Advertising in movie theatres. A RANT.

[Actovus]

I am going to keep this semi clean. This forum is generally anger free, but I feel this topic has a place here.

NOTE: there will prolly be a lot of spellig errors, punctuation ect. You have ben warned.




I went to see SIGNS for the second time today. I figured i'd catch a matinee. I sit down and I'm already dreading having to sit through the SAME commercials again. Theatre goes dark and wooptey doo, commercials. Has anyone noticed that this trend is getting worse and worse? At first it was one, maybe two commercials, now it's 8 or 9. I had to sit through 15 minutes of commercials. 15 FREAKING MINUTES OF COMMERCIALS IN A MOVIE THEATRE. On top of this utter bullshit, they played the Court TV car break commercial TWICE. I shit you not. Not only are these commercials wrong in the first place, but they are horrid. The little kid friendship commercial, a HOSPITAL advertisment (god.....), the M@M stuck in a box, that stupid fandango commercial, the brisk Icetea commercials..(I have to ask those of you who laugh at these stupid commercials next to me in the theatre. What is so facking funny about them? Why do you laugh at the most cheesy peices of torture known to man? Let me enlighten you. They are not funny! It never fails to have some idiot cackle in glee at A COMMERCIAL!..anywho..let me catch my breath..) ..

Something seriously needs to be done about this. I'm stuck without a remote comtrol to turn the channel. I can't stand the way they weaseled these commercials in the theatre. It's bad enough I'm hit with dozens of pop ups on every website I serf, it sucks that most music radio stations have 1 song for every 20 minutes of commercials, it's bad enough that T.V is a hotbed of crappy commercials, but the theatre is supposed to be the place where you pay money NOT TO SIT THROUGH COMMERCIALS. I complained at the theatre to a smirking little shit earning 6 bucks an hour. Like he's going to do anything about it. I rarely get worked up about things, but lately I'm noticing a disturbing trend in movie theatres.

Why do people think they can talk during movies today? It never fails that some yahoo has to spout plot lines with amazing accurracy. It never fails to have a 8 year old kid sitting next to me during a violent R rated movie with her dad constantly asking questions about things her little mind of mush can't comprehend. Why are there not laws against stupidity in movie theatres? Farting in movie theatres during quiet climactic parts should be a felony. Laughing during moments of emotional stress should get you booted immedietely. I was watching Reign of Fire and loving it until the couple behind me had to start discussing the movie (I THINK) loudly in spanish and laughing. It ANNOYS ME. During XXX, two drunk rowdy's had to shout "Cool!" or my favorite "He just FUCKED that guy up G!". My personal favorite moment of absolute movie theatre stupidity is when the Edwards Rollercoaster advertisment popped up. For those of you who havn't seen this, I'll explain breifly. It's a movie rollercoaster ride in FPS shooter quake style view to make you think you're on a rollercoaster ride with 10 dollar a bucket popcorn advertisments all done very slickly. Well, these teenagers were holding their arms up and screaming as if they were actually on a rollercoaster ride during this. I wanted a machine gun in my hand at that moment.

Movie theatres will not do anything about any of this. Going to the movies is fast becoming tedious. I used to live in Las Vegas. If you acted rowdy in a movie theatre located in a casino they would throw you out roughly. They didn't take any bullshit. Now that I'm back in california, people that work in theatres will not do anything to the SUV driving yahoo yuppies who have ruined the movie experience. Does anybody else hate hearing a cell phone go off right when a nice action scene is happening? It ruins an entire movie for me. I hate cell phones as it is, I loath them in a movie theatre. The days of going to the theatre and relaxing is over in my opinion. They need to BAN commercials at movie theatres.

[Fadaar]

omg i love you~

but seriously, you're right

[Eomer]

I agree with you on the advertisements before movies, it's ridiculous how much they cram in now. No arguments there.

But in regards to your annoyance with other people in the theatre, well, I don't know what you expect man. This isn't anything new. You get a group of a hundred or so people together, odds are that half a dozen will be complete jackasses. Nothing you can do about it. If it's that big of a deal, then I guess you should just get a good home theatre set up and just wait for DVD's. That's more or less what I do, I can't really stand the movie theatre experience anymore, unless it's a movie that benefits a lot from being seen on a big screen (FOTR was incredible on IMAX).

Hell, if you think the annoyances you get at a theatre are bad, some asshole who can't hold his liquor puked on me at the bar Saturday. I shit you not, I was standing waiting for my two drinks, when I feel something splash on my left side. I thought it was some jackass picking a fight, so I started to turn and realized my leg was getting warmer, not colder. I got him kicked out of the bar (I was too much in shock to even get angry till I got in the cab 10 minutes later to go shower), and got me some free drinks. Looking back at it, I am not even that angry with him in particular. The human race itself is simply disgusting with it's stupidity and lack of respect half the time, how can I blame him?

[Thorpe]

I pay to see the previews then the movie, if I see more, I think I shouldn't have to pay so much for a stupid ticket since the theater is making so much money off the advertisments.

[Voron]

I pretty much agree. Some commercial may be witty, but their place is at the Superbowl -- and not in the theatres.

[Szlia]

Around here, in some movie theatres you have advertisement slides on the screen that starts before the official time of the movie, then commercials, then movie previews. If you came 10min in advance you are up for a solid 30min of commercials of all types :P

Worst, and that's an exclusive in Switzerland I think, we have like in the opera or in classical music concerts a pause in the middle of the movies. On the up side, no one is going in or out the theatre during the projection since this break is designed to go to the rest room, have a smoke or buy a drink and/or a snack. On the down side the movie is split in two parts when they are not designed to. Add to this that in a multi-screens cinema they split movies in a way that allow them to not have all the pauses at the same time. How stupidly it splits the movie, they don't care much (it's never in the middle of a scene though, they are not *that* stupid) as long as it shorten the queues at the bar...

The audience is most of the time very disciplined though and it's been a long while since I had problems (it's true though that I always go to the screenings that are subtitled and not dubbed, so I guess it filters nicely a lot of the trouble makers...).

[ShamusChad]

You've got to be kidding me? A forced intermission where they STOP the film?

[Searyx]

1. No one forces you to watch the commercials. Next time, enter the theater 10mins AFTER they close the doors. Personally, I ENJOY the commercials. It's nice to see what's coming up in the theaters soon.

2. If someone is talking during the movie, turn to them and politely ask them to stop. If you don't have the balls to do that, then I have no sympathy for you.

[Actovus]

1. No one forces you to watch the commercials. Next time, enter the theater 10mins AFTER they close the doors. Personally, I ENJOY the commercials. It's nice to see what's coming up in the theaters soon.

2. If someone is talking during the movie, turn to them and politely ask them to stop. If you don't have the balls to do that, then I have no sympathy for you

You are a moron with all due respect. For one, if I enter the theatre late, chances are i'll be looking straight up at the screen and getting a headache. You get there early to get a good seat jackass. You enjoy the commercials? I bet you laugh at mentos commercials. Commercials are not entertainment. I have never in my life, EVER, bought a product based on the commercial. There has only been one commercial I really enjoyed. And that was about computers. (The one where the 2 guys knock themselves out and the entire commercial is about data backup..yea it's funny) You can't seem to grasp how powerless people are to avoid commercials. At home, you can change the channel. You can change radio stations with ease in you car. But at a theatre, if you want a great seat, you need to get there early. So you are STUCK sitting through advertisments. On top of it, I get to hear Seayx yucking it up to a commercial. I don't really enjoy stumbling my way trying to find a seat in a darkened theatre just so I can miss commercials. They don't belong there. I pay money to avoid them while enjoying the benefits of theatre sound, screen and projection.

As to your second point. I would love to see turn around to some big tatooed skinhead/gangmember and tell him to be quiet. 9 times out of 10, rowdy people in theatres are people I wouldn't fack with on the street. And to the people that aren't trailer trash ruining my movie experience, they should have the class and decency to NOT have to be told to STFU. It's not so simple to cause an uncomforatable scene during a movie and be forced to sit through the aftermath. I've done it before and i can feel the person's eyes burn holes in my back for the rest of the movie. Once you get to that point, your annoyance with the entire ordeal puts a damper on the entire event. What is so difficult about keeping your mouth shut so everyone else can enjoy the picture? It isn't difficult.

[Iannis]

Originally posted by Searyx
1. No one forces you to watch the commercials. Next time, enter the theater 10mins AFTER they close the doors. Personally, I ENJOY the commercials. It's nice to see what's coming up in the theaters soon.

2. If someone is talking during the movie, turn to them and politely ask them to stop. If you don't have the balls to do that, then I have no sympathy for you.

I think you missed what he was talking about. Not movie previews...those are previews. It's the bullshit commercials that are starting to appear more and more. I see commercials for tv shows, for the trashy food the theater sells(WHO buys Nachos at a movie theater? I want to talk to them to find out the appeal), and a few random popular commercials from television. I know what he means...I would skip the 1st 10 minutes but the bastards mix previews and commercials, so if you want to see upcoming movie trailers...ARGH.
The barraging the moviegoer with military commercial/terrible American pride commercials(PASS IT ON!) got tiring pretty fast too, and thankfully those have stopped...At one point me and my friends stood up and acted out the Army commercial--the one where the soldier is climbing up a mountain which had a scene of a kid being fed and a screaming drill sergeant. We could only assume he did some peyote and was climbing a HOLY mountain, especially with that ghost of a soldier at the peak---in interpretive dance. (yes, the theater was empty. We're not dicks if other people are around...)

if they have gotten to the point where the ridiculously high ticket price(all of which goes to the studio? I know the theater doesn't get diddly from those sales, just dunno where the money actually does get funneled to) and ridiculously high prices for their snacks(where the theater makes their money) isn't enough to be profitable...good lord, where does the money GO to?

The buck fifty palace as I call it might be kind of smelly, and it takes a few months for movies to get there...but I love that $1.50 movie theater so much. I would have to go on a killing spree if they ever closed their doors. But since they probably make a boatload more money(hmm, cheaper tickets means more people who are more inclined to buy overpriced snacks than someone who just got raped at the ticket counter) than the average theater so I'm not worried =).

one of the funniest things I ever saw was the first day Star Wars: AoTC opened, these two big black dudes were talking really loudly. This little uber-nerd stands up and tells them to shut the fuck up...the moral from that outing was you don't mess with a star wars nurdboy while star wars is on. They'll CUT YOU...the force makes them BOLD. I've gone out and had the rent-a-cop who sits in the lobbey go and toss snotty little kids out of theaters before. I'm an ass before and after a movie, but I shut up and don't pull out LASER POINTERS and highlight people's crotches because they're funny or something during the movie. And since I'm not allowed to physically harm other people's children...(the law is a bitch, ain't it? real good parents, who leave their obviously immature children unattended in an auditorium.) I've never had the pleasure of experiencing large drunk men in a theater. I live a sheltered life.

I bought some Hot Pockets once based on a commercial...good lord those little bags of grease are nasty. Mentos commercials are a close second in hilarity though!

When I get passionate on a subject, the profanity flies out! I hope I didn't drop too much in here. This is kind of a stream of consciousness rant about theaters.

[Nanaki Ikanan]

Right, Movie previews are awesome in my opinion. The commercials are just SO gay. You can't tell me that movie theatres are running short on cash.

It costs the theatre like, 50 cents (maybe less!) to get a large popcorn and a large drink, and then they charge you $8.50 for it! (that's what the prices are here) Thats like, a million % markup! Movie theatres make SO much money off their customers, if any other store/business was to charge prices that gave them that much profit, they would probably be in prison.

But yeah, I still go to almost every movie that comes out. Just can't beat the movie theatre experience, even with annoying little brats and 45 minutes of commercials!

[Nanaki Ikanan]

The Dollar theatre here was definately my favorite...but uh, they went out of business. I didn't go on a killing spree though, although it was tempting! =(

[Searyx]

As to your second point. I would love to see turn around to some big tatooed skinhead/gangmember and tell him to be quiet.

Little prejudiced, aren't we? Just because someone is bald, or has a bandanna doesn't mean he's going to shoot you if you politely ask him to keep quiet. Try wording it like this:

"Excuse me! I hate to bother you, but I can hear every word you're saying. Is it possible you could keep it down a little bit?"

[BoldarBloodKB]

When I was in Israel for a few years, I'd go to see movies. They would turn the lights on for a forced intermition halfway through the movie but somehow even though nothing appeared on screen, five minutes later when the lights went off again, and the movie continued, five minutes of the movie were gone forever.

[dbx]

Farting in movie theatres during quiet climactic parts should be a felony

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