Whiny Rant of the Week: Commercials at movie theaters

We went to see a movie last night at an AMC theater and were disgusted by the display of crass commercialism. Essentially we paid to sit and watch television commercials on the big screen prior to the previews and feature. The commercials were interspersed with incredibly annoying segments from a company called Screenvision, which featured a smug host who spoke as if addressing an audience of young children (or morons).

I've concluded that the movie industry must think we are morons. After all, we spend billions of dollars to watch films that are, more often than not, paragons of poor writing and monuments to mediocrity. Now, in addition, they've figured out that we will pay money to sit in silence like idiots and watch TV commercials.

I'm done with it. As much as I like movies (which are the folklore of our age), I've reached the tipping point where there are just too many negative factors to warrant a trip to the cineplex.

If you want to get a taste of where this is all leading, go rent the film Idiocracy. Or, better yet, go read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.

By the way, I've discovered that there are actually grassroots organizations that have arisen to protest the showing of commercials before movies! Two examples are http://www.captiveaudience.org and http://www.shinybluegrasshopper.com/nomovieads.