So here we are, planes bombing and civil war in Libya, the government is about to shut down, and our economy is on a fragile standing. What am I going to write about? My latest movie theater experience.
I took my daughter to see a movie last weekend. About $22 for tickets and another $13 for popcorn and a soda (we shared). What did I get for my money? A series of advertisements on slides and a projector, then commercials for soda, various snacks and candies, and then eleven movie previews. ELEVEN MOVIE PREVIEWS?!
When we were finished with the movie I asked to see the manager of the theater, my daughter asked me what was going on. When the manager arrived I asked for my ticket money back. Puzzled, she ask me if there was a problem? I told her that I sat through roughly 30 minutes of commercials which should more than compensate the amount of money for my tickets. My daughter started to giggle, she's cute that way. This young lady, the theater manager, was dumbfounded, she didn't know how to react or what to say. Needless to say, she was not empowered to refund my money, but she did give me two free passes for my next movie. Very nice of her and much more than I expected, well done Stacey!
It got me thinking though, how much marketing are we all going to pay for? When you buy a DVD, do you want to be forced to sit through the movie previews? Some DVDs make it impossible to pass them by or even fast forward through them. You MUST WATCH them to get to the movie you wanted and paid money for (if you are pirating these videos, that is stealing).
Why are we forced to sit through commercials at the movie theater? Someone is making a bundle of money, forget that ticket prices are very high, soda being more than a gallon of gasoline, and the popcorn going for 400% over actual costs. Why do we act as sheep? Some people actually go to some movies to see the previews. To me, this is stupid; with the internet, go watch them there!
We do get to see the movies uncut and without interruptions (although the gentleman two rows back couldn't shut his mouth, you know who you are!). Isn't this what we pay for? If there were no commercials, would the movie tickets be $30 a piece? Many movies don't recoup the money they shell out to make them, why penalize us? Why not get cheaper actors, writers, etc.?
I think this is absurd, please comment and tell me I am wrong. Otherwise, please let me know what we can do to solve this increasingly annoying problem. We can after-all, stop going to the movies and get back to reading books. Anyway enough of my angry rant; my daughter is looking forward to our next movie together and so am I. Maybe we will get a Diet Pepsi, we saw a cool ad for it in the theater, LOL.
That's my take, not yours.