Difficult Simple

I love going to the movies. I love the humongous screen, the booming speakers and the full attention a movie screen demands. There are no distractions in a movie theater (if you’re lucky), no pause button, no nothing; it’s just the movie and you.

Over the years the experience of moviewatching has grown more than a little disappointing for me. There was a point not so long ago when I’d visit the theater once a week, and while I saw a lot of junk, I also enjoyed the experience. Plus, it was something I could do that was affordable. And that brings us to today.

I watched Iron Man on the big screen and it was well worth my time and money. How much money? Eight bucks for a matinee. That’s just not right, particularly when DVDs run roughly twice that and can be watched again and again without further charges accruing.

Then there’s the psycho factor. As homes have become the de facto standard for moviewatching, there’s been a marked increase in the number of douchebags in the audience. I read a lot of whining about noisy kids, but I can count on one hand the number of disruptive children I’ve encountered in my whole life going to the movies, whereas I don’t have enough fingers and toes to account for all the rude, noisy, stupid adults I’ve had the misfortune to watch movies with.

Today was good. I picked the earliest showing possible (9:45am) and got a great seat. There were maybe ten other people in an auditorium that can seat 300 or so. Only once did I hear a person say anything during the whole movie, and that was so minor that I forgot about it until just now, when I wrote this sentence. The thing is, I shouldn’t have to show up before 10 o’clock to see a three-week-old movie just to get an acceptable viewing experience.

Especially for eight bucks. Eight bucks! I’ve seen movies in the theater for as little as 50¢, so eight dollars is right off the scale. Granted, my preferred moviegoing venue is a huge place and likely has huge rent, too, but there has to be a limit to this kind of thing. Given the technology we have in place, it shouldn’t be difficult or untoward for theaters to have more than a couple of tiers for payment. If today’s early-bird ticket had been four bucks, for example, there might have been more than ten of us and the theater would have made money on volume. Plus concessions.

It’s never made much sense to me for older or underperforming movies to cost the same as smash hits. Likewise I haven’t been able to figure out why the cost of a matinee ticket has doubled in relatively short order. Concessions have always been wildly overpriced, but that’s something audiences have come to terms with. It’s one of the reasons I rarely buy snacks unless I’m with my wife. But ticket prices? There’s a limit.

Consider this: for MA and I to see a matinee it’d cost us $16 before we factor in anything like popcorn or candy. Our monthly Netflix account costs $14. As I say, the experience of a movie theater is fairly singular, but I can get two movies a week, eight movies a month, for that same $14, whereas going to the theater would cost at minimum $128 for the same number of films.

We’re getting a pretty big HDTV later this year and a sound system for 5.1 stereo, too. It still won’t be the movie theater, but it’ll make a giant leap closer. And for a lot less cash over time.