Our local movie theaters are fuckers.

[Kitsune]

On top of being full of idiot teenyboppers who talk and play on their cellphones through a movie, having tons of ads before the movies, and hiking the price past nine bucks, the local Regal theaters have apparently decided that evening starts at 3:00, because that's when they stop giving matinee prices.

And they wonder why their attendance is dropping.

Stupid fuckers.

[sinij]

Can't agree more. I settled for long-ish drive to an artsy theater out of the way that doesn't show ads before they start showing movies.

Not sure why I bother with theaters when I can just download my movies and watch with surround sound and big screen at home.

[Velorath]

Before I got my current job at the theater, I pretty much never went to a non-matinee movie.  The added bonus was that not a lot of people go to see movies at 11 in the morning, so dealing with annoyances like disctracting cell phone lights was less common.  The non-matinee prices here just got to an even $10 by the way.

As far as the ads go, it was pretty bad a couple months back here.  Aside from the movie previews we had Fandango, Coke, and what we call "policy" trailers (those being the ones that say shit like Dolby Sound, the name of the theater, please turn off your cell phone, etc...).  Like movie trailers, we had to splice the stuff to the start of our film print, which means it doesn't play until we turn the projector on at the listed start time.  Now we have these digital projectors for the pre-show which show all this stuff before the start time, so you can just avoid them and all the other ads by showing up right when the movie is supposed to start.

I enjoy watching movie trailers, so the amount of those the put in front of a movie has never bothered me.  And really, I don't know the statistics, but I wouldn't say that attendance is dropping.  The chain I work for seems to be expanding at the moment.

[angry.bob]

It's why I spent the bulk of movies I see absent-mindedly cutting up my seat and the seat next to me with a box knife (depending on the population of the theater). If a theater shows a commercial before the movie, they get property damage. If they don't it's all good.

[Velorath]

Way to be a jackass making shit worse for the next customers that have to sit in those seats.  You know what, I'm just gonna assume that was a failed attempt at humor since I don't actually believe you could be that fucking stupid. 

[Azazel]

Yeah, I'm going to go with Velorath here. Ads before films are ok. I don't enjoy them particularly, but they've always been a part of the (mainstream) cinema here. As long as they don't go too long, I'm ok with it.

Having said that, I think the last few films I saw at the cinema were the three Lord of the Rings films, Star Wars episodes 2 and 3, Um. Matrix part 2. School of Rock. And that James bond one with Halle Berry in it.

And yes, I mean when they were newly released.

[Zephyr]

Hah, I would love matinee prices before 3 PM.  The AMC's around here now consider only the first showing to be at matinee price and those are usually at 10-11 AM.  I have been driving a bit out of my way now to go to an independant theatre.  It's cheaper and has fresh popcorn.

[Viin]

Our matinee prices are before 6pm. I think you save $2.50, so instead of $9.75 a pop it's $7.25.

I think it's funny that "everyone" is blaming pirates for bad movie turn outs, but I don't pirate movies and I most certainly ain't paying 9.75 (x2) + overpriced food to subject myself to Coke, TBS, and prime time TV show ads and what is more than likely not that great of a movie.

Though Children of Men was good.

The thing is, my home theater setup is plenty good for me - so if I can watch movies in the comfort of my home with popcorn that costs less than $0.50 to pop yourself, I'll do it. Since renting movies has become so much cheaper/easier (Netflix, blockbuster's online crap) there's really no reason to go to the theater unless you are bored.

[Stormwaltz]

The theaters around here are $16 for an adult ticket. Even if I hate the movie, it's usually cheaper to buy the DVD than to get tickets for my wife and I.

The only movies I've seen in the theater since moving to Edmonton were Sith and Serenity.

[WayAbvPar]

With the ticket prices, insanely long ads before the fucking trailers even start, and the increasingly shortened lag time between theatrical and DVD release, it is a wonder I ever get to the movies any more. I would guess I see 3-4 a year now. Used to be 25-30 easily.

[naum]

Paying money to see a movie and then being forced to watch ads sucks. And then the yank-o-rama over Dolby Digital or surround sound and the admonitions to stop piracy make my blood boil and swear never to return.

Previews I don't mind and actually enjoy.

But even worse are the retards that are too cheap to pay for a babysitter and bring infants to the theatre for R rated flicks and make for an unenjoyable experience.

Though at a showing of Apocalypto, Mrs. Naum & I were treated to a lone guy directly in front of us who got so excited and into the film, he cheered and cussed, yelling obscenities at the screen during violent moments. At the end of the film, we were surprised to see it was an old fart who was so animated...

[Merusk]

Though at a showing of Apocalypto, Mrs. Naum & I were treated to a lone guy directly in front of us who got so excited and into the film, he cheered and cussed, yelling obscenities at the screen during violent moments. At the end of the film, we were surprised to see it was an old fart who was so animated...

Flashbacks are a bitch.


The wife and I treat movies as a night out.  They're once in a while and only if it's something we really want to see (unless someone else is treating.)  We watched all of 4 films in the theater last year, and we'll probably only watch as many this year.  In fact, I can name the ones we'll go see.  Pirates, Spidey, Harry Potter and Shrek 3.  Everything else will get the "pop it in the netflix queue and we'll see if we still want to see it in 6 months" treatment.

Ads? Who cares, I'm more pissed that they're on the DVDs I buy than in the theater.  I know how close some of their margins are, so I forgive them making up some additional revenue.

Trailers?  I get more ticked when I only get one or two than seeing 5-6.  Even if it's for crap that doesn't interest me, the trailers are still fairly interesting, and give folks some time to settle-in.

[HaemishM]

I'm getting to the point of saying "Fuck movie theaters." I'm not paying $8 for a movie, then $3 for a box of popcorn six sizes too large, a small-sized soda that could flood the fucking Sahara for $3, cholera-filled bathrooms and the general stench of humanity, just to be forced to watch ads telling me what a filthy pirate I am and why don't I go buy a fucking Coke after the show to drink while watching Law & Order Infant Cops on TBS?

I want movie trailers. That's it. You don't deserve to advertise to me for the price I had to pay to get in this bitch. Not when you also plaster your horseshit logo all over every fucking movie I watch, or worse, you ejaculate your brand statement out of the mouths of every character onscreen like in Talladega Nights. It's not funny or post-modern, jagoffs, it's fucking whoring. Stop it.

Dicks.

[Velorath]

I think it's funny that "everyone" is blaming pirates for bad movie turn outs, but I don't pirate movies and I most certainly ain't paying 9.75 (x2) + overpriced food to subject myself to Coke, TBS, and prime time TV show ads and what is more than likely not that great of a movie.

The funny thing is that for all that people in the industry like to play up the decline of the movie theater thing, business still seems to be pretty good.  If I actually owned my own theater though I've always figured that selling monthly passes would be the better way to go than charging for individual tickets.  You'd get close to the same amount of money depending on how you price the passes, and customers would come in for a lot of movies that they might not have come in to watch before, just because they've already paid for the month.  The theater wouldn't really have any extra costs, and there'd be more foot traffic coming through the snack bar, which is where the theaters make most of their money.

[Furiously]

But the studios wouldn't allow you to do that. They want their profits from each viewing.

[Velorath]

But the studios wouldn't allow you to do that. They want their profits from each viewing.

Which is why you'd still have to print out individual tickets (the customers would just be "paying" for them with their pass), and give the studios money based on percentages.  If 20% of the tickets "bought" with passes were for "Movie A", that movie would get 20% of the money from the pass sales.  Yeah, I'm sure it would be hard to sell the studios on the idea at first, but I think if they tried it out in some theaters first it would prove to be better for everyone in the long run.

[SurfD]

I see a small potential problem with the idea of monthly passes for movie theatres:

You price your movie pass how?
Asuming individual ticket price is 10.00, do you sell your monthly pass at 10 x Y bucks, on the asumption that the average person would never watch more then Y movies in a month?

What happens if you consistantly print more "tickets" for your monthly pass holders then the value of the Monthly pass is actually worth?  If your Y is 10, and all your monthly pass holders are smart enough, they would ALWAYS try to watch more movies then the pass itself convers, and then you better hope your concession sales are stellar, or you could rapidly bankrupt yourself when the studios come to collect their cut.

[Velorath]

I realize the idea isn't a perfect one, and in the end would have the same effect as if theaters just made the fucking ticket prices cheaper.

[Bunk]

The theaters around here are $16 for an adult ticket. Even if I hate the movie, it's usually cheaper to buy the DVD than to get tickets for my wife and I.

The only movies I've seen in the theater since moving to Edmonton were Sith and Serenity.

Yikes. You going to West Edmonton Mall or something? I could see that tourist trap having prices like that, but otherwise... wow.

Famous Players theaters in Vancouver are $10.95, but they have eliminated matinee pricing completely.

[Yoru]

I'm in the "theater ads make me stabby" camp. Before I moved out of LA, I tended to only go to either the indie theater down the block (no ads) or the ultrapremium megaplex, preferably during matinee ($10-$14, depending on time/day), for the big-name movies I wanted to see. The few times I went to a non-ad-free theater (due to social groups), the pre-run ads soured my experience by putting me in a foul mood before the picture started.

And even then, I'd go at most once a month. Now? I haven't set foot in a theater nearly three months. My last cinematic experience was buying a used DVD from Blockbuster (and probably horribly overpaying). I figure I should get a Netflix account or something, but I really don't watch enough movies to justify it.

[Xilren's Twin]

But even worse are the retards that are too cheap to pay for a babysitter and bring infants to the theatre for R rated flicks and make for an unenjoyable experience.

Have any of you been to a Movieco?

I had a business trip the the North Arundel mall in maryland not long ago and got to go to that one.  Valet parking, child care, 24 screens and a gi-hugic snack bar.  I wanted to say you could buy a movie pass their but i think its more the lines of by X shows for some discount, then use your credit card like pass to get the tickets you want.  Not sure i'd want one in my town  but it was definately different.

[vex]

Have any of you been to a Movieco?

I had a business trip the the North Arundel mall in maryland not long ago and got to go to that one.  Valet parking, child care, 24 screens and a gi-hugic snack bar.  I wanted to say you could buy a movie pass their but i think its more the lines of by X shows for some discount, then use your credit card like pass to get the tickets you want.  Not sure i'd want one in my town  but it was definately different.

Yea that's a good one.  It's about 15 minutes from here but I haven't been there in over a year.  At that mall without that valet parking on weekends you wouldn't be parking at all.  You can buy tickets for that one online and then go to a separate automated booth to pick them up.

I always feel like I'm being robbed when when I go to the theatre

[Johny Cee]

It's sort of amusing that, on a site where a bunch of the guys spend big bucks on HDTV and home entertainment systems, they're bitching about the price of going to a movie.

There are some things that NEED to be seen in a theater,  with a decent sound system.  Some movies, like comedies and some shock-actiony types,  for the crowd reaction.  Sin City on opening night,  with crowd sounds at the most outrageous of the violence, is a far better movie experience then DVD.  Apocalypto,  for all it's another massively violent Mel Gibson movie, is fucking gorgeously shot and colored.

Nosferatu (the original) was an experience in the theater,  with live accompaniment (spelling! ahh! snake, snake!). 

I'd pay double or triple price to see The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on a movie screen with a decent sound system....

[Roac]

I actually like seeing previews in the theatre.  It's one of the things I dislike about going to the dollar theatre, odd as it may sound.  I do NOT like watching car commercials, coke commercials, or whateverthefuckelse they want to show before the movie.  If I go to the theatre, I want to see movies.  Showing previes that makes me more excited about movies is a good thing.  If I want to hear a pitch about cars, I'll visit your car lot.  Otherwise, leave me alone.

[Paelos]

Movie theatres officially priced me out of the market a year ago. The last movie I saw in the theatre was probably March of the Penguins. I thought about going to see the new James Bond film, but when we got there it was $9.50 for a ticket and sold out. With Netflix costing about the same as a ticket, coke, and popcorn for just one trip a month, going to see movies in the theatres makes zero sense now.

As for ads, they don't bother me much. Typcially I was running late anyway for a movie, so they offered a nice buffer for me before the movie really got rolling.

[bhodi]

Movie theaters have driven me out of the market for a number of reasons.

There hasn't been overmuch worth seeing lately; the number of "good movies" (always subjective) has dropped from about 20 to more like 5-6 per year. Add to that the absolutely awful movie-going experience if it's an action or horror (because of the crowd), and the incandescent rage I have for paying to sit and watch commercials, and it all adds up to me finding something else to do on a Friday night with friends.

I don't like random theater people and the movie is better without them. Frankly, I have a very nice home theater - what's the fucking point of the movie theater anymore? Even someone with a modest income manages to afford those huge flat screen TVs. I'll invite some friends over and watch at my place. Without the commercials.

A movie date type thing will cost you $25 plus food. It's a complete rip-off.

[Merusk]

A movie date type thing will cost you $25 plus food. It's a complete rip-off.

Yeah you're right.  It's no wonder the girls are busting down your door with smooth thinking like that.

  :-D

[bhodi]

When you put it that way, wow. That's pretty smooth of me. Whoops ;)  Every once in a while I say something utterly retarded that exposes my Scrooge McDuck nature.

I'd still rather go out and spend twice or three times that on a nice meal.

[Velorath]

I'd still rather go out and spend twice or three times that on a nice meal.

Yeah, but then you have to, you know... talk to the woman the whole time.

[bhodi]

Revive the lost art of conversation? I wish people did it more.

[Strazos]

The theater I went to in Rome to see Star Wars III and Batman Returns was a pretty sweet deal. Also had a McD's attached to it.

When we got out of Batman Returns, there was a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren on display at some kind of ritzy party...thing. There was also a sweet little helicopter as well.

[WindiaN]

Theaters in Manhattan have been $10.50 for as long as I can remember, now they are nearing $12 bucks. We've had those crazy ads for years as well. The worst is in the places with "advanced sound and high-definition quality projectors" (aren't all theaters supposed to have that?) where the prices are nearing $15. Guess they need a gigantic space in the city needs to be paid for somehow.

[ahoythematey]

So many reasons posted here as to why I fucking love the Alamo Drafthouse.

[Riggswolfe]

Even with my HDTV and surround sound, there are movies that are better in the theater. Crowd enthusiasm is a big part of it. And the tangible excitement when you and 100 other nerds go to see Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or something. Besides, in a movie theater, I can't see the actors makeup unlike my home system. (Who knew that high resolution had a bad side as well.)

[WindupAtheist]

The movie industry has been crying about declining box office receipts for years now, and it's their own god damned fault.  While I'll concede that it's worthwhile to see a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings with a theater full of cheering nerds, how often do those sort of movies come out?