Presently, we watch foreign movies at home 95% of the time and maybe a Hollywood production when they manage to find their roots and create something worth watching.
As a kid who grew up in 90’s I would say it is easily better than what cinema had back then.
I don’t have that high expectations of sound/video as many people will point out that streaming kills the quality but for all its worth still much better than what I need to enjoy a movie.
As you say with the image quality being as high at home now plus a decent surround system really makes the theater experience at home very enjoyable.
If you are in an urban area and are not a millionaire, you probably live in some kind of apartment or studio. And yes, you can stick up a projector and a good surround system... but it might be that the builder cut corners on the floors and your neighbors already come knocking when you are talking, much less turn up the audio system to a tenth of the sound pressure a good cinema sound system provides.
Oh, and it was $11 for one of the tickets, $13 for another. I don't remember how much a beer cost, but it was on par with (and maybe less than) local bars.
So the theatres stay alive by selling concessions.
I'd wager everyone here complaining about prices would also wax poetic about how theatres don't "pay a living wage" to the kids scooping popcorn and would immediately drive home in their $100k Rivians or Teslas so they can give a one star review on Yelp or complain on Reddit about the bathrooms or floors being dirty or sticky.
These same people wouldn't bat an eye at paying $14 for a food truck grilled cheese and leave a tip.
You can't have it both ways.
This seems weirdly condescending, especially since I think these two things are very related.
There are two types of $14 food truck grilled cheese in my experience:
The first type is usually found at farmer’s markets or free city events where the cheese will be local and artisan, and the bread will be local and artisan, and it’ll be pretty freaking good, and remind you that you can make incredible food with simple ingredients.
The second type is where there’s a captive audience, like a music festival or a brewery patio. This is no free market: you are hungry, and you’re about to be exploited.
I find American society increasingly reflected in the second type of $14 grilled cheese. Movie theaters, sporting events, music events, video games, tipping culture, hidden fees, etc. etc. Exploitative business practices to extract profit at the expense of the customer. It’s like walking around being shown the middle finger at all times. And people complain about the breakdown of the social contract…
the artisan grilled cheese is better than a hotdog that’s been overheated for six hours with a stale bun, and stale popcorn with fake flavoring
Popcorn cost basically nothing to make at home, especially if you buy the raw kernels and pop them yourself, and I can rent a 4k version of a movie for like three dollars on Amazon. My 85" 8k TV cost me $1200 (refurbished, but still). For the cost of going to the theater with my wife 15 times, I can buy that TV to watch movies but also use that same TV for many other things.
Even cheap shitty TVs are pretty ok nowadays, certainly better than the stuff when I was a kid, and after I have to question the point of going to an expensive physical theater where there's a risk of some teenagers talking over the movie and I can't pause if I need to use the bathroom. The theaters might not like it, but regardless of whether its fair, they are competing with TVs now.
However, I'm the outlier, none of my friends prefer the cinema. No idea why.
It's a pretty frequent complaint that drinks at pubs, bars, and restaurants have become extortionately expensive, to the point that a lot of younger people are drinking less for that reason.
I will admit to having good experiences going to the theater with friends and/or family, but I don't really enjoy watching a movie with strangers. Nowadays if I want to watch a movie with friends, I will simply invite them over and we'll watch it together.
More power to you if you like going to a theater, I'm not trying to convince you to stop, just that I don't feel the value-add is worth it to me anymore. Decent TVs have gotten so cheap that I just prefer to watch movies at home.
The last time I went to a theater, I went to the first showing of the movie for the day. We were the only people in the theater. 30 minutes into the movie, the projection suddenly shut off and all the lights turned on. After sitting there for about 10 minutes, we went out to talk to a staff member about it, and they told us that the computer said there was no one in the theater so they should shut it off. Long story short, they did not end up turning it back on, and referred us to the customer support hotline to try and get our money back. And this might be a little ageist, but there's something infuriating about a condescending teenager acting like this is somehow our fault. Yeah, no thank you.
I initially very politely asked them if they could stop talking because we're trying to watch the movie, but they didn't take that very seriously.
After another ten minutes of their commentary I yell very loudly "SHUT THE FUCK UP!". Extremely loud, I suspect everyone in the theater heard me pretty clearly. I'm a pretty big guy and I have a very loud and deep voice, and of course the theater is dark, so they might have assumed I was more threatening than I actually am. The teenagers shut up for the rest of the movie.
The thing is, though, it kind of ruined the rest of the movie for me. The entire time I'm sitting there, kind of worked up and annoyed that I had to yell at some kids and ruin their Friday night.
I've certainly had good times in theaters too, I like movies, but I've grown a bit tired of it. Now generally the only time I go to the theater is the live showings of The Room.
I don't particularly care about "living wages", don't leave yelp reviews, don't use reddit, don't much care if the bathroom isn't spotless, and couldn't care less about how the theater and studio divide revenue amongst themselves.
I do not go to the movies, except perhaps rarely as a date, because I don't care to spend that kind of money and better screens and sound systems make viewing them at home a better option.
I prayed it wasn't urine.
I liked that theater because it was super cheap (like seriously $1.50 for a ticket because it showed out of date movies). One time when she and I were watching The Purge, I hear this kind of squishy noise from right behind me.
I turn around, and a guy is getting a handjob. I motion to my wife that we need to move a few seats over.
You know, The Purge isn't the worst movie ever but I gotta admit that it's not a movie that ever really turned me on either. To each their own, I suppose.
From that point forward we always called that the Handjob Theater.
To get a better view, right?
I don't live there anymore and haven't for about eleven years.
I complain about movie costs while I watch movies at home, drive a VW that was under $40k new, live in a state with a minimum wage over $17 an hour, and refuse to pay $14 plus tip to a food truck that doesn't provide seating when I can pay $12 and no tip at a fast food restaurant that does provide dine-in eating.
Some of us live our principles, we're not all just whinging hypocrites.
If all of those things are true, then the conclusion is that theaters can’t operate in a way that wins my business. That would be unfortunate, but it’s not contradictory. It also seems to be that pretty much true, as I see a movie in a theater maybe once a year.
After all, they move 1s and 0s at the end of the day. No screens or customer-facing capital equipment to maintain outside of DCs.
Either way, until the industry lets me pay directly to the org that literally made the movie, I'll just pirate.
I do want to pay the artists that make the films. I think the most viable way to do this is via cryptocurrency associated with social media accounts, and then validate ownership by having owners post a magic validation link. This way I can send artists money and it's on them to go get it if they want it.
I believe they wrote that it is consistent to find sufficient utility from a $14 grilled cheese sandwich and also find insufficient utility from a whatever price movie theater experience.
It isn’t written out, but when people complain about the price of anything, they are complaining the price to utility ratio. Not exactly profound stuff, but that is basically what it is, most people don’t get a sufficiently better experience in theaters in today’s world.
The extension of my logic to Netflix would be, if I think their prices are too high and that causes me not to subscribe, and their prices are so high because they need to pay very high salaries, then there’s just no way that Netflix can exist in a form that I would subscribe to.
They can, if studios gave them a better deal: "Most if not all the ticket price goes directly into the studio's pockets."
That is not a fact of nature, but the studio's whim. If they want to drive theaters out of business and send all their customers to the pirate bay, they are more than welcome to.
EDIT: I was going off of memory, but matinee/child/senior pricing is apparently $9.75 at the theater I usually go to, evening is $13.25 (I never go in the evening, had forgotten what that price was). They have a two drink and popcorn combo for $22.10. So the worst case of evening prices (again, not considering IMAX, just regular screens and seats) for two with that combo is $48.60. That's not cheap, but it's not $86 either. And if you're willing to share the drink and go to a matinee you can cut the price to $34.80. This is a Cinemark, a pretty big theater chain.
7 dollar tickets I haven't seen since elementary school
IMAX opening week is a lot, $25-35. After a while it can drop to $20 or so. Regular is more like $20-25 opening week and drops to $12-15.
I don't bother with popcorn and soda, it's grossly over priced. Like $10 for a small popcorn the size of a pint. I buy a 0.5L bottle at the grocery store next to the cinema and some M (our M&Ms), maybe $10.
Though lately I've been going a lot to the local cinemateque. Not only are tickets around $7 regardless, they mostly show classic movies so seldom worse than the new stuff. They show popular movies too, recently saw Heat there, first time I saw it at the big screen since the premiere. Still packed a punch.
The minimum wage for a cleaner is 46k per year ($23\h). And your boss better not try any shenanigans, because you're most likely unionized and shouldn't really be messed with.
I've found $18 ticket for opening week for Hail Mary in my city. Most of them were at $23, but that's for the premium sall, with shaking seats or other fancy stuff.
So a person with a job looked down upon in most other countries can still get one ticket for an hour of work.
Reason I've felt compelled to reply was because cinema tickets always felt cheap to me in Norway, compared to more like 2h of work for minimum wage worker in Poland where I originally come from. Compared to any other prices like $15 for a beer at a bar or $30+ for a bottle of vodka in the alcohol shop* they just always felt like a steal. YMMV OFC.
*Interesting trivia: The alcohol shop is called Vinmonopolet and it really is a monopoly. The only company allowed to sell alcohol above 4.7% is run by the state. They have shops in towns, and if you live far from one (like most of northern Norway past the polar circle) you're most likely getting your alcohol from homebrew mafia instead.
IMAX opening week is a bit more but are comparable to mid-range concert tickets. And it really is a big screen, so can definitely be worth it.
The snacks and drinks at the cinema is wild though I think. As a comparison the M's they sell are twice the price and half the size of that from the grocery store. I get that they want to make some money on it, but 4x the price is just too much for me.
However it is still frustrating that they expect you to tolerate 30 minutes of commercials after paying so much money.
Fwiw I always enjoyed the trailers at the movies, no the other ads I could very much do away with (and I used to purposefully come late to shows to miss the ads).
And then wonder why people don't go to the cinema and wonder if they can increase the amount of ads to compensate...
I haven't been to a movie in a theater in at least 10 years.
Although, I’ll admit I go way less often than two years ago when I was full time WFH. Which begs the question if I just went for a reason to leave the house
There is another theater on the other side of town that does midnight showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Those kinds of places are also cheap.
The market-clearing price is nearly zero except for some new releases. Oppenheimer was sold out in its first weekend, for example.
Anyone who went to movies before about 1999 remembers them being a lot more popular.
For any normal movie I'd rather just watch it from my couch. But for the once in a while, over the top, blockbuster I'll still go to a theater.
I enjoyed each one in the theater but I tried watching Avatar: The Way of Water at home and despite having an entire media room devoted to good sound, proper lighting well calibrated projector and such it was not all that great. The movie fell a little flat without the theater experience to go with it.
I saw the limited run in advance to the 3rd one coming out in theaters again and it was good in that setting, as a reference point for my experience
That's not to say that all movies in this category are *only* worth watching in the theater like Avatar is. For instance I would have still enjoyed the recent Dune movies either way but they were a lot better with all the pomp & circumstance.
Or maybe it's just a horror/Marvel thing. Weapons and Endgame had a similar audience feel to Sinners and Black Panther.
Definitely not during Chris Nolan films. It's hard enough to hear his dialogue when it's dead silent.
I'm not sure who is going to the theater or why, but I hope they are enjoying themselves!
We almost never go to regular theaters anymore. IMAX feels worth it for something like F1 or Top Gun where it’s all about the visual spectacle, otherwise meh.
We go to Alamo Drafthouse a lot tho. A little pricey but the experience of watching a movie in comfy seats over a fairly decent restaurant dinner is fantastic for certain kinds of movies. Peaky Blinders was the most recent. Tommy Shelby paired with a good cocktail or two, fantastic.
Also I don’t know how Alamo achieves this, but people there are really good about noise and other bullshit. I think it’s because they do in fact kick people out for being annoying.
The prices you see upfront like this are for "suckers". People who come in, don't think about price, and just pay whatever the cost is. McDonald's is like this now too.
People who are concerned about price though - they use the app, they get deals, and so forth. I've gone to movies and done the same thing - two tickets, two drinks, 1 popcorn and it was $30. This is because these movie theaters run "deals" all the time for this stuff.
You'll have to get used to this paradigm as it's the main way everything is priced now. There's not going to be a "one price for everyone" thing anymore. It's going to be dynamic and different pricing for everything.
So, we’re looking at $53. Which is $33 less than wherever you’re at.
I also don’t know how standardized prices are across all AMC venues. So while Pokopia costs $70 everywhere, the same may not be true of theater tickets and concessions.
But yeah, it’s typically why we try to avoid theater concessions, because they’ve always been overpriced
The silver screen has a contrast ratio in the hundreds. A $300 consumer TV now looks significantly better than the blurry, muted, and muddled projector image.
Then the audio at theaters is always totally blown out and overly bassy and siblant. Fine for action, I guess, but it makes listening to dialogue exhausting.
And unless you get your favorite seat, you have to watch the movie skewed. God forbid you get a seat in the front and have to crane your neck the whole hour.
Meanwhile I can stay home, not deal with driving 20 minutes and interacting with the public, pay less, eat better food, get blitzed with friends, talk with my wife, have better visuals and audio, etc. Other than nostalgia, there's just no reason at all to go to a movie theater. It's become kind of outdated in an era of modern TVs to me.
Tickets are a bit more for IMAX.
Less than an hour outside Philly. The theater is recently renovated too and has nice recliner seats, and everyone has their own armrest.
But in my days it was around 12€ for a ticket, popcorn and a coke. And there were cinema days with special deals. Or cheap sneak previews.
I would never go when paying for me and my SO is equivalent of one of my subscriptions for a year.
That is how it was explained to me when I said something similar
The communal experience is special
On top of that most people don't have the attention span to sit through a film without opening their phones - film is supposed to be about capturing your attention not just entertainment
Otherwise watch it on your laptop for all I care