Rant Time: Part Deux

So the wife and I finally went and checked out King Kong on Saturday. Great flick. What isn't so great is that the movie started at 12:30, or I should say, the time on the marquee said it started at 12:30. The movie of course didn't actually start until 12:50. Now I'll concede that the majority of this time was spent on movie trailers, and I like movie trailers, although 7 of them is pushing it especially in front of a movie that has been out for 3 weeks already. No my main beef was with the commercials that preceded the trailers, all 8 of them. That's right, 8 commercials, for such new and innovative products as Coca-Cola and car insurance. Buy a clue guys, I'm sitting in a movie theatre, I'm already drinking a Coke, no need to advertise to me. I arrived at the theatre in my car, which I already have insurance on and oh ya, I live in a province with only one auto insurance company. I can't even tell you what the other commercials were for, my mind just went more and more blank as my annoyance went higher and higher.

This has just gotten completely out of hand, we paid $20 admission to see the movie. We paid another $20 for snacks (the same tray of snacks in a mall food court would have been $10), yet I still have to endure 8 fucking commercials. What's that you say? If I don't want to see the commercials I should just show up late? Well that would be super if I wanted to sit directly in front of the screen all the way to one side. No if you want a decent seat for most new movies you need to show up ahead of time, and if you're lucky you can watch trivia questions about upcoming movies flash across the screen, oh and between the trivia questions, some more ads. Throw in the fact that manners in western civilization has declined to the point that most people don't think they are being rude by sitting behind you and chatting with their friends through the whole movie, or talking on a cell phone, or bringing a small baby to the theatre that you know damn well isn't going to stay quiet through an entire movie. Gee, I have no idea why movie ticket sales are on the decline.

Let's compare that to later on Saturday evening when we couldn't find anything on TV and decided to watch a movie on pay-per-view. Cost of movie $4.95, cost of snacks $5, number of commercials 0, amount of time spent waiting for the movie to start 15 seconds.

There was a time when my average number of movies seen in a theatre was more than 1 a week. I loved going and seeing movies, but I fear those days are past, now going to a theatre is more of chore than anything else, and it just doesn't seem worth it for anything that isn't a big event movie.

Please movie theatre operators, implement the following policies:

1. Limit the number of commercials shown before a movie to 2, I can handle 2 30 second ads.
2. Limit the number of trailers to 4.
3. Have "Adults Only" showings of movies, no one under 18 admitted, period, regardless of the rating.
4. When building new theatres, include technology to block cell phone signals.
5. For God's sake, go a year without jacking up the ticket prices.

Thank You.