The Experience
So we’re at the Sherman Oaks Galleria waiting in line to buy tickets to
"Crash". And when we get close to the window, she notices it. The price. $10.50.
 Now she can afford it, and actually, I paid, and to tell you the truth I had
no problem with it, I mean I pay $14.00 at the ArcLight, but the price stuck
with me. I mean they always inch it up by fifty cents. To the point where
they finally hit ten bucks. Now OVER ten bucks? Why exactly? Was there any
improvement in the theatre? Was it some kind of new projection system, was it
going to WOW me? Oh well, I don’t go to the movies that much anyway.
And after last night, I’m not sure if I’ll go ever again.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ll go. But, like some angry punk song, I want to
burn the multiplex DOWN! Because of the fucking COMMERCIALS!
Like I told you, I really didn’t mind the $10.50. But for the $10.50 can you
at least RESPECT ME? Try to make my experience nice, since you DEPEND ON ME??
This is the point Mel Karmazin doesn’t get. Nor Clear Channel Entertainment
for that matter. If I’m PAYING, if I’ve joined the CLUB, you’ve got to treat
me with RESPECT! Instead of bombarding me with the heinous words of your
corporate "partners", you should be GIVING ME SOMETHING! Like I’m supposed to respect you, feel sorry for you, even LIKE you when you’ve plastered the joint
with profit-making DRECK?? And I don’t want to hear one more fucking time that
it’s about lowering the price of tickets. That’s double-speak if I’ve ever
heard it. It’s not about lowering the price of tickets, it’s PURE GREED! Maybe
it starts with the artist…then again, maybe that’s why nobody believes in
today’s artists. And maybe why after you’ve seen the Spice Girls/Britney
extravaganza once, you don’t have to see it AGAIN! Kind of like the peep show, or
the freak show at the carnival…they get you once, you want to see enough to
be an expert, talk with authority, but you don’t want to go BACK!!
Ads for TV shows…Â Shit, if I wanted to watch TV, I would have STAYED HOME!
And then Coke. So you dress it up like a little movie, with good-looking
twentysomethings frolicking in the sunset…you think we don’t see the BOTTLES?Â
You think we haven’t been subjected to enough marketing messages that we don’t
know it’s an AD?? Do you think we don’t know that Coke is one of the biggest
scams of all TIME?? Selling a penny of syrup for a buck?? Things don’t go
better with Coke. Oh, they might go better with COCAINE! But I’ve NEVER EVER
had an experience enhanced by Coca-Cola. Furthermore, it makes you FAT! It’s
kind of like smoking ads. The cool people in the spots DON’T EVEN USE THE
PRODUCT! If you want to hang with them, you’d better ABSTAIN!
They went on and on. To the point where there were only two TRAILERS! I
mean just when we were bitching about twenty minutes of previews they made it
WORSE?? Like I said, are they in touch with their customers AT ALL???
Movie attendance has been off for months. They keep saying it’s about shitty
movies. And I think that’s a factor. But the other theory is more
significant…people would rather watch the flicks at home, on their time. I mean it’s
not like I could call Pacific Theatres and tell them to hold the screening,
I’m running a bit late, traffic is HELL! I got there on time, to watch a
MOVIE, but having gotten me there through subterfuge, as a captive, they threw
marketing spot after marketing spot at me.
You can’t steal the movie theatre experience. Just like you can’t steal the
concert experience. Will these motherfuckers stop BLAMING the audience for
revenue decline and start RESPECTING the audience, looking what THEY, the
purveyors, are doing wrong instead of bizarrely blaming their CUSTOMERS??
Your business has no RIGHT to exist. It depends on patrons. Patrons who
don’t need your product to survive. You’d better make it pretty damn nice, and
attractive, or you know what? PEOPLE WILL TAKE THEIR MONEY ELSEWHERE!
