 Welcome to the Adam Dills Movies Podcast. I'm Adam, of course, and today's topic is a sad one. It's one that needs to be stated, and stated several times as I have in the past because it's the internet where we beat a dead horse. So I would like to propose a topic of movie theaters being dead. And the reason behind it, not so much the phones, although that is a major factor, not so much people being rude, another major factor, but it's a combination, a culmination of all walks of awful life coming together under the roof of the movie pass, of the regal pass, of the stubs card, any sort of theatrical membership where you can pay a small fee and go to as many movies as you want each and every month to make your fellow movie goer sick. That's what we're up against today, folks. That's what I wanna talk about. And it really keeps propping up for me because I have so many bad experiences lately over and over now. I go into a movie scared shitless that I'm going to have to deal with some jag who can't get off of his phone for five minutes. Now, a big part of it is the fact that we are addicted to these things. We can't seem to sit still for more than 20 minutes without having to check a watch, check a phone, touch ourselves, do something. And it's a problem. It's a problem that we didn't have even five or six years ago to the level we have today. Post COVID, everything has changed. And for the movie theater experience it's gotten so much worse. With the luxury of streaming services from Netflix to Apple Plus to anything with a plus behind its name, I think people have really trained themselves to get a little too comfortable with the couch and with themselves to a point where they don't give a shit about anyone else around them. You pair that with an all you can eat theater card and you have a recipe for disaster. Let me really put it into perspective. Say you go out for a nice meal, a nice steak dinner and you're not wealthy, you're just a regular schmo like myself. It's rare when it happens. You got a family to support, you got a job or two or three. So it's hard to go out for that meal so you really cherish it. The once a month, once a year maybe. It's 150 bucks a plate, let's say. And you get this beautiful steak, mashed potatoes, broccoli, a nice drink or three or five depending on what your mood is. You're going to appreciate the meal that was prepared for you. You're gonna savor it. You're going to welcome the company around you with open arms. You're gonna be respectful. You're not gonna yell how amazing the food is. You're not gonna get up and leave the table three or four times. You're just going to be there in the moment because you spent a lot. You want to really cherish it. Now you go to a different side of the spectrum. We are now in a scenario where you plop down $15 to $20 for an all you can eat buffet. There's no restrictions on how many times you can go back for seconds or thirds or fifths. Fountain machine's right there. You just go ahead and help yourself. You got an ice cream machine in the corner. It's gonna be a different experience, don't you think? You're gonna get up from the table a lot. You're gonna make commotion. You're probably gonna bring the whole family. The kids are running up and down, excited. They're gonna try to get their own meals. They're gonna sneeze in the food. They're not gonna wash their hands. It's gonna be just a complete shit show. But you're amongst like-minded individuals that are probably doing the same thing. Still disgusting, but more appropriate. More in the wheelhouse of what you can expect from that kind of scenario. This is what movie passes have done to the movie theater experience. I'm a Regal Card member. How it works is you plop down 24, 25 bucks a month. Just comes out automatically. And it gives you unlimited access to movies every single day for one person. Listen, this is a great deal. Because going to the theater normally is like 11 bucks at a Regal. You've already paid for the entire... You've paid for the entire two... I'm sorry, I can't talk. I'm so frustrated with all the recent movies I've gone to. You have paid for this card by just going to two movies is what I'm trying to get out. If you're someone like me, an avid moviegoer, you are getting an immense amount of value from this card. And I live 24, 25 minutes from the theater. Imagine if I was right down the street, I'd probably go at least a couple times a week. This is where the problem kicks in. Because I'm not paying for that experience one time. And yes, I know comparing going to trolls for or whatever to a steak dinner is ludicrous. The thing I'm getting at is the value proposition. Plopping down, for instance, let's say we go to four or five movies a month and we don't have this Regal premium service, you're going to get out of there with 50, 60 bucks just on a single person ticket, as opposed to the 20 or 25. You are going to be a bit more respectful, I would imagine. You're not going to sit on your phone the whole time. You're not going to be talking loudly or reading a book or live streaming the whole goddamn thing like the woman was doing at the last movie I went to. Or the heavy set family that wheezed every time they walked by the screen and because they were so large they took up a big portion of my viewing. And they went back and forth like five or six times like it's the fucking March of the Penguins over here. Or the sick family to the two kids that were just hacking up a lung. I doubt their mom or dad would have taken them to the movies had they not had this golden ticket magical Willy Wonka pass so they could go be assholes in public and get everyone sick. No, absolutely not. But because this is on the table now we're bringing out the worst case scenarios. I have had people walk into movies lately that have bought gas station food and had a picnic on the floor in the movie theater. I've had situations where guys come in with a giant popcorn and soda. They watch 20 minutes and then they get up and leave. That one's not like annoying. It's just weird. What are you doing? Well, you can kind of see it from their perspective. If you have this pass that's carte blanche access to a movie and you have a job where you're working odd hours or maybe you have an appointment set up you might say to yourself, well, I just can just get my free use out of it and go to a two o'clock showing, watch half of the movie and then I'll just finish it later. You know, it's like reading a book just pushing pause in the video game. I'll come back to it. Why sit at all? Why finish it in one sitting when I have all of these options all of these windows of time it really kind of turned into watching it in the comfort of your own home. You pause it, you go to the bathroom maybe you have lunch and then you come back to the movie in the afternoon that's on the table. And so when it becomes too much of a luxury too much of a value people just, you just see the worst side of movie viewers you possibly can. I mean, and that's where all the other annoyances really start to add up. People will just sit on their fucking phone the whole movie, glancing it up on occasion because they've already seen the movie three times or they can just go back again later or perhaps they paid for their ticket and they had the full intention of watching this film but Sandra's in town and she's messaging Mike on his phone. He's like, well, I didn't know Sandy was gonna be he calls her Sandy. I didn't know Sandy was gonna be in town. I better just pump the brakes on what I'm doing right now and talk to her. I could leave but I can stay too. I don't care about anyone else in here. So I'll just sit on my phone for the rest of the film and I'll catch this again later. I'll pick up what I missed later or perhaps this movie isn't that great. So I'm not that interested but at least I'm out doing something. At least I'm out doing something, right? I should tell that to Sandy. Let me text Sandy that. And that's what happens. We have a all a cart scenario now where people are allowed to just come and go as they please bring in whatever they want because the staff at the theater is making 750 an hour and there's only four people on the job to run an entire multiplex with several bathrooms that aren't getting cleaned. It's just absolutely insanity. And so I'm at the point where I don't even know what to do anymore because I used to go to the movie theater to escape to get away from the real world. Even though my real world, my real life isn't bad. It's perfectly pleasant. I love my family. I got a good job. I have a fun hobby. I get to talk movies. I mean, come on, that's great. But I still would love to be able to head to Middle Earth once in a while. It'd be fantastic to see where Tony Stark's friends are up to. It'd be nice to see how many different ways Liam Neeson can kill a man. He is 500th rendition of Taken. But I won't know that because Matilda's in the theater and she's loudly chatting with her BFF while FaceTiming. I won't know that because little Susie is kicking the back of my fucking seat the whole film and I can't turn around and tell her to stop because I might be shot because there's crazy people everywhere now. Legitimately crazy people are now going to the theaters on the daily because again, they can afford it at that cheap entry price of $24.99 a month for unlimited douchebag access to your fellow neighbors. It is atrocious. So what's the solution? I gave you the problem. I don't know. Start over? Can we start over on the world? Can we start over on people? Can we have some sort of a training exercise? Maybe we can teach people again how to operate in the public sphere, how to acknowledge your neighbor, how to put the phones away, how to zip the lips, how to just sit and be present in the world. It's, I know, it's crazy. It's a proposition marked fuck you but it's one I'm willing to take a chance at. I think the best thing is when the movie theaters who absolutely don't care. I know there are some out there that legitimately do care. There's the, I've been told several times about one of them, the roadhouse or something. It doesn't matter. I have none of them by me. All I have is Regal and Regal could give two shits but I think it's hilarious when they put up these disclaimers at the beginning and they spend a bunch of money and they hire actors and they actually recreate scenes of films and then they get interrupted and says don't ruin the experience by being on your phone and I'll take a look around. I'll take a peek and all the people that it's messaging aren't listening. They're on their phones. They don't care. You already lost them. You need to take the phones at the door if you want to get on their, if you want to get on their bad side take their phones at the door but then guess what? They don't come back. They don't come back again. You've lost a customer and Regal and these other theaters desperately need that customer to stick around so they're not gonna make waves. At this point, I am the minority in the theater. I'm trying to watch the film. I'm not on my phone. I'm not loudly ripping open plastic bags or chewing like a freaking goat. I am quietly sitting there with my soda still pretending it's the 90s. Still pretending we live in a world. We live in a society where we can just shut up and watch a movie and appreciate the fact that this 100 to 200 to $500 million production got made and there was a lot of talent there or it got made and it's a Fast and the Furious movie. You know, like there's different, there's different types of entertainment for different people. It just bums me out and I've heard little tips from people that range from, hey, Adam, go to like an 11 o'clock showing on a Tuesday or Adam, you should never go to a movie in its first week or two, wait until the hype has died down. Like these are not practical things for me as a person that's trying to get out in front and review movies for YouTube. They're also not fair things. I should not have to suffer because people suck. I shouldn't have to wait to go to a movie that I legitimately wanna see or have an interest in or I'm curious about because I know douchebags are present. That shouldn't be on me, that's on them. And so movie theaters, if you're gonna offer these nice little perks and these little treats to get people to come out to the theaters, tread lightly or know what kinds of people you're actually sending out to the theaters and how it's ruining it for people that really want to go and watch and not just feel like I'm getting out for the afternoon. Not feel like, oh, I'm not at my house, I'm over here doing the same thing I would do at home. Isn't that refreshing and different? God, it's such a shame. It's such a bummer and it's just gonna keep getting worse unless they do something about it, unless they start checking phones at the door, unless they start having some sort of formal dress code or civility standards, we're just gonna keep having people coming in their pajamas, setting up their own little bedroom, setting up their own little tent, their own little meet and greet on their phones, just being complete obnoxious assholes. And it bums me out. And I know I'm not alone, I know I'm not alone. It wasn't that long ago I went to a movie and there was a guy in front of me and we were both focused on the film, we're both trying to watch and have a good time and one in front of him is a dude who's just on his phone not really paying much attention and I'm just pissed. I'm sitting here trying to watch the movie and not look at it but it's right there, it's in my periphery, it's an annoying distraction, it moves around so it flickers, it does have, it has motion to it so you're gonna be drawn there instead of what's going on on the screen so it's hard to not notice. Anyway, I'm kind of waiting for the guy in front of me to step up and say something and he doesn't, not after five minutes, not after 10 minutes, not after 30 minutes and finally I tap him on the shoulder and I go, hey man, this is bothering you up here and he goes, yeah, what do you think? Of course it is. And so I lean extra forward and I say, hey, you mind getting off your phone, man? And he kind of looks at me like, I'm the bad guy of course, I'm the bad guy here but he does get off his phone and the dude right in front of me, acknowledge it. He gave me the courtesy, he said, thank you and I said, yeah, you're welcome, we should have, we are paying for this experience. Let's at least have some common courtesy. And there's sadly dozens of stories like that now where I have to ask people to get off their phone, I have to turn and yell at people to shut the fuck up who are loudly talking. It's insane. All right, I want to hear from you though, let me know. If you're watching this on YouTube, put it in a YouTube comment. If you stumbled on this through the almighty algorithm, please stick around and give me a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, join patreon.patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies or become a member right here on YouTube via that join button. If you're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, subscribe, do your thing, share it around. I would appreciate it. The more the merrier, us movie fans have to stick together. We have to unite. We, otherwise the banquet is gonna continue. The buffet is open and more and more people are gonna jump on the cruise ship and start ruining it for the rest of us. Get the message out there and stay strong. All right, I'll see you next time.