Wrong Way

I was thinking about taking in a movie this evening. Coco Before Chanel was showing at 7:35, but even if I felt up to reading a movie (and I didn't), I'd have had to kill an hour in that end of town, eat out for dinner and then buy an $8.50 ticket on top of that. Too much money, no matter how cute Audrey Tautou is.

I've wanted to see A Serious Man, the Coen Bros. latest, because in my not really humble at all opinion, you can't go wrong with the Coen Bros. Though some of their stuff (The Man Who Wasn't There comes to mind) can lack pace. In fact, that movie was so noir it made me feel like I was a character in a noir film watching a noir film.

I had the same problem trying to read Jim Crace's novel Being Dead, which made me feel like I might be.

Anyway, last time I had a window of opportunity to see A Serious Man, the only showing I could find was a Fork & Screen.

For the uninitiated, this is basically a scheme where they charge you more than twice as much for admission, pretend they're giving you some of the money back to buy overpriced bar and grill food, and act like they've added value to the movie.

Dude: going to the movies was already too expensive. That's why I go on weeknights when AMC has the $5 deal. $5 for admission, and if you want concessions, they have a $5 popcorn/soda combo (tiny portions but they'll refill it for you if you want to leave the theater to ask). Ten bucks for movie and concession, that's more like it. I can get my mind around that if the movie is halfway decent.

I'm definitely not paying $12.50 to see a movie and eat overpriced buffalo wings.

They have something even worse, the Cinema Suites, where they charge even more and give you an even bigger seat to put your obese carcass in while they fetch you yet more bar and grill grub and booze. They give a bigger portion of the even more overpriced ticket back there, but I'm pretty sure they adjust the menu to make sure you suffer for it.

In a recession, they find a way to make going to the pictures more expensive. With logic like that, the execs at AMC could make a serious bid to run the Federal Reserve.

There was a theater near my work showing A Serious Man at 8:10, and again, I'd have to kill a lot of time, buy a dinner and then pay too much for the ticket, so no dice.

But The Road, that's showing at the AMC in Olathe, so I can get in for five bucks, right? Nope, they put it on the Fuck and Screen, so only if I want to pay $12.50, just like they did to my Coen Bros. movie a few weeks back. Ugh!

Look, this is Johnson County, and people have more money than sense around here (even me, I'm not that long on sense). Fine, build an overpriced bullshit theater that combines a trip to the movies with Applebees, if you can get customers power to you. But at least put the movie on a regular screen, too. It's a Cormac McCarthy adaptation you cretins, let people come and see it for a realistic price.

Screw it, I think I'm gonna head out and see A Law Abiding Citizen. I can see it for a fiver, though I should probably withhold that bill from AMC as punishment for hijacking The Road.