Yeah commercials in movies really piss me off, especially with how prevelant they have gotten. I remember when it was rare that you'd see one, the ad would start playing with them half-assed disguising it as a trailer, then boom! commercial kicks in. My brain would screetch to a sudden halt as it tried to wrap itself around the fact that a) there was a regular commercial in the movie theater, b) that it was disguised at first as a movie trailer, and c) there was a regular commerical in the frickkin' movie theater! And now they don't even bother with "b," as I see the same ones that I sit through on the rare occasion I watch regular tv outside of sports.
I understand they want more revenue, but somewhere as an industry you need to draw the line. You can't just depend on the consumers to avoid whichever theater is doing it, as in many markets there is a division where only certain chains get certain movies, giving them a lock on certain studios' films. The net result is a dissatisfaction about going to movies period, not just about going to movies shown at this chain of theater or that chain. This is why it will hurt the industry as a whole if individual theaters keep pushing the limit seeing how far they can go with more and more commercials, and simply respond to complaints saying "well you can always try a different theater," knowing they don't have much convenient choice.
Maybe if the MPAA can come up with hard guidelines limiting how long after the list time any theater showing a film represented by a mpaa studio is allowed to show commercials before they must start showing the required trailers and movie. Now, this would have to be a fairly short amount of time because of any movie trailers that would be attached by the studio, so say maybe 2 1/2 minutes of commercials before previews. While I would still be upset about having them, at least it would limit the non-movie-related commercials to a minimum, set time, before movie trailers start, so the mood isn't disrupted quite as bad as it is now. Also, the hard limit that individual theaters or chains would not be able to get around, could drive the demand of any commercials for that time period way up, so they could still maintain profits. This keeps it from being a survival of whoever is willing to pack the most commercials in at whatever low price situation that is starting to brew.
__________________
...And then I found $5!
|