For the first time in at least a year and a half, my wife and I went to see a movie last night. We didn’t even know what we were going to see until we got to the theater. It was mostly just a break from watching our daughter since my wife’s parents are in town. They told us to go out and do something, and in fact even handed us some money to go. (I didn’t know that until we got to the theater and my wife handed me the money. Normally I wouldn’t accept it and have been turning down money all week from them)
When we got to the theater we though we might see March of the Penguins. I have heard that it’s a good movie but also noticed it’s not quite an hour and a half long. Normally I wouldn’t pay attention to the length of the movie, but as soon as I saw the cost of a ticket, I decided I wanted to sit in that movie theater as long as possible. Two tickets were $18. Now I noticed that NYCMoney posted about movies recently and he said they are $10.50 where he is at. What the heck? I think the theater companies are hitting that point where they are just gouging their customers for fun.
My wife and I contemplated walking away due to the price but then decided, since we don’t get the opportunity to get out with bringing our daughter very often, we might as well see a movie. We bought two tickets to “Dukes of Hazzard” and went in. Now, no need to flame me and tell me what a fool I am for seeing “Dukes” over March of the Penguins. We should have seen that. Lesson learned.
After getting the tickets from the emotionless ticket guy, we headed in to the lobby where I knew I would be equally shocked at the concession prices. Since we were really living it up (basically, I guess you’d call it a date), we had to get popcorn. I normally hate to get popcorn because it is the most obscenely overpriced product you can buy. It costs them something like $.25 to make and they charge $6 for it. The rather lumpy guy at the counter asked us if we’d like to buy a “Combo”. Of course there weren’t any prices on the combo board so we asked. $14.50 for a popcorn and two medium sodas. No thanks. We’ll just take one popcorn and ONE drink. That only came to $10.50. We kind of laughed because the guy behind us, who was a fairly large guy, said, “You want to know a secret? The trick is to come here without having eaten dinner because you get free refills on the popcorn. I come here, eat as much popcorn as I want, and then get it refilled right before I leave. That way I have a whole bowl for a movie at home the next night.” Thanks for the tip. But I don’t think we can even finish the one bowl we’ve got, let alone get a refill.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m talking about the crazy cost of going to a movie at length here, but we didn’t obsess about it at the time. We had accepted that we would be gouged ahead of time. The movie ticket price got us in the mood to be taken advantage of right when we got there.
The movie was a little better than we expected, although I don’t think the cast needs to hold off any vacations around Oscar time. All in all, it was nice to get out of the house for a couple hours. Total cost for the night: $29.50.