Catatonic Audience

Ah the movies. A place to get away from the mundane and humdrum events of day to day life and lose yourself in...commercials? As I may have mentioned before, I live in a small town. We have a theater that carries outdated movies. It's a given that when you go to the movies in my home town you'll be subjected to at least two antiquated concession stand plugs, followed by a veritable cornucopia of previews. All totaled, you're looking at about ten or fifteen minutes of fat until you get to the real meat, the movie you took out a mortgage to watch. This weekend though, I ventured out of the bubble that is my town and traveled to a larger city here in Texas. After a half day of hitting the guitar shops and electronic stores, my friend and I decided that we would catch a movie. This is the madness that followed:

We purchased our tickets, stood in line for drinks, and finally made it to our seats. We sat through the trivia...of which they only had four questions. "How many Coke bottles are in the picture?" Hmmm, let's see, it was 14 bottles the last twenty times, so I'm going with 6. We sat through the music, that generic blend of Prince, 98 Degrees, and Whitney Houston songs. Then, finally, the screen flickered and we were off...to a car commercial. Ok, I can live with this, now for the movie...no, a commercial for Coke. Ok, get a new car and drink Coke, got it, now how about that movie. No? Instead lets watch ANOTHER CAR COMMERCIAL. Rage growing...need...to...see...feature...presentation. NO? How about two consecutive Coke commercials?! (At this point I'm wondering how many levels of security there is between me and the acne riddled projectionist). Whew. Ok, the Dolby Digital spot, now it's time for the movie. NO?!! Son of a @$%#&! Previews? Well, they're not all that bad I guess. Three, four, five previews, enough is enough. Ah, the message telling me to turn off the cell phone and be polite...next up, the movie! Oh no. Please, no more. Two more previews. Ok Theater, you win. I'm broken, I just can't take it anymore. I don't even want to watch the movie, if you'll just let me sit here and sob, you can play whatever you want. I'll like it, I promise. But wait! Can it be? YES, it is! The movie! Oh thank you merciful theater!

By the time the dust had settled, I had watched almost forty five minutes of commercials and previews. Sadly, some of the patrons did not have my level of self control. Several were stabbed, others scalded with hot butter, and one poor soul cracked under the intense subliminal messaging and drowned himself in a Mega-Chug sized Coke. At what point did the sharks from the TV industry break in to the movie theater? I've conditioned myself to expect a barrage of mindless commercials while watching TV, I can even live with shameless product placement in the middle of the movie, however I will not stand (or sit, respectively) idly by while companies force me to watch their commercials, in a closed room, with no remote, and no way to escape (well, had I been sitting near the isle I guess I could have left). What really stewed me was when I realized that I'd paid good money to watch their commercials. I've already written a letter to my congressman. Unfortunately, it appears that he's been taken by the dark side. His reply stated "Drink Coke, Buy Toyota" and included a coupon for a dollar off of a two liter bottle of Diet Lemon Coke. Damn. I still have my hometown theater though, and judging by the delay in seeing new movies there, I've still got a good two years until they begin assailing me with commercials. I guess I'll just have to wait until the DVD's come out, that way I can sit through the Anti-Piracy/Actors Guild/FBI commercials and previews...on second thought, I'll wait until someone makes an illegal copy, cutting out the commercials and previews, then I'll watch.