I'm not usually one to complain about the ways of city folk, but I did think the audience we saw Spellbound with in New York laughed a bit too much in the wrong places. Now, it is a charming film, and I'll laugh at a misspelled sign as much as the next person. But I didn't really think the lovably eccentric families of the Texas and the Midwestern farm kids, for example, were hilarious. I thought they seemed like a lot of people I've met.

As I listened to the woman behind me who was a particularly loud laugher (and talker, but let's not get started on that) the experience reminded me of the way people react to one of those Christopher Guest ensemble films (A Mighty Wind, anyone?) where the characters seem completely unselfconscious about how ridiculous they are.

But those characters are fictional.

I restrained myself from turning around and collaring the woman behind me, asking: You do know these people are real, right?

But I didn't. What would I have done if she would have said Yes and kept laughing anyway?