom of the screen. So far, the screenings have been cult comedy neo-classics like 'Zoolander' and 'Office Space,' but there have been calls for torture-inducing screenings of Mariah Carey's 'Glitter' and the Ben Affleck/J. Lo opus, 'Gigi.' According to Heald, most people at the screenings send about 40 comments per movie. An example comment? During 'Zoolander,' one commenter wrote, "I want a comb-over like Trump." Now, imagine 8,000 snarky comments popping up on the screen during a film (we're estimating an audience of 200).

Also bringing live commenting (and controversy) to the cinema are Aziz Ansari and Paul Sheer, of 'Human Giant' fame. The duo recently live-blogged a screening of 'Crank 2: High Voltage' via Twitter to ensuing hilarity. Not everyone thought it was funny, though. Ain't It Cool News cinephile Harry Knowles complained via Twitter (naturally) that cell phones in the theater destroy the sanctity of cinema.

What do you think? Would you rather see a live stream of 140-160 character comments accompanying a film or deal with the obnoxious guy in the back yelling out stupid comments? [From Chicago Tribune Via Entertainment Weekly]

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Tags: aintitcoolnews, human giant, HumanGiant, microblogging, movies, MST3K, muvchat, text-messaging, texting, top, trends, twitter

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