The 2022 Movie Theater Experience

• show up 15 minutes early to see a movie that released less than a week ago
• walk past concessions because I’m not trying to spend $8 on a 12oz soda and several handfuls of popcorn
• get into the theater 10 minutes before showtime and it’s completely empty
• sit through preroll ads
• almost everything is an ad for a streaming service
• the one trailer that isn’t for something on a streaming service is only memorable because it makes a huge deal about launching exclusively in theaters
• some of the preroll junk isn’t even ads, it’s stupid timewasters like trivia
• a whole 4 other people have trickled in
• the movie finally starts a half hour after its listed showtime
• at least the movie is really good
• movie finishes and I realize we watched a minute of ads for every 3 minutes of movie
• the price of the ticket could have bought me a month on a streaming service or two months of VPN

Movie theaters, you will not be missed.