Commercials at the movies - they're only hurting themselve
Can I tell you how fortunate I feel to live in a time where I can pay $8.75 to go to the movies and watch ten minutes of commercials?
Back home (in Washington, the state of), our movie guy had this slide projector that ran through stills of local businesses while you sat and waited for the movie to start. I thought, hey, good idea. Come curtain time, though, the lights went out and the previews began. (Side note: previews do not fall under the category of crappy commercials). Not now, though. Showtime's at 7:30? No COMMERCIAL time is at 7:30. Showtime's 7:45.
But I'm a bright guy, so I just started going late. I got rolling in down to a science, just as the last retarded ploy to sell Diet Coke ended and the previews began. So what did the movie bastards do? They started mixing the commercials in with the previews!!
This, I must declare, shall become the mother of all backfires. Now I don't even bother to catch any of that crap. I just show up in time for the movie. So I don't know what is coming out, what anything is about, and pretty much have no desire to go to the movies any more. Sometimes the trailers were the only thing worth seeing at the movies, and I don't even get that now.
I'll I have to say is that the poster in the hall had better be pretty damn appealing, because that's about all the exposure I'm going to get to your flick. And I swear to god, if I so much as see a diet coke ad within ten feet of a Harry Potter poster, I'm going to loose it.
Comments
It should just be commericals, then the previews, then the feature presentation. I find it unfortunate because as they try to keep on squeezing commericals between previews as well as adding the usual blurb by the movie chain itself, the test of the THX, DDS, or any sound system, the reminder to shut off your mobile, the number of movies that can be shown each day goes down.
In London, we get about 15-20 mins of commericals that have been shown on the tele, then two to three previews, then the feature presentation. All of that for about 9.50 pounds sterling.