Movie Madness

Posted by Cynical Sarah on June 24, 2008

Helper Troy and I decided to take in a movie over the weekend. To avoid the date-night rush on Saturday night we went to a 3:20 p.m. showing instead.

For some reason I thought that might have a matinee price, and I was surprised when we ended up paying full price for tickets. That shock turned out to be even greater when swiped my credit card to pay nearly $25 for the two of us to see a movie. That was just tickets – no popcorn, no drinks.

It didn’t really bother me that much at first. We’d hit the dollar store to sneak in some cheap sodas and candy anyway, so there wasn’t any need to shell out another $25 for popcorn and sodas and make our movie adventure a $50 endeavor. That first $25 for the two tickets seemed sort of reasonable at least for a date night – it could have been just as much for dinner somewhere or for a few rounds of bowling or whatever.

However, my opinion started to change as we sat watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. At one point I realized that I’d paid a hefty price to see a mediocre movie in a dark theater surrounded by strangers and other people’s children.

I’d paid to sit in a chair thousands of other people had been in and have my feet stick to goodness knows what on the floor. On top of that, I’d paid to have a girl and her father have to interrupt our viewing pleasure to leave the theater not once, not twice, but three times before they finally left for good.

I can normally put up with a lot in the name of getting out of the house to have some fun, but I found myself thinking that the whole situation seemed a bit ridiculous.

There’s no sane reason to shell out $25 to watch a movie at the theater when we could just as easily be sitting at home on our comfy couch watching a movie for less than half that if we went out and rented something instead. Throw in some microwave popcorn plus our dollar store sodas and the night would probably cost about $10 all together. That leaves us another $15 to contribute to some takeout dinner too!

What would we really be missing out on? No strangers, no kids, no stupid people forgetting to shut off their cell phones. No wondering whose ass was in that chair before you, or what they may have wiped on the armrests.

All that we gained by heading to the theater was being forced to put on some nicer clothes to go out in public in and getting to sit in air conditioning for the movie. I have to say, the pros and cons list is pretty heavy on the cons for having paid so much to do it.

I think Helper Troy has finally gotten to me. He was already not a big fan of going to the theatres for movies aside from something that’s going to have big special affects that just don’t have the same impact on the television.

I usually have to poke and prod him to get him out for a movie, and this time it was his suggestion to go out and I ended up changing my mind about liking to go out for movies. He wins – at least when it comes to movies. I’m still going to poke and prod him to get him out to do other things, but no more expensive (yes, I said, it’s too expensive) trips to see a movie we can rent a few months down the road and watch at home in our pajamas.

- Sarah L. Polson

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Tags: humor, movies

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