Shhhhhhhhhh!

Maybe it's because I'm a spoiled, snobbish elitist - and that's not something I'm happy about - but I have to confess I'm finding it increasingly painful to go to the movies with the rest of you, the great paying public. It's not because of the cinemas - standards of projection, sound, seating and ventilation have improved out of all recognition in the past 10 years - but (and I'm sorry to have to say this) your standards of behaviour seem to be disimproving all the time.

I know that people have always gone to the movies for reasons other than actually watching the screen - the long and honourable tradition of serious snogging is attested to by the "love seats" which still adorn the older cinemas, and in times past, the cheap seats were often filled during the winter by people seeking refuge from the cold. But there's no such thing as cheap seats any more, and even snogging seems to be in serious decline, presumably because these days you can do whatever you want wherever you want to do it.

But snoggers, by their nature - apart from the occasional slurping suction sound - were always pretty quiet. Extraneous noise is the curse of the modern moviegoing experience, and to these ears it's becoming insupportable. And I'm glad to discover it's not just me. Asking around over the past few days, I've found most people agreeing that audiences are becoming more and more annoying. Everyone has their pet hates - but a few top every list.

Children

YES, they're cute. Yes, it's a good idea to take them to the movies - but only the right movies. The weekend matinees in many cinemas are filled with kids who are just too young. Whether their fresh little minds are being poisoned by over-12 movies is a matter for their parents and guardians, whether the cinemas are breaking the law is a matter for the Garda (has anyone in living memory seen a cinema busted for letting in under-age viewers?), but we certainly don't want them running up and down the aisles, banging the seats and whingeing that they're bored. If you can't control your kids, why not leave them to play in the car park, where they might have some real fun?

Kickers

OFTEN, but not exclusively, children. The kicker problem is exacerbated by the design of modern cinema seats - a kicked seat reverberates right along the row, so it can be well-nigh impossible to figure out where the hell it's coming from. In the 1970s, they called this Sensurround and people paid to experience it in movies such as Earthquake and Towering Inferno. In the 1990s, you can have your own personal towering inferno as you reach boiling point after two hours of bone-shaking juddering.

Mobile Phones

UP until recently, the mobile phenomenon seemed to be spinning out of control. Cinemas were buzzing like beehives with the damn things, and some buffoons even had the cheek to strike up conversations on them in the auditorium. There will always be buffoons, but a corner seems to have been turned in recent months. Cinemas have taken to putting up reminders on the screen, telling people to switch off their phones, and many appear to be doing it. On an electronically related topic, what sort of benighted fool needs a watch that beeps on the hour, every hour?

Guzzlers

I HAVE some sympathy for those who feel nauseated by the smell of warm butter which is so much a part of the modern multiplex experience, but it doesn't bother me that much. If people want to eat wildly overpriced, grease-saturated cardboard, then that's their business. At least popcorn has the virtue of being (almost) silent food - far better than the high-pitched crackle of the jumbo crisp packet or the extended kitchen-sink gurgle of the almost-drained Coke. Because the real problem in cinemas these days is noise, and most of the noise comes from . . .

Talkers

they're everywhere. Some films appear to attract worse specimens of these vile creatures than others. At a packed screening of The Buena Vista Social Club last week, two women arrived in late, plonked themselves down beside us, spent 10 minutes rummaging with coats, bags and umbrellas, all the while continuing the conversation they'd obviously been having outside while waiting for the film to start before making their grand entry. When asked (politely) to be quiet, they looked astonished and affronted.

The Buena Vista Social Club screening attracted a particular type of talker - the fan who can't resist giving a blow-by-blow commentary. They're bad enough, but there's worse: Top of the list come those who just utterly ignore the film in favour of their chat. Who are these people, and how do they lead their lives? I have visions of them phoning friends: "Haven't seen you in ages; we must get together and catch up. What about Eyes Wide Shut tomorrow? It's three hours long - that should give us plenty of time." Western society has devised countless places in which people can communicate with each other, but pubs, cafes, restaurants or street corners are just not good enough for these people, apparently, not when they can have the added pleasure of spoiling other people's enjoyment.

Then there are the ones who think that any break in dialogue has been inserted by the film-maker expressly for them to start talking. The minute there's an interregnum of more than a couple of seconds, they launch in: non-dialogue sequences, it seems, are the equivalent of commercials on television, time for a break and a re-cap.

There are, of course, the downright stupid, who spend most of the time asking questions: "Who's she? What happened there?" By the time they've got an answer, they've missed the next plot point, and the whole weary rigmarole starts all over again.

Should anyone who can't follow the plot of a basic Hollywood movie be let out at all without supervision? And how did they manage to find their way into the cinema in the first place?

What is the reason for this plague? The general decline in politeness in society may have something to do with it, but it doesn't fully explain the seemingly unstoppable desire to talk when the lights go down. And we don't want funereal silence; A good comedy, horror or action movie can be immeasurably improved by the communal experience of seeing it with an audience. People can shriek or laugh to their hearts' content, and there's a real sense of a shared, magical experience.

THE real culprit is video. People have become accustomed to watching movies at a time of their choosing, in their own homes, while they're eating their dinner, cutting their toenails, breaking up with their partners or whatever, and they bring almost all those habits into the cinema with them. It just doesn't occur to them that there are others within a couple of feet of them who may not wish to hear the details of their day, or their no doubt brilliant critiques of what's happening on screen. The expression of startled affront on the face of the woman sitting beside me in the IFC when I asked her to be quiet suggested that it just hadn't occurred to her that there was anything wrong with talking.

What can one do? Like many people, I have a series of escalating responses. There is The Swivel Around And Give Dirty Look stage, followed by The Loud Shush Technique, culminating in The Verbal Assault. I'm contemplating moving to something more effective - The Brandish Large Kitchen Knife Strategy, perhaps, or something involving poison-tipped blow darts. But there's nothing pleasurable about going to the movies if you're mentally prepared for battle, and in any case there's a less than 50:50 chance of persuading people to shut up.

Why not complain to the management? Well, what can a hapless, teenage usher do that I can't do myself? The problem here is not the sort of rowdy behaviour which would justify turfing someone out by the scruff of the neck (much as the spirits rise at the prospect). It's low-level wittering, and it's indulged in by a significant minority of the audience.

But it is a minority, and it is possible for the rest of us, and the cinema managements themselves, to do something about it. We could call ourselves something original, like The Silent Majority, and make it clear that it's time to shut up or get out.

Why not commission a pre-movie commercial, slasher-movie style, about a silent killer who eviscerates talkers. After all, we're all here together, in the dark, and you never know who's sitting next to you (I haven't quite jettisoned that kitchen knife idea yet, you know . . .).