Commercials at the St. Johns Twin
Like dieselboi, I, too, saw Jackass 2 over the weekend (though thankfully no abandoned backpacks were involved) and laughed my ass off. Though I saw it at the St. Johns Cinema and Pub and was somewhat disappointed when the lights went down and a commercial came up for some diamond dealer thingamabob (pretty effective advertising, huh?). The St. Johns was previously an escape from the overcommercialized theater chains, and the purist in me is saddened by the fact that if I go there now, I’ll probably see an ad or two.
But the realist in me is still more than happy to pay only $17.00 for the wife and I to see a movie, get popcorn and a soda in a relatively uncrowded neighborhood theater on a Saturday night, and if they need to take on some advertising to keep the place afloat rather than inflating their popcorn prices, I can’t really fault them for it. At least I didn’t have to sit through Regal’s the Twenty.
It’s no surprise to me that movie theaters are having a hard time keeping customers. Watching a flick in a theater typically means dealing with noisy people in the audience, ringing cell phones (if not a full-on phone conversation), a sticky floor and a wildly over-priced snack bar. Oh yeah, and now commercials.
For 99% of the movies I watch, I’m much happier with DVDs. Pause when I want to, a really excellent snack bar/kitchen just upstairs, subtitles, DVD extras…
The only time I go to a movie theater these days is for big special effect extravaganzas that really benefit from the large screen. Lord of the Rings, for instance, was totally worth seeing on the big screen. But that’s the rare exception these days (for me).