This morning I was reading through the Hacker News Comments on Roger Ebert’s blog post about why movie revenue is dropping, and it got me thinking about the movie theaters around here and my experiences with them. Movie theaters add absolutely nothing positive to the movie-consuming experience.
Going to a Movie Theater
Oddly enough, my house is within a mile-and-a-half of three different movie theaters, none of which show the same movies at the same time. Being a rather small town (or city, I guess), “go to the movies” comes up a lot in the list of things to do, but lately I’ve found that it’s just not worth it.
The Benefit
The only benefit I can see is that you can watch movies as soon as they come out, rather than waiting to view them in your home. However, seeing how the timeliness of movies is really not important at all, this one “benefit” is easily outweighed by a whole host of issues.
The Cost
The cost of movie tickets is steadily rising, while the quality remains the same (or really, decreases). Of course, I know I’m not in the majority when I say that I don’t really care about over-the-top visual effects or mind-blowing graphics — it’s always about the story for me. The quality of the CG only needs to be good enough to continue to suspend the reality of the moment until the end of the movie.
IMAX? Meh. 3D? Meh. These are both merely gimmicky band-aids to combat the decline in interesting stories being told (as well as excuses to raise ticket prices further).
All of this money talk, and we haven’t even hit the snack bar yet. A medium soda is $5 at our local theater. Some quick research says that I can find cups cost about $0.04 each, soda to fill it (from a home soda fountain) is about $0.36 — which is high considering the deals theaters most likely get, and the ice to go in it as well as the labor to serve it to you is what? Maybe $0.40 at the most? That’s a 625% mark-up on soda alone, not to mention a small box of popcorn.
By the time I buy two tickets, a drink and a snack for us to share, I’m nearing about $35. All this to see a movie that I can buy on DVD for $19 three months from now (or even cheaper from iTunes and the like).
The Experience
From what I’ve seen over the last two years, as the price of the movies increases, so does the volume of the sound. In my review of Super 8 from the free early screening we went to see, my number one complaint was how loud the movie was. The train-crash scene was so loud I had to cover my ears. I thought that maybe I’m just getting old, but after reading the comments today, I see that it isn’t just me. The average volume is increasing everywhere.
Even though our local theaters have all recently redone their seating, the seats still aren’t comfortable. They don’t feel bad when you sit down, but it’s obvious to me that these seats weren’t tested for experiences longer than twenty minutes. Also, I’d like a place to put my feet. All I need is a bar at the bottom of the seat in front of me that isn’t attached to the seat in front of me. I actually care if I’m aggravating the people around me.
Finally: the temperature. No matter what time of year you go to the movies, you’ll see people wearing the same thing. It’s always pants and a sweatshirt — whether it’s 30° out or 95° out. Movie theaters keep things chilled to what feels like about 65° year-round. I’m not sure if this is to keep people awake (although you’d think the noise would be enough), or if it’s just easier than adjusting the thermostat for the situation, but it’s uncomfortably cold. Always.
The Other People
This, for me, is the worst part of the movie-going experience. For whatever reason, not disturbing other people’s experiences in a theater (or airplane ride, or any social interaction for that matter) is on the top of my important-things list. I treat others how I want to be treated. Very few seem to share this sentiment.
Cell phones, talking, babies crying, people behind me kicking my seat, and the constant crinkling of candy wrappers are all the ways that people around me disrupt my theater experience. Like when I’m developing a website, my best theater times are when I’m uninterrupted and undisturbed for two full hours. It’s the same reason that Blu-Ray means nothing to me over DVD: when I’m watching a good movie, I’m wholly absorbed into the story line. I don’t even notice that I’m watching a moving picture on a screen in front of me; I’m engulfed in the experience.
However, other people tend to ruin that.
At a standard theater, people are loud and disruptive with little care of how much they’re disturbing other people. At an eat-and-watch type place — we have a local chain called Chunky’s that’s like this, you’re not only interrupted by other people but by the waitstaff, whose job it is to see if you’ll buy more food or beer from them. You sit at tables, usually with other people that you don’t know, and in addition to listening to the movie, you have to listen to them eat as well.
Watching Movies At Home
I understand that my television set up at home is a bit atypical, but where it’s different doesn’t mean that it was any bit more expensive than what most people have. Our main television is an Optoma HD20 1080p projector. I got it a couple of years ago for $999, which is comparable (if not cheaper) to similar high-end plasma and LCD TV sets at the time, although this thing throws a screen that is 84” wide (diagonally). And that’s at its smallest size.
Our speakers are nothing amazing: two Boston Acoustics speaker towers that Scarlette inherited from her step-father when he upgraded his set about seven years ago. Not surround sound, just normal sound, but the quality is great.
In terms of content providing, our main channel is DirecTV, whose HD feeds look incredibly sharp and the quality is just great. People always complain that satellite dishes break at the slightest snow, but that’s just not the case. We’ve had our dish for at least three or four years now, and we may have experienced 5–10 outages due to weather. (Nothing a couple of well-aimed snowballs can’t take care of in the winter.)
We also have a Mac Mini connected, which mainly runs Plex — a media center app that houses all of our movies. Did you know that a couple months after movies come out, you can get them at ridiculously low prices on Half.com?
We’re subscribed to HBO, which enables us to watch HBOGo on the Mac Mini — which in my opinion is the greatest content streaming service available today.
We have a Netflix DVD subscription, a Redbox machine less than a mile from our house, and a Blockbuster Video store about four miles from our house. If we ever run out of things to watch on HBO or any of the movie channels, or movies we’ve DVR’d, or are on Plex, we can run down the street and supplement ourselves.
At a viewing distance of ten feet, our perceived home television screen size is equal to (if not greater than) any movie theater around here, and we can watch anything on it: movies, hockey, TV shows, even YouTube. DVDs (playable through the Mac Mini) look great.
In terms of other people: we can control the people in our viewing audience to friends and family — all of whom are mindful when watching things or hilarious to watch movies with, and to solve any hunger or bathroom issues that might arise, a quick pause of whatever we’re watching fixes it all.
While the initial investment in the set up was a bit of money, my father paid more for his 42” LCD TV than our whole set up (minus our subscriptions). And the best part is that it doesn’t matter where content comes from or what shape it’s in, as long as it’s playable by a computer.
Goodbye, Movie Theaters
So for the most part, I’m done with the movie theater. I say “for the most part,” because one or two times each year I’ll bring my mom to see something she wants to see. Usually for her birthday or mothers’ day. Even then, it’s more about spending time together than watching a movie.
Tonight is New Year’s Eve — our first with a baby — and our plans are more tame than ever: drink some champagne, watch a movie, watch the Avs hopefully beat Anaheim, and then watch the ball drop. All of this will be done on a screen half the size of our living room wall, in a room at our preferred temperature, with snacks that are of minimal cost to us. Something we can do every night.
Really, who needs movie theaters any more?
