Jenny

Ok, so we wanted to take my kiddo to see Santa Claus 2 (which was funny, btw).

Anyway, tickets are up to $7.00 for adults and $5.25 for kids! I was appalled! I know they are more expensive in Cali & a lot of places, so don't start. But they didn't use to be that expensive at all here. So it was $19.25 for the 3 of us. THEN there was popcorn & drinks, which you have to have for the whole movie theater experience. $10.50 for large popcorn & 2 medium drink combo for me & Scott, then $3.50 for a child's combo for Josh. That's $14. So that is $33.25!

If that isn't enough, we sit down and before even the movie previews, we had to sit through 4 or 5 COMMERCIALS! Just like if we had been at home watching television! F'ing A! It pissed me off so badly. Grrrrr.

__________________
Check out my spoilers for over 20 shows @ SpoilerFix.com

Check out my TV blog, where I post weekly & daily TV
schedules, TV news, interviews with TV stars & more!
All new TV forums as well @ TV Is My Pacifier

sbp

I hear ya. Its no wonder I've only seen one movie in the movie house this year.

whitak24

theaters are cool and all. but i seriously have been to about 3 movies in the past 2 years.

for me, a movie just isn't enough entertainment to justify spending $10-$16 for me and my GF to see one (except occasionally when we want to do something different). since i usually find DVDs for $7-$10, i'd rather just wait for the DVD to come out and buy it...have it to watch as many times as i want.

ufcrusher

Yep, I happen to agree on all counts. Movies have gotten way to expensive...which is why we only go when we get discounts. Here in San Diego, they have Ultrastar theaters, which have $3.75 Tuesdays. They normally exclude one or two movies from that price, but otherwise everything else is just $3.75 per person....which isnt too bad.

Other than that, we still use our school ids to get the lower student rate or dont go at all. I refuse to pay more than $6/movie and most of the time wont even pay that, since you can buy the dvd for that much. The only negative of that is that our DVD collection grows exponentially all the time..

__________________
Welcome my son, welcome to the machine...Where have you been? It's alright we know where you've been....

Jenny

Yeah, we'd love to go someplace cheaper but unfortunately, this is the only game in town. *sigh* Oh, to move to a bigger city with more CHOICES! (YAY May! )

Anyway, that's why we only go every 3 or 4 months or so.

whitak24

that's a negative?

ufcrusher

Yes, when I keep having to go out and buy new DVD racks! I mean hell, at $40 for each rack (Gotta love Ikea for stuff like this) the price of the racks keeps adding up. I mean, hell I have even converted an old CD rack that was built into a entertainment center into another dvd area. So that is the only negative to the growth problem.

whitak24

ahhh....i see

i have the solution: send any unneeded DVDs to me!

nomoney

I pay $8.50 for a movie. No student discount anymore

Freelance Superhero

i agree it's expensive ($9 a ticket here in LA), but i dunno, there's just something grand about seeing a film on the big screen. don't get me wrong, there are just some movies that BELONG on video, but others just aren't the same when watched at home...

not to mention, there are certain old flicks that some theaters will play, and those are a REAL treat to see in the theaters... there's an akira kurosawa retrospective making its rounds across the country, and when it comes to LA, i'm DEFINITELY gonna spring for tickets... i wasn't even born when those movies came out, so how great is it that i could have the opportunity to see them on the big screen!

but generally speaking, yes, the moviegoing experience financially sucks major ass...

__________________
"I can't believe you can eat that; it looks like abortion." - Augusta, of the Tard-Blog

ribitch

by my house, its 6.50 per student. They seem to raise it every 3-4 months. At school its 5.00.

When i started school 4 1/2 years ago, a student ticket was only 3.25 by my house. It has doubled since then. bastards

how are you getting dvds so cheap? I have seen them for 17 or so bucks, but the good ones never seem to be less than that. The only exception seems to be the recent columbia house deal

__________________
http://ribitch.com/ipod.html

cheapie

you know what my brother did? last year he was in college working for the campus newspaper. he created a press credentials ID and contacted the local movie chain and told them that he writes reviews for movies and wonders if they'll let him see movies for free. he says that he'll mention their theater in the reviews. they agree and he went to the movies for free whenever he wanted. lol. he did actually write reviews once in a while.

__________________
70% of the world is covered by water. The rest is covered by Bob Sanders

ribitch

hmmm, official movie reviewer for my website? hmmm....

when i graduate in 5 1/2 weeks, i will get a new copy of my id. this way i get into any of my universities sports games for free as well as movie discounts

faither

Lots of choices for movies here but they're all $9-$10 a ticket. Snacks are even more obscene ($3.50 for a bottle of water, $3 for a box of candy, $5 for a large soda -- it's damn sugar water for the love of God). I find it easier to justify dropping $85 a ticket for a Broadway show (at least there, you're getting live performers).

caribiner23

We have a chain of pretty good second-run houses around here (Chi suburbs).

At one mini-plex near me, it's $3.00 per person and there are free refills on every size popcorn and pop. A couple of the theaters are equipped with SDDS (or whatever that whiz-bang theater setup is) and it's pretty clean, to boot.

If you don't mind waiting until after the movie has been out for a while, this is the way to go. Usually the cinema near me gets the movies about a month before they hit video.

Just this past weekend I took the kids to see "Master of Disguise." Kinda stupid, but hey, they liked it. And I'm sure glad I didn't pay the usual $8.25 for admission.

ufcrusher

Well in terms of finding DVDs for cheap, you just have to keep your eyes out. For example, if you rent a lot of DVDs from Blockbuster, the 10 rental card deals are pretty good, although the last one for Spiderman was getting up there. But heck, even then it was $29 for the DVD and 10 rentals....which normally go for $4 ea. So, you are in essence getting the 10 rentals for $3 each (a saving of $1) and the dvd for free. (Or if you are a pessimist, paying $29 for the dvd and getting 10 free rentals)

Better deals abound though.... although its not quite as good as it once was. If you have a costco membership, you can often get the dvds for a couple bucks cheaper than everywhere else, although recently their prices have been inching up. The sunday paper as always is a good way to find the deals...as they all vie for your business by offering sale rates for the first day or week of a movies dvd release.

There are also other resources, such as www.dvdinsider.com, that can help you find dvds for cheaper. If you sign up for the consumer edition of dvdinsider, you are sent a weekly newsletter (every tuesday supposedly, although I just got mine today). It includes a list of upcoming releases, preorders, a cheapest price, and what was released that day. It also list the top 10 selling dvds for that week. The cheapest price is for preorders and includes shipping in the price. Now I dont claim that this is always the cheapest price, but they generally do a pretty good job.

caribiner23

There's also ebay.

I got the two-disc set of The Others for about $10 including shipping from a seller there. It was a sealed, legitimate, Region 1 set.

I also peruse the pre-viewed DVD section at my local Blockbuster.

latingirl

Yeh, I like going to the movies, esp at the newer theatres like the one at Paseo Colorado in Pasadena or Pacific Theatres in manhattan beach because the seats are so comfy, the theatres are huge and unless you're super close, there's really not a bad seat. But when a movie is boring, I get antsy. I haven't been to the new theatres next to the Mann's Chinese, I heard they were nice too.

I ALWAYS take my own snacks and water in a big purse. Sometimes I just walk in with my coffee (Starbucks). The only thing that I always buy is a hotdog and maybe some popcorn or nachos if I feel like it.

__________________
Don’t be discouraged. Joy comes in the morning. Know that God is nigh.
Stand still and look up. God is going to show up. He is standing by.
There’s healing for your sorrow, healing for your pain, healing for your spirit,
there’s shelter from the rain.
Lord, send the healing. For we know that there is a Balm in Gilead to heal your soul.
There’s healing for your soul.
Richard Smallwood “Healing – Live in Detroit”

Freelance Superhero

see, i'm not afforded the same luxury as a woman is, what with the big purses and all... and my pants aren't baggy enough, nor are my pockets deep enough, to carry a sufficient amount of snacky snacks in with me... but that's alright tho... i don't usually buy snacks anyway...

and daaaaaaamn girl you go that far to watch movies?
then again, i heard those theaters are nice too... maybe it's worth checkin out...

johnnymk

Hmmmm, I always wondered why kids wear those baggy pants.
The movies here are 8 bucks, but the union where I used to work has them for $4. I bought a whole bunch of them before I retired. They are good till December 2003.
But the new movies are awful, anyway. I walked out of "Jackasses" yesterday and then saw "Ghost Ship", which was very mediocre. And all of the previews for the upcoming movies are about supernatural and demonic stuff. Really creepy stuff!!

tweeteresa

go to a college campus near you and buy the tickets from there. it's not valid for movies that just came out within 2 weeks or so. but otherwise...its a good deal. i think $5.25 for amc and united artists, among others at my campus.

ufcrusher

Damn...well we went by the local AMC theater today because we were debating about seeing a movie. So, first thing we noticed was they raised the fricking price again!!! $7 for a freaking student ticket...$9 for a regular adult ticket!

As I said before, generally we dont go to the movies anymore because I would rather just buy another dvd for the price. This just seals it, it would have been $14 minimum or $18 if we own up to the fact that we graduated a long time ago. At that price, even the high price dvds are within reach.

Speaking of which, I picked up 3 previously viewed dvds from Blockbuster for $9.99 each.

Freelance Superhero

yeah i heard about that... is that for real?? you can get amc and ua tickets for $5.25?? do you need to have a student ID for every ticket you buy? and it's at CTO, right...

damn, gotta have my sister hook me up with tickets from now on...