THREE HOURS IN PURGATORY, OR IS IT JUST THE MOVIES?

Byline: Suzanne Condie Lambert Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

If you've been to the movies lately, you probably know the words, so sing along:

``Where have all the ushers gone?''

Yes, movie ushers are an endangered species: Their natural habitat, the big-screen movie palace, has been replaced by shoe box-sized foo-foo multiplexes where you have a better chance of finding a double latte and a free-range poppy seed muffin than a fresh-faced flashlight-wielding youth to protect you from the rude people who always manage to sit RIGHT BEHIND ME.

If you're seeing the same movie as me, find out where I'm sitting and move as far away as possible, because if there's one idiot in the theater with a burning need to talk about his painful rectal itch, he'll sit behind me. And he'll go into detail.

Which brings me back to the ushers: We need them more than ever, but unless you're involved in a knife fight between rows 12 and 14, chances are you won't see a management representative in the theater.

So this leaves you, the polite moviegoing public, to get up, try to find someone with authority to do more than ask ``You want butter flavoring on that?'' and convince them that telling someone to stop talking during the movie is more important than getting to the next level on the Laser Wars video game in the lobby. Either that, or risk a potentially painful confrontation with someone who is loudly enjoying his first movie on the ``outside'' since that pesky assault conviction in the early '80s.

But it's not all the theater's fault. For some reason, obnoxious moviegoer populations have exploded.

I know this because in the past month I have attended three movies that were totally ruined by the presence of idiot moviegoers. Now, while I am usually a bonehead magnet, the frequency and severity of recent encounters make me think something sinister is going on.

Several weeks ago it was a couple who obviously don't get out much who sat behind us at a screening of ``Absolute Power.'' I know they don't get out much because when one of the characters uttered an incredibly hilarious adult phrase that rhymes with ``kissing contest,'' they hooted like they were in the front row of a Gallagher show and proceeded to repeat said phrase, I don't know, 53 times.

It's really hard to get into a thriller when ``Dumb and Dumber'' are discovering new ways to increase their word power just 4 feet away.

Then last Saturday I sat in a packed movie house trying to concentrate on ``Dante's Peak,'' but I was only able to hear the woman DIRECTLY BEHIND ME spend the entire movie explaining to her child that the white stuff on the screen wasn't snow, but ASH, a substance created by a volcanic explosion. She explained everything but the theory of plate tectonics to this child. And while I appreciate her desire to educate the kid, I say skip the running commentary and next time stay home and read the dang World Book together.

It wasn't a total loss, though. The movie was ``Dante's Peak'' after all, so I didn't miss out on anything good. But as my mind wandered, daydreaming about ways I could kill with a paper cup and a batch of Red Vines, I hit upon the solution moviegoers have been yearning for.

No, not individual cones of silence. I'm thinking of something much more high-tech. I'm thinking electric shock.

We implant sensors in each theater seat, see, and program them NOT to go off when you're SUPPOSED to make noise (like a really funny scene or the part where Sigourney Weaver is about to do something really scary, like encounter a slimy, snarling monster or kiss Bill Murray). But they ARE programmed to go off when the seat occupant creates noise above a set decibel level. The talkers and coughers and people who give their children noisy cellophane candy wrappers to play with during the film will get totally zapped. Not as powerful as an electroconvulsive-therapy zap, but definitely more than a shuffling-on-a-wool-rug-and-touching-a-doorknob zap.

And this is just the beginning.

Folks should also submit to a written examination, kind of like at the DMV, before being allowed in the theater. Here's a sample:

Are you stupid? If so, can you keep it to yourself?

How long can a healthy adult reasonably expect to ``hold it''?

Can the characters on the screen hear your advice?

When you laugh, do moose from neighboring woods send you candy and flowers?

Which of the following films and show times are suitable for a 5-year-old? Why?

1) The noon matinee showing of Christina Ricci in ``That Darn Cat.''

2) An 8 p.m. screening of ``Babe.''

3) ``Scream'' at the midnight movies.

Of course, savvy moviegoers will know that last one is a trick question. The answer is none of the above.

Not even children should be subjected to the cloying inanity of Disney's remake, and kids who see ``Babe'' will forever live in terror of the butcher's counter.

And while the obvious answer to why you shouldn't take a 5-year-old to ``Scream'' is the extreme violence, most kids see more blood-letting on Saturday-morning TV. Bonus points go to people who correctly guess that ``Scream'' is unsuitable because star Courteney Cox will give the kids a totally distorted view about what adult women should really look like.

And if I see you in the theater before the test goes into effect, please remember: Death by Red Vines isn't pretty.