9 Movie Theater Extras We Could All Do Without

This post comes from Len Penzo at partner site Len Penzo dot Com.

Let me tell you, sometimes this working-for-a-living thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Take for instance the time I went through one of those high-pressure do-or-die phases that required me to be at the office from 6 in the morning to 6 at night. Sometimes even longer.

I was away from home so much, the long hours started to take a toll on me.

I came home after a particularly long and grueling day only to be caught off guard by the sight of a stranger at my kitchen table, scarfing down a bowl of ice cream. Although the young man before me looked vaguely familiar, I couldn’t quite place his face. “Hi there. Have we met before?” I asked.

“Uh, it’s me, Dad — your son. Matthew. Remember?”

Apparently my teenage son had gone through puberty while I was away. “Of course, I do, son. I’m just really tired.”

Needless to say, when the weekend arrived, I figured it would be wise to leave the office behind for a few hours and take the family out to see a movie at our local theater.

So I got online to see what was playing and couldn’t help but wince at the prices. It was going to cost me more than $40 just to get my family of four through the door. Throw in some popcorn, drinks and the Raisinets — I’m sorry, but a movie isn’t a movie without the Raisinets — and before you know it the price for two hours in the theater is somewhere north of $70.

After thinking about it, I ultimately decided to find something else to do, if only because a trip to the movie theater would undoubtedly end up giving us significantly more than we bargained for. For example:

Babies with an acute case of colic. Look, I realize baby sitters are expensive, but it’s not as if there aren’t reasonable alternatives out there. For example, what’s wrong with picking up a couple of movies from the local Redbox kiosk, ordering a pizza for home delivery, and enjoying a film in the comfort of your own home?

Blocked views. I’ve been told that only 5 percent of the American population is taller than 6 feet 2 inches. Even so, someone taller than that sits in front of me at the theater 95 percent of the time.

Endless trailers. The last time I was at the theater, I was “treated” to 20 minutes of trailers. It got so bad that, after approximately 18 minutes, the crowd actually started getting a little bit hostile. A few people even threw popcorn at the screen. I’m not kidding.

Blaring movie sound. Although I can’t prove it, I’m certain that movie theaters think they can make any crappy movie better by simply raising the volume. Then again, maybe that’s not such a bad idea when setting the volume knob to 11 helps drown out the sound of:

Loud eaters. I’m not sure how my dog does it, but even when he eats something as innocuous as a single potato chip — never mind a bowl of Alpo — everyone within a 10-foot radius is immediately immersed in a gluttonous cacophony of gastronomical sounds: biting, crunching, lip smacking, chomping, slurping, slobbering and moaning. Theater-goers eat their popcorn the same way. At least when they’re not throwing it at the movie screen — or the backs of tall people blocking their view.

Cellphone addicts. Come on, folks. Are you really so important that you can’t become inaccessible to the world for two hours? Turn your phone off — I promise the world will still be here when the movie is over.

Chair kickers. I realize this is anecdotal evidence, but I’ve found that chair kickers only seem to show up for Disney and Pixar pictures. So I’ve written both companies to request they start producing more R-rated movies.

Tardy folk. After 20-plus minutes of trailers, how is it that people still manage to come in late to a movie? The unavoidable distraction of a large group of temporally challenged oafs fumbling in the dark and trying to locate adjoining seats in a hopelessly crowded theater is excruciatingly annoying.

Advertisements. I can overlook the blatant product placements within the movies themselves, but after paying a small fortune to get into the theater, why should we be subjected to an endless stream of commercials before the film even starts? Maybe all those fashionably late movie-goers are smarter than I thought.

Anyway, for essentially the same amount of money I would have spent at the movie theater, I ended up taking the family out for a bite to eat and then back home to watch a movie on pay per view. I’d love to give you a quick movie review but, to tell you the truth, I fell asleep midway through the film.