Pre-Movie Crapola

Damn it, I remember (vaguely, mind you) when going to see a movie meant going to see a movie. But today you don't just go to the theatre to see a movie, you go to plant your ass down and take in roughly 10-11 hours of Coca Cola and Levis ads. Once you're through that, you can give youself a pat on the back and rest easy knowing that you've finally made it. Made it all the way to the elaborate and expensive looking "Coming Attractions" intro. At this point you're thinking, "Christ Almighty, do I still have my ticket stub on me? I'm going for a smoke."

Like, what the fuck is going on? The coming attractions I can understand because you're in a movie theatre and it makes sense to advertise upcoming movies in a movie theatre. That doesn't mean I enjoy watching them, it just means I see where they're coming from.

Back in the day I remember the coming attractions portion being quite tolerable and I'd imagine that has to be true because I would have been a kid and very antsy. If my squirmy little 10 year old ass could sit through the previews without getting up and tearing through the theatre throwing poporn everywhere, they couldn't have been too bad.

But then the coming attractions segment got super long. I was older and more patient, but even then I remember thinking, "This is...kind of ridiculous." And a few times I even forgot what movie I had come to see for a second or two. But length aside, it was still "Coming Attractions" so it was somehow acceptable.

Then the day came when (gasp!) a Coke ad was played before the coming attractions. Imagine! A TV advertisment in a movie theatre! How devilishly scandalous! It was only a minute long though so it's brevity made this risquee move relatively harmless.

And here we are today when we actually have to sit through an endless stream of advertisements that are completely unrelated to movies or movie theatres. Those boring-ass Telus ads with the animals on a white background are bad enough on TV. I have no desire to see them on the big screen with surround sound. Seriously, this is not one 60-second ad we're talking about here. It's not something that you can laugh off and say "Whatever" to. I mean, you could walk three towns over for a glass of beer and return before this shit is over and they still have the audacity to show a bunch of trailers for shitty romantic comedies.

I go to the theatre like once a year and I'm still fed up with this crap. I think I've discovered why I have trouble sitting through movies. By the time the movie starts I need to walk around and stretch my legs. It's absurd.