- cross-posted to:
- movies@lemm.ee
- cross-posted to:
- movies@lemm.ee
You must log in or # to comment.
I used to go see movies all the time with friends/family, then it got too expensive.
I got a better job and could afford to go back, but then COVID hit, and my (ex)wife was terrified of being shot, and so my first movie in years was the first new Dune, played at an Alamo Draft House.
I went with a couple friends, got a seat too close to the screen, my friend started POUNDING their popcorn, chewing super loudly, while other people talked. Like, I thought people would shut up once the commercials ended and the movie began, but no, it didn’t even wane! I got up and left after a few minutes, got a refund on my ticket. Haven’t even thought about going back. Whatever I watch, it’ll be on my couch, at home, for free.
The moviegoing experience is too expensive. $20+ tickets and a bag of popcorn priced like a steak dinner? Movies used to be a date night activity, it’s too damn expensive for that now. What teenager can even afford to take a girl to the movies?
And the films are crap. I watched Hollywood die, bloat and start to outgas. They don’t make comedies anymore. There’s maybe the Meet The Spartans guys who frat bro no homo joke their way through “parodies”. Everything else is churned out corporate sludge with way too much CGI.
B movies just don’t get made anymore. The upper end of B movies, like all those junk food action movies Cannon used to make, are now premium cable/streaming service TV shows. In the 80’s if you wanted to see cheap crap action schlock you’d go to the theater or rental store and see “Chuck Norris Is: Eagle Death Kick”, now you turn on Longmire and watch Grizzled McViagra shoot an injun right in the rezz. All of the really low budget independent “someone found a camera” stuff that RedLetterMedia laughs at three at a time end up on Youtube now, like Viva La Dirt League and their gaming-centric skits. During the Flash era and into the early days of Youtube there were a lot of budding animators but Youtube decided to kill that. So B movies are gone.
Hallmark has replaced the rom com, as far as I can tell. Everyone’s mom is currently busy lapping up “Woman living busy life moves to a small town and falls for an architect over the Christmas holiday CLXXIV” They churn out a few dozen of them every year. They don’t make While You Were Sleeping or My Big Fat Greek Wedding anymore, the rom com has gone the way of “finger family pregnant frozen elsa kills hitler spiderman,” optimized for maximum eyeball on screen time, except instead of toddlers it’s middle aged women.
What’s left but the five official franchises they’re allowed to make media about anymore? Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, DC and Star Trek. And that last one has made the jump back to TV. Quippy dialog filmed like a big sound board so they can make the whole movie in post. It’s amazing how long it’s worked.
I still casually go see 90’s films for $8 at a small place downtown sometimes, I even get popcorn.
I just like going to the movies. It’s nostalgic for me. I grew up in the 90’s. Put Forrest Gump on a theater for a cheap price and I’ll be there.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. 8$, not 24$ for entry and 18$ for popcorn and pop. Movie theater prices are insane.
I love the movies, too. And I’d love to go if I had a smaller local theater where I reside compared to the large corpo chains. During the handful of times I’ve been to the movies I end up disappointed with the experience: other persons are obnoxious (constantly talking, chewing loudly with mouth open, kicking seats, etc), they play on their cell phones with bright lights, it’s extremely cold, and the audio is incredibly loud that I get headaches from the experience. I found that using my concert ear plugs helps tremendously. I could go at a later point when the movie is no longer drawing large crowds, but at that point if I waited this long to see the movie I might as well wait longer for it to release to physical media I can own and rip to my PC.
Last movie I went to (like 2-3 years ago), there was a lady on her phone with the brightness turned all the way up nearly the entire time.
No thanks.
Rude people have always been around the moviegoing “experience”.
Then cellphones and social media popped up, making things geometrically worse.
Then in order to not inconvenience the mindless assholes inside their theaters, they managed to run the real movie lovers out of their establishments.Then somehow, incredibly, the pandemic made things even worse! Like something about being alone with their hollow lives for a year or two, broke something in the hollow psyche of those already mindless, rude hordes.
There was one time in 2007 that blew my mind in a movie theater, they were screening a limited engagement of No Country For Old Men before general release, so everyone who was there, was there for the love of cinema.
There is no music soundtrack in that movie, it has long stretches of silence, and in each of those scenes, in this packed large old movie house, I swear you could hear a pin drop.
My god… what an exceptional movie experience that night was, I’d never experienced anything quite like it, before or since.
I have been to European theaters that are dine-in and smaller. You got maybe 30 comfortable seats and with tray tables. You order your food / beverages 60 minutes before the movie.
During those 60 minutes you can wait in the lounge and have a drink with an appertife.
When the commercials start the food is served, then the movie starts and everyone is enjoying their meal and movie.
When the half way point hit they pause the movie as days of yore and you get a 20 minute break for going to the toilet and order more things.
They also serve tea and coffee during that time for free.
The kicker is that the tickets are little bit cheaper then the traditional big theater and the experience is 10 times better and more intimite since it only takes 30 people in one saloon.
We have a similar experience in Australia called gold class or (de)LUX. Much better way to enjoy a movie if it’s within your budget
I’ve done delux in the states. Tickets were more expensive.
The kicker is that the tickets are little bit cheaper then the traditional big theater
Gold Class is not similar. It’s twice as expensive and nothing is free; a coffee or tea is ~$5.
I just started going to the theaters again. It’s been pretty fun. I’d still rather buy a blu-ray and watch it at home. I wanna go see Nosferatu when it comes out.
Being the price down and I’ll consider going again
for me it’s not even the cost of the movies themselves that’s causing me not to go. it’s the cost of everything else in my life that has been adding up, so unnecessary entertainment expenses like movies are an easy thing to cut back on. Maybe there is a lower threshold that would get me to go more, but it’s probably not a realistic one.
also at home I have exactly the food and drinks I want at any time, I can pause for pee breaks, and I don’t have to deal with any annoying people, ads, or trailers.
Yup, nothing is worth 20 bucks a ticket. Especially considering 3 weeks later you can ‘rent’ it for 5 bucks.
Especially considering everything is a reboot or a sequel now. I want some original movies again.
Yeah, bring back original movies like Hundreds of Beavers, Conclave, Memoir of a Snail, The Substance, A Real Pain, Babygirl, The Last Showgirl, I Saw the TV Glow, Challengers, Wicked Little Letters, Love Lies Bleeding, Origin, The Zone of Interest, The People’s Joker, Kinds of Kindness, Poor Things, All of Us Strangers, The Holdovers, Anatomy of a Fall…
Did any of those appear in the theater, or are they all straight to streaming?
They all had theatrical runs AFAIK.
Crazy, I’ve only heard of two of those movies. I guess my ad blocker is working. Haha.
Thanks for the recommendations
A couple of them aren’t out yet. A couple I missed, or they just didn’t get theatrical releases here (Australia). Everything else, I Saw in the cinema. Anora, as well, hasn’t come out here yet. The Brutalist. I could go on…
Or pirate for free and have a more pleasant experience.
Free market. Amiright?
How about the fact that there’s a massive oligopoly in the industry? How about one studio basically steamrolling the industry with one franchise in the 2010s which alienated movie goers? How about movie-going being expensive AF?
Nah, it’s the fault of the casual moviegoer. Of course.
Anything except lower ticket prices right?
Ticket prices are really not that much more expensive than it was like 25 years ago when you count for inflation.
Problem is that wages haven’t really gone up to match inflation… so it seems like a lot more. Same with everything else.
When it costs $50 for 2 people to see a shitty movie?
A lot of theaters have discount days, on Tuesdays across the 2 states I’ve lived in this year you can see any movie for $7
Or I can just watch it at home.
It used to be $5.
I remember paying $1.
I’d pay three-fiddy…
It used to be a nickel
and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you’d say. Now, where were we?
I do miss movie theater popcorn but otherwise streaming at home all the way
movie theater popcorn is super easy to make yourself with something like this. you can of course get all the components separately as below, but the all in one packs are a convenient way to try it out.
for 1 medium-ish bowl (easily doubled if you have a big enough vessel):
-
1/3 cup kernels (Orrville Red. works for me, the main thing for good popping is fresh kernels)
-
~3 tablespoons of butter oil/topping
-
1/4-1/2 tsp flavacol depending on your salt level preference
(all this costs about $35 total and will last you quite a long time)
-
toss it all in a pot (or stainless steel mixing bowl) and mix around to distribute everything evenly.
-
turn the heat to medium and swirl the pot/bowl to keep everything moving and prevent burning.
-
when the pops slow down to once every few seconds you’re done.
-
add more butter topping to taste.
I know a lot of people swear by the stovetop method, but if you’re the kind of person who would somehow manage to burn cereal, a Whirlypop is 30 bucks well spent. Way fewer unpopped kernels than mocrowaving, and it stirs everything from the bottom so it’s almost impossible to burn.
And yes, flavacol is the magic ingredient!
I would totally get a whirleypop if my kitchen wasn’t already overflowing with shit.
It’s not easy to burn popcorn on the stove. Typical worse case scenario is a bunch of unpopped kernals
-
Took my kid to see Moana 2 yesterday. Medium popcorn was $11.50. WTF…
Distribution rights keep going up and the movie theaters pass those costs on to you in the form of concession prices. Blame the studios.
Yeah, movie theaters barely make money from actually playing movies. It’s another reason why selling alcohol started getting more popular at movie theaters.
I guess you love what you watch 😉 anyway 😜
Bring lower prices and quality media back and I’ll think about it
I’ve been itching to see a movie in a theater recently but nothing that’s playing interests me.
Maybe you just don’t like movies? I’ve seen tons of films theatrically this year, almost none of them mainstream blockbusters.
It’s always convenience and cost
- the cost is absurd
- I used to wait 4-6 weeks so I could watch without crowds but now the movie is gone
- just like with live tv, I no longer have to follow their schedule. However if it is only out for a short period, they’re going to miss me.
- lack of advertising, believe it or not. Maybe they still advertise, but advertising is. So bad now that I block as much as I can. Even if they tried and it’s “a tragedy of the commons”, that’s their fault that I no longer hear that a movie exists
It’s too bad because now that my kids are away at college I keep thinking I can go more frequently. But not if it’s too expensive, too inconvenient, and I don’t even know what movies there are
In reality, I actually do go to opening weekends more frequently now that there is reserved seating and less crowds, but my overall movie frequency is much lower.
Even Alamo Drafthouse is not a solution. We finally got one but it’s downtown only, so that’s a lot of inconvenience.
Yes on the advertising. The few movies I would have gone out of my way to see in the theaters never had advertising on anything I watched.
There have been times I’ve heard of videos and I’m like “they made a sequel?!” or I’m just shocked to hear they made a movie about something at all. I’m trying to remember the specific movie but I think it was based on a video game.
I live in dense metro suburbs. The theaters are empty at 2 weeks. Just bump up your schedule. Most tickets at bought before visiting so you cans ee the map of seats open
