General Discussion

There are good points on all sides made in this discussion. I consider myself to be one of the top moviegoers in the United States. I'll add a few of my thoughts to this discussion:

1. No home setup that I've ever seen compares with seeing a movie at a good quality theater with a huge screen. And I'm saying that as someone whose best friend has one of the best home theater setups I've ever seen. For me, it's that "larger than life" aspect that cannot be duplicated at home. Also, there are inevitable distractions which occur more frequently when watching a movie at home.

2. Cost: Thankfully I have two large AMC theaters located near me. With AMC A-List. I am able to see 4 movies every week for a monthly fee of $25.99. that includes all premium formats. That's approximately equivalent to the cost of two streaming services. And you would need more services than that to get a good cross-section of the movies that appear in the theaters every month. The streaming market is extremely segmented now.

Of course, the concessions are ridiculously overpriced. Thankfully, I don't feel the need to stuff my face while sitting in the theater for an hour and a half. I have also given up drinking soda. So in my case no real sacrifice there.

3. Temperature, volume, and talking are all valid concerns. But I much prefer to see a movie in the theater over watching one at home. To me, they are just not comparable experiences. But I have had occasional problems with all of the items mentioned. I look at most most things in life worth doing as taking a risk. So I choose to take the risk and go to the theater for the superior immersive experience. The overwhelming majority of the time it works out and sometimes it doesn't. That's life. Often, I will select a backup movie which starts shortly after my selected showtime and then change to that backup movie if I have any problems in the original theater. That doesn't happen very often, but it definitely does occur.

4. As for the multiple comments in this thread about there just isn't anything worth seeing in the theaters at all; I just find those thoughts to be absolutely absurd. Declarative statements like that about movies that someone has never seen. Don't make much sense to me. One issue is that every person has a different opinion about what is a great, good, or crappy movie. I personally believe that there have been some excellent movies in the theaters this year and every year for that matter. Some of the good ones from this year so far (my opinion):
- Warfare
- Black Bag
- F1
- One Battle After Another (my favorite so far)
- Weapons
- Bring Her Back
- Accountant 2
- Mission Impossible - Final Reckoning
- The Life of Chuck
- Materialists
- Eddington
- Caught Stealing
- Nuremberg
- Together
- Blue Moon

I real realize everyone's list will be different. My point is that there are excellent movies in the theater every single year.

5. I've been reading about the obituary of movie theaters for at least a decade now. And yet they are still hanging in there despite the onslaught of articles declaring moviegoing dead. Obviously, streaming has cut down on in-person attendance along with some of the issues mentioned in this thread (concessions prices, volume, rude behavior, etc.). In my opinion there will be fewer theaters but in person movie going is going to be around for the foreseeable future. Everybody has their own preferences. Mine is seeing movies in in a physical movie theater. But I understand that other people prefer to stream at home.

See you at the the movies! (Or maybe not, based on this thread. LOL).