Stupid Theater Rant

The reason I hate movie theaters so much is they are a consistently a huge disappointment. My idea of what a movie theater experience ought to be and the actual experience are simply too disjoint. Perhaps my idea of what the experience ought to be is a bit unreasonable. The theater seems to want to promise red velvet, glitz, and grandeur. What the theater delivers is being surrounded by elements of society I try to isolate myself from and the joys of standing in lines in a building run by high school students. Oh boy, what grandeur. I think the experience is so appalling because it’s obvious that theaters, by design, try to hint at a sort of elegance that they simply do not have and can not deliver.

To make matters worse they flagrantly abuse my patronage. I wait through the stupid lines and budget my time accordingly to make sure I’m in my seat at the time that the theater claims that the show will start. But it doesn’t start….oh no, it starts late….and then after the late start instead of the movie you have the gall to show me 30 minutes of ads. Are you freaking kidding me!? I paid to sit in the room. It’s not like I got into the room for free and the show is ad supported. Just die already.

Perhaps they could have two tiers of tickets. Working man tickets, which would be cheaper, so at the normal theater that would be like $10 bucks or something. Then there would also be premium tickets which would be and extra 40%. What you get with a premium ticket is simply a movie experience without the abuse of your time. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I won’t even start on the concessions and refreshment stands.

Perhaps there is a better way altogether. Last night I heard about a new theater being built Huntsville that is suppose to be open by the end of the year. It is part of a pretty impressive building project called Bridge Street Town Center.

“Monaco Pictures Theatre will offer a restaurant and sushi lounge on the second level of the theatre, with concierge ticket sales and service. The project also includes a six story office tower and features a 10-acre lake with gondola water taxi service and open green spaces.”

Sushi and a movie. That sounds swank. I hear they have an integrated bar and lounge, then at least the expensive concessions will get me drunk. The person who told me about the project said he had heard that they were going to sell private VIP boxes. So now I can continue to isolate myself from the unwashed masses. Excellent. Make it so that I can buy my tickets online and print them out and not have to wait in a line, and start the movies on time and it sounds perfect. I don’t care if it’s twice what the other theaters cost (Rave you suck) . Heck, if it’s really nice I might even consider going to the theater like three or four times a year.