The Slow Siphon of Sanity from Cinema - Part 1
I’m sure you’ve all been there. You finally got up the nerve to ask out that cute girl at work, and so you decided to go see a movie. Or maybe you have been waiting for months for a particular film that you’ve been dying to see, and you decide to go see it opening night with some friends. Somewhere between the ticket queue and the garbage can next to the exit, a series of events most likely happened that sucked a great deal of enjoyment out of your movie experience. How do I know? I’ve been there too.
Ten years ago a mighty wizard, (not Dumbledore) was slighted by a movie attendant that asked him to remove his ridiculous hat. It was said that the wizard immediately disappeared in a puff of angry, stale popcorn and ever since that day we have realized the gravity of the phrase: “Hell hath no fury like a wizard scorned.” Not many people have heard of this event that explains why so much has gone awry in our cinematic world, but I can assure you of it’s authenticity and cite references from Wikipedia. (And if you can’t find them, notify me and then check back with Wikipedia in about 10 minutes)
How else would you explain the decline of the average movie theater experience over the past 10 years? I guess you could chalk it up to the human condition equation, but it kind of limits the kind of creativity you can express about the origins of this otherwise disheartening anomaly.
First of all, what is up with the rapid rising prices of movie tickets? As if the theater didn’t have a large enough profit margin already in being a service-based business with minimum waged employees, they tout ridiculously marked up fountain drinks (@local theaters in Memphis,TN the average fountain drink is marked up more than 2000% PURE PROFIT!!! Cost of drink to theater: $0.20 Cost to consumer: $4.00 Total profit margin: $3.80!!!!) If this was the only cash cow that theaters were trying to milk it wouldn’t be all that big of a deal, but this is not the only fly in my soup of cinematic experience. Not only are movie ticket prices sky-rocketing, but the number of commercials that movie goers have to sit through is sky-rocketing as well. (How many times can they show that BMW commercial where they use a Z4 to paint a football field sized canvas?) This means that they are also making more money by selling this ad-space to companies who want to try to hoc their goods/services to the already irritated movie-goer. Q. “Why do we go to the movies?” A. “To be entertained. To see the movie of our choice.”
Nuff said? I think not.
TO BE CONTINUED…
