To See or Not to See
Movie ticket stubs from my past. Yes, I saved these. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that movie theaters are RAISING their ticket prices for several different reasons during our economic calamity.
Ever since I was a child I've loved going to the movie theater. I can remember my father taking me to see Return of the Jedi when I was four years old and how upset he kept getting when I'd tell him I had to go to the bathroom every twenty minutes. I remember going to see Walt Disney's Peter Pan with my mother and sister during the re-release in 1982. I think we missed the beginning and the attendant at Movie World let us attend the second showing for free. I enjoyed it so much that I intended to see the third showing until my mom threatened to leave me there if I didn't come with her. As a scared three year old with limited survival skills and abandonment issues I reluctantly went with her.
Cinema Paradiso is a beautiful movie and example of how films can capture our hearts and imaginations, how they sweeten our memories and link us as humans in ways unseen in other art forms. Yet, greed and short sightedness could eventually destroy this. Where else, besides a religious ceremony will you see that many strangers sit quietly together for nearly two hours?
Record companies didn't plan for the digital age and file sharing, Ipods and mp3s. The movie industry has been trying for years to crack down on pirated material, how long do you think they have before they find themselves in the same predicament as the record business?
For a low to middle income family to enjoy a professional sporting event or a movie experience they must forfeit an obscene amount of money to do so. It is why my mother and I only go to one Cleveland Indians game a year, why my father and I will only go to one to two movies a year together, or why my wife and I only go to Drive-ins during the summer months. I'm tired of these greedy mongrels who take advantage of the fans and hard working people who just want to escape for a few hours and to share experiences with loved ones they will cherish for a lifetime.
posted by Kirk at
10:26 AM
5 Comments:
Preach it, bro. It's sad that the American past-time can now only pass the time as it appears on the television. Meanwhile, of course, the athletes are making more money than God, who I hear is taking a pay cut this year.
I keep all of my stubs too. One of my major life objectives is to find a good way to display all of them. Each of them represents a great memory to me, even if the movie or event was crap :)
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I wish I had an idea for you and your stubs. Most of mine are so faded you can hardly see the movie titles anymore.
People don't seem to have a problem spending money on their home theaters or cable either.
My husband and I only go the Drive-in during the summer as well. For us, it was the gross theatre seats and obnoxious patrons that turned us off of traditional theatres (though the increasing tickets prices are pretty bad, too).
No kidding Christina, social norms have changed so much since I was a kid. Drive-ins are the best and cheaper.
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