" Oh, nothing. Just watching a movie. "

— Cell-phone conversation recently overheard at the Showcase Cinemas in Revere

Movie-goers who chat on their cell phones during film screenings are no longer the occasional aberration. To wit: at a recent matinee showing of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, I sat behind a gentleman and his young son. Five minutes into the feature, the man began to conduct business on his cell phone. He not only answered calls, he made them — and continued to do so intermittently throughout the movie. I changed my seat and practiced the subway-perfected art of tuning out my surroundings. But my experience had been disrupted — not only by this oaf’s behavior, but also by thoughts of the kid sitting transfixed beside him: so much for cultivating future film audiences without ADD.

Oh, sure, all the major cinema chains run blurbs before each film telling patrons to turn off their cell phones. But that does nothing to counteract the two deeper problems: the proliferation of rude and inconsiderate behavior in public places and the overall decline of the filmgoing experience. When confronted with obnoxious behavior at the movies, the onus is on the paying customer to complain about it. When was the last time you saw an usher, flashlight in hand, patrol the aisles of the mall multiplex? When was the last time you saw a boorish patron escorted out the door? I’ve embarrassed my friends more than once with my insistence on a quality moviegoing experience. I’ve pounded on projection-booth doors after sitting through two minutes of an out-of-frame film. I’ve even taken that long, long curse-filled walk from the cinema into the mega-multiplex lobby in search of a manager, only to be greeted by the blank stare of a 16-year-old sporting a crooked name tag. Letters of complaint to the corporate offices of theater chains have resulted in free passes (and I’m sure they’ve earned me a reputation as a crank). But no mere put-up-and-shut-up freebie can reverse the tide of rude, crude behavior in theaters, hidden away and unchecked in the bowels of 12-, 15-, and 19-screen cinemas.

At least my complaints about cell-phone chatter have not resulted in personal injury — yet. But I instinctively understood the headline cell phone disturbance at tacoma theater, which appeared in the May issue of Box Office, a monthly industry magazine. " According to Tacoma [Washington] police, a moviegoer attending a screening at a cinema on South 23rd Street answered his phone and began talking loudly ... [another] patron informed theater management, who in turn spoke to the phone talker. When the theater employee left, the man threatened the patron who complained, eventually striking him in the face with his fist. Local police are still seeking the man, who fled from the site. " Box Office, which is filled with such items, acts as a sort of a police blotter of bad moviegoing behavior. Granted, cell-phone altercations seem no more egregious than patron car-jackings, violent robberies in cinema restrooms, gang-related parking-lot shootings, or the occasional sexual-offender arrest. But they are certainly the most easily avoided.

Locally, theater managers downplay cell-phone-chatter fisticuffs. Cell phones " are not a big problem, " says Jason Bortal, a manager at the 19-screen Loews Boston Common. " We reserve space in our upper and lower lobbies for cell-phone users. "

But anecdotal evidence suggests that cell-phone misuse seems to be worse, and more difficult to manage, at large mainstream multiplexes. Younger moviegoers are particularly comfortable chatting away on glow-in-the-dark phones, but I’ve seen plenty of older folks, like the well-dressed dad at Spirit, do the same, without apology.

As theaters, thankfully, upgrade the moviegoing experience with amenities such as stadium seating, digital sound, and bigger screens, wouldn’t it also make sense to enforce common courtesy? After all, we shell out as much as $9.50 to see first-run features. Is it too much to expect to watch the pricey flick in relative peace? I remember reading last year that in Hong Kong, where mobile-phone use is epidemic, officials considered installing phone-jamming systems in public places, including cinemas, after theater operators complained of cell-phone use run amok. The demand for greater control intensified after the public heard news reports of a Hong Kong doctor who answered his cell phone while performing surgery.

It occurs to me now: maybe the hapless patient had just come from the movies.