I saw White Noise over the weekend, which completely sucked — Michael Keaton should fire his agent (and get a glycolic peel while he’s at it). But what was truly scary was the audience.

I have never witnessed such global disregard for even the most obvious cell phone etiquette. The guy in front of me actually took a phone call in the beginning of the movie - even before the movie started to suck - and he wasn’t even discreet about it. After five minutes of unsuccessfully trying not to listen to him talk about his friend’s night out, I leaned over and tapped him on the shoulder to ask him to please end the call (ok, maybe I didn’t say please).

He looked at me as if I was the rudest person he had ever encountered and repeatedly claimed he was on an “important call.” Now, far be it for me to stand in the way of very important phone calling, so I sat back and glared at the back of his over-gelled head until he hung up. Clearly this Very Important Person was too busy jamming his tongue down his girlfriend’s throat to see the Inconsiderate Cell Phone Guy spots shown during the previews. But whatever, he was probably curing cancer, possibly tonsil cancer judging from the invasive procedure being performed on his nurse practitioner/girlfriend.

Then, about 20 minutes later, the chick behind me took a call. Could it be that she too was involved in the cancer cure? She was on the phone for over 15 minutes when I did the Turn and Glare. She saw it. And ignored it completely. Curing cancer obviously takes precedence over rude people who stare at you while you are on the phone with important scientists and researchers.

Am I just wickedly uptight or were these egregious offenses of theater etiquette? Is it too much to ask that, even if someone is on their deathbed and could possibly call you for that last goodbye, you at least take the call to the lobby? My inner Miss Manners morphed into the Hulk and came thisclose to pulling a smackdown on the entire section of very important cancer researchers.

What do people have against voicemail anyway?