As the debate over what to do about cell phone usage in movies rages on, one theater isn’t just tolerating those awful glowy screens, but actively encouraging them. ArcLight Cinemas has teamed up with SeeItFirst for Second Screen Live!, an event series in which patrons are invited to toy with their iPads while The Nightmare Before Christmas plays on the big screen. Just what we need. More after the jump.

The event description, posted by Movies in LA, promises “fun challenges, speed trivia, sing-alongs,” prizes and more at the planned screenings, which are happening October 22 in Sherman Oaks and October 24 in Pasadena. So this isn’t a normal screening — it’s not like the ArcLight is bringing iPads into the Saturday matinee showing of Seven Psychopaths. The Nightmare event is more akin to the Disney movie sing-alongs hosted at a bar in my neighborhood. I wouldn’t normally tolerate drunken idiots yelling at the screen, but in that context I’ll happily make an exception.


On the other hand, if this event goes well, you can bet there’ll be many more like it. And the more common iPads become in movie theaters, the more normalized that kind of despicable behavior becomes. Some exhibitors have already floated the idea of separate “text-friendly” screenings for those who can’t bear to turn off their precious iPhones for 100 minutes, and this seems like a step in that direction. Pretty soon, not even an army of theater ninjas will be enough to stave off the hordes of iPhone-wielding ****.

Where this is happening matters as well. The ArcLight has a great reputation for giving patrons an enjoyable theater experience, but this is exactly what I don’t want moviegoing to become. At least we’ll always have the Alamo Drafthouse — Tim League would probably rather die than let people fool around with gadgets during a movie.

If, after all that, you’re still interested in attending Second Screen Live!, head to SeeItFirst.com and enter code 950452 for more details. Just promise me your iPad use will be limited to this one event, though, okay?

The toy world is full of epic miscalculations. There are so many squicky, inappropriate action figures and other toys, after a while you start to wonder if the toy industry is some sort of bizarre joke. Who signed off on the masturbating Batman doll, or the Wolverine toy with the blow-up nozzle in Logan's crotch?

In a nutshell, why are there so many weird and unfortunate science fiction and fantasy toys? We decided to talk to an expert, Mike Mozart from Jeepers Media, and he explained the secret origin of squick.

Mike Mozart is sort of an internet legend. He's a toy designer himself, who owns something like 300,000 toys — in part because he also does consulting with toy companies on patent and copyright lawsuits, so he needs to maintain lots of examples of prior art. He's been doing toy-related videos for years, but he found that his "Fail Toy" reviews of horrendous and quasi-obscene toys were becoming much more popular, so he developed Jeepers Media to promote the "Fail Toy" brand. At this point, his videos — full of silly sound effects like "BOING" and his goofy riffing on the weirdly sexual toys — have gotten a quarter billion views on Youtube alone, and he's featured tons of other places.

We spoke to Mozart on the phone about just why there are so many weird, messed up toys out there.

Some classic 1960s and 1970s toys were obscene on purpose.
One of the most famous "WTF" toys of all time is the Batman squirt gun, where Batman is bent over. You remove a plug in Batman's rear end and fill the Caped Crusader with water, and then squeeze a trigger in his crotch, so that water sprays out of Batman's mouth. What on Earth were they thinking?

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