Six-Dollar Popcorn

06.04.10 | George D. Allen | Staff NotesPrint this Post

I attended an opening weekend screening of Kick-Ass eager to have that great “crowded movie theater” experience along with its intended audience, which I imagined would be made up of teens who would get high on the hip ultraviolence; comic fans of the adult stripe who might get a few dark laughs out of how the film ripped apart and stomped all over comic book and comic movie clichés; and the occasional out-of-touch moviegoer who might be of the, shall we say, more senior variety—someone in the theater only because he (or she) was a Nicolas Cage fan, someone who knew nothing else about it, ignored the rather in-your-face title and nevertheless plopped down their well-earned cash only to get really, really offended after Cage’s very first scene onscreen with young Chloe Moretz.

But this isn’t a review of Kick-Ass. This is about my visit to the snack counter before the movie even started.

Ever since prices for movie theater snacks started getting a little out of hand, I’d been cutting way, way back on the amount of times I secured munchies to go along with my big-screen entertainment. Sometimes I smuggled in my own (yes, don’t we all). Sometimes, I simply went without. I was truly unprepared, however, for the sticker shock I received when I decided to pick up a small bag of buttered popcorn to go along with director Matthew Vaughn’s subversive superhero film.

The headline gave it away already, but let’s put those words together again for special emphasis:

Small buttered popcorn. Six dollars.

Six. Dollars.

When the young girl behind the counter gave me that figure (it was the only thing I was buying), I was quite literally and without exaggeration stunned into silence. I’m also one of those customers who just so happens to have had enough mileage on the other side of the customer service relationship to understand that flying into a bitter rage of complaint would do me, my server, and the cause in general absolutely no good whatsoever.

So, after hearing the outrageous sum, I had a clear choice. Buy, or walk away. I was hungry enough and had no other recourse, so I bought and said not an impolite word.

And now, I’m walking away. There is no way I’m paying those prices for that food ever again. It’s absurd on its face to charge that amount of money, I don’t really care about the desperate straits the theaters find themselves in because the studios rake off so much of the average ticket price right off the top. It concerns me not that they’re in the midst of haggling over exactly who is going to pay how much to upgrade their projectors to keep up with the digital evolution (or devolution, as some might argue) of the movies.

Further, I say the following up front, as someone with something of a dog in the fight inasmuch as I should be generally promoting the wonders of home-video entertainment, now that living room screens and sounds are catching up (all things being relative) with the quality you can experience at the multiplex:

I’m of the opinion that seeing movies on the big screen, with crowds of people, is just simply the best way to see movies.

For the first time, anyway. Yes, still the best way. I’ve heard much grousing about talking, texting, and the like, but most of the time, my experience has been that if it’s really a good movie, if it works, people in the theater generally surrender themselves to it and the undesirable behaviors are usually nonexistent or kept to a bare minimum. Bad movie? Bad behavior. Good movie? Good time.

But…six-dollar popcorn? Forget it. I will continue to put the peanuts in my pocket (so to speak), or I’ll continue to do without.

The prices on tickets themselves are approaching pretty unrealistic expectations. Twenty dollars—that’s $20 for a single adult ticket—for Shrek Forever After/Shrek the Fourth/Shrek the Final Whatever at a New York City IMAX? Are they, pardon the expression, nuts? Even they seem to think so, as the AP reported some of those prices were rescinded with refund offers on opening weekend. There were conflicting accounts on whether this particular price point was an "error" or just a truly knuckleheaded idea.

We’ve long since passed the point where it’s cheaper to own the film—own it, and watch it over and over again—than it is to take 2-3 of your friends and family members to see it once and have the fun of being part of an appreciative crowd and the unique communal experience only movies can provide. This is sad, and getting shameful, for those managing the theatrical artery of a movie’s lifetime.

You might ask, how can I proclaim the big-screen experience to be superior and not then be willing, quite logically, to pay more for the privilege of seeing it that way? The movies were always supposed to be art for the masses. It wasn't then, and should never be, purely an elitist's avenue of entertainment. Yes, I want my fair share of art houses to indulge my film snob tendencies, but let's never do away with movies, movie houses, and movie prices made for the groundlings.

I’m no Chicken Little doomsayer—the theatrical experience is in no danger of vanishing, I say. But it’s getting a little obnoxious for the nonsensical financial gamesmanship that pits the venues’ interests against the studios, with audiences of course getting the distasteful end of the stick.

To paraphrase the Soup Nazi: No more six-dollar popcorn for me.

I suspect I’m not alone. Work it out, theater owners and studio heads, and don’t allow a trip to the movies to become only a luxury for the well-off or another opportunity for families to slide into greater debt. Truly, it’s a ridiculous world when it costs far, far less to own a movie than to see it once the way it’s meant to be seen.

Kick-Ass, by the way…well, kicked ass, in my opinion. It was the popcorn that left a stale taste in my mouth. And not because it was smothered in that delicious yellow sludge.