Since being purchased by the Kerasotes chain, my neighborhood movie theater, the Bowles Crossing 12, at 8035 W. Bowles Avenue in Littleton, has gotten super-strict about R-rated movies. Theater personnel are stationed outside screening-room entrances to prevent underagers from buying tickets to Ice Age and then sneaking into celluloid sin magnets. If a parent or guardian isn't with the impressionable tykes in question -- or if their tickets haven't been marked by box-office employees to designate that an adult gave verbal permission for entry -- they're not getting in.
I got a sample of this policy on Friday, when I contributed to the delinquency of fourteen minors (my sixteen-year-old twin daughters and twelve of their pals) by helping run them past the gauntlet between them and Brüno, the latest cinematic provocation from British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. There were actually two Kerasotes staffers guarding the door for the 10 p.m. showing, with one woman physically stepping into the opening when she saw our extended faux-brood approach and asking "IDs?" in an extremely dubious tone. At that point, I identified myself as their moral guide, adding, "We're going to have a biblical lecture afterward." The woman wasn't amused. "They'll need one," she declared. "This is really bad."
That's a matter of opinion, of course -- although it sure as hell isn't going to be confused with Finding Nemo. But while the folks at Kerasotes did their best to keep younglings away, their system isn't foolproof. Not when fools like me are around....
