Friday, October 31, 2008

Sticker Shock

It's been about 2 years since I've gone to a mainstream movie theater. I usually frequent the family owned, single screen theater in a nearby town that shows new movies for a $3.00 ticket. For an additional $1.75 I can buy a medium buttered popcorn and a large soda.

Last week, a friend and I went to see "The Secret Life of Bees." I thoroughly enjoyed the book and had heard good things about the film. I was not disappointed. When reading the words and forming pictures in my head, they were so similar to the film makers interpretations - it was uncanny. The screen writers stuck to the book and it didn't feel like much was dropped from the story. The acting was exceptional.

I was disappointed in one thing - the prices. We went to a 4:00 pm showing so got the discounted mattinee rate of $5.75 per ticket. I think I saw $9.00 for a regular ticket price. Yikes. Then on to the snack counter. A small popcorn was $5.10! A SMALL popcorn. I had to check it three times because I thought I was reading it wrong. Nope, $5.10 for a small popcorn. I wondered why the .10 at the end bit when I saw the price of the small soda, it made sense. A small fountain soda was $3.90! And after all that, with the small army of teenagers working at the theater, the bathrooms were atrocious. All I could think about was for $4.75, less than a small popcorn at this 12+ screen behemoth, I could get a ticket, a medium popcorn, a large soda, see a neighbor or two, a clean bathroom and a good feeling knowing that I'm keeping my money in the community. I'll stick to my local theater.

The next day I heard on the news that Jennifer Hudson's family members were killed. She was in the movie, "The Secret Life of Bees" and I had thought how much her life must have changed in the few years she's been in the public eye since being on "American Idol." My heart goes out to her and her family, what an unimaginable loss they've suffered.

3 comments:

KFarmer said...

My daughter and I used to go see the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies. Even back then @ $4.00 a ticket, it was still expensive what with snacks and all...

She is a BIG movie buff and has literally hundreds of films. Her dream is to open a drive-in. That would be nice as we don't have anything but chains here as well :(

I've not read "The Secret" but I've heard lots of good things about it. I'm glad the movie was just as good. It's something to look forward to :)

I was so disapointed in the Ya-Ya's I haven't watched that movie again since. Y U C K!

dmarks said...

Movies here are about $8. But they are all digital, and I hear most places charge $12 for digital movies.

ArtSparker said...

Local is the way it's going to be going I believe...we need to support each other and not some behemoth at the top of the food chain. I like renting movies because then I can fiddle around with a little craft project while ...STOPPING TIME with the remote. Well, how much control does one normally have in life?