Tbf i thought wicked was pretty great-
When it costs $50 for 2 people to see a shitty movie?
i think mean wage of full time earner in US is 27 bucks pre tax…
why would a person pay half days of wage for this?
prices are so out of wack vis-a-vis income that it is turning comical but yet corpo and regime whores don’t understand why plebs feel some way lol
plus quality of hollywood slop is beyond bad… hollywood was always pedo central but at least they could make flip prior to 2010s. no they want your money while shoving shiti agenda in your ass.
they even managed to wear the normie marvel fan jfc
no they want your money while shoving shiti agenda in your ass.
Which agenda is that?
you can be anything you want pedon as long as you consume daddy’s slop ;)
Wtf? 27 per hour? Sign me up!
Per day, I think.
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
It used to be $5.
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 remember paying $1.
Without concessions, that’s the highest price I’ve ever heard of. It’s half that around here.
I imagine it will vary based on your location, but I’d venture to guess most major cities like mine would be similar.
I live in an outskirts suburb of a major city, and @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee suggested price point matches up.
Checking the current “headlining” movie at my local theater (which happens to be an AMC Theater) to get a single “Adult Ticket” is $21.50 for tomorrow’s Tuesday showing outside of working hours (6:30PM). With “fees”, it brings it to $24.18 for a single adult ticket.
The “Childrens Ticket” price is $18.50 per.
that’s fucking insanity. I thought for sure the person who said $50 was including snacks.
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That’s what it costs here. It’s a hunnit if you want concessions.
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.
Took my kid to see Moana 2 yesterday. Medium popcorn was $11.50. WTF…
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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 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.
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.
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
Maybe I’m weird but never in my life have I just gone to a theater and hoped there was something interesting enough showing to draw me in just from a title or maybe a poster in the lobby. I just can’t imagine pre-allocating my time and money to such a venture on a whim with little to no idea of what I might be getting in to.
It did happen back in the day when a lot of movie theaters were attached to a mall. I actually saw The Matrix that way, wandering through the mall with my girlfriend after dinner, and the poster looked interesting to both of us. Hadn’t heard a thing about it. That was a cool experience.
Once theaters shifted to a destination unto themselves, you really don’t see the ‘wander into a movie’ thing anymore.
I actually saw The Matrix that way, wandering through the mall with my girlfriend after dinner, and the poster looked interesting to both of us. Hadn’t heard a thing about it. That was a cool experience.
That must’ve been awesome
That movie blew my mind and it’s one of the very few I paid to see multiple times in theaters. I think that one was four times.
It really was. After the first chase and the phone booth smash I was not sure what I was watching, but by the time Neo meets Trinity at the club I was hooked. And the scene in the skyscraper lobby had me picking my jaw up off the floor.
It’s one of the few movies I actually have memories of going to see, like instead of just remembering the plot of the movie I remember the events leading up to it, where I ate dinner, looking at the poster and deciding to go inside and watch it, etc. And I remember my reactions. It was that intense, and certainly a lot of that came from not knowing WHAT to expect.
The only other movie theater experiences in my memory with that intensity are watching Saving Private Ryan the first time (obvious) and Return of the Jedi, because there was a Darth Vader at the theater and I was super psyched that me and my sister got our picture taken with him!
I’m really lucky, there’s an independent theatre near my place. If I don’t have plans, I’ll see what’s on as I trust them to choose good stuff. Seen a lot of really awesome movies I never would’ve caught otherwise and best of all, absolutely spoiler free.
Sure, some that were not my jam at all but overall, walking into a movie and knowing next to nothing about it can be exhilarating, the story can go anywhere and you have no idea what’s up.
What did Hollywood and palls do at year 2008? Never gone movies after that.
Have things changed? No? So not going.
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):
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1/3 cup kernels (Orrville Red. works for me, the main thing for good popping is fresh kernels)
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~3 tablespoons of butter oil/topping
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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)
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toss it all in a pot (or stainless steel mixing bowl) and mix around to distribute everything evenly.
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turn the heat to medium and keep everything moving so nothing burns.
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when the pops slow down to once every few seconds you’re done.
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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!
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Bring lower prices and quality media back and I’ll think about it
This is the same problem as the videogame industry - a handful of the biggest players are pumping too much money into each movie to be profitable. They are counting on a blockbuster franchise to expand on with a string out series of sequels that never achieve the same level of success as the first one.
The only difference between movies and videogames is indie game devs are able to show the market is still there but no one wants the product of big hype. Movies don’t have that. There was a time when a streaming service would buy some indie movie but now each one is making their own movies and the potential for new, original ideas is stagnating.
I would very much prefer the theater experience but Hollywood hasn’t had a movie worth going.
When a new cinema opened in my city back in december 2022, I got an unlimited movie pass. That allows me to see every movie I want, as often as I want. It costs 20 euros per month.
If you want to see a movie a few times a year, the cinema is expensive. Individual tickets can be up to 16 euros here, plus snacks and drinks.
But if you want to see ALL the movies, well, it’s surprisingly cheap by comparison. I really only need to see 2 movies per month to make the pass viable. But I’m not seeing 2 per month - I’m seeing at least three per week. I’ve done three movies back to back.
So the trick to casual movie going is: go see everything :D
I thought theaters were going bankrupt after offering those unlimited passes. They banked on people getting the pass and maybe using it once or twice.
There was a company called MoviePass that did go bankrupt because they were basically paying people to go to movies.
They didn’t negotiate deals with the theater chains or movie studios to give discounts to their members in exchange for more total customers. The studios want to sell more tickets and the theaters want to sell more popcorn, after all. No, what they did was basically issue people debit cards that could only be used at movie theaters. Customers would pay a flat monthly fee and then MoviePass would pay full price for as many movie tickets as the customers wanted.
Their business model relied on most of their customers under-utilizing the service like a gym membership. That’s the only way it would have worked. No one would pay for the service if it didn’t at least theoretically save them money, “I can watch 10 movies for the price of 7”, and the thing is most of their customers fully utilized their service. People who go to the movies a lot were the only one who heard about it.
People loved movie pass. It was great, for them. Not remotely sustainable though.
Yeah it was wonderful of them to use venture capital to send so many people to the movies.
Yeah, in the US they really scaled back those movie pass programs. I’m in the Netherlands though.
I honestly don’t care how the economics of it work. But I’m using that pass to the fullest extent possible. I’ve seen a hundred and one movies this year so far, so about 110 or so total. That works out to two per week or 8 per month. So I’m getting my money’s worth for sure.
I do buy the occasional popcorn or a drink, but certainly not every movie.
I know in the US they figured that pass use would drop off after the initial period. Much like how gyms are packed in january, but by march those people have stopped coming. Of course, they apparently missed the fact that going to the movies is actually fun. Going to the gym isn’t (for most people).
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
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.
