movies

It almost makes me wonder at the prospect of fully off-book unlicensed movie houses. How gangster to set up shop in an abandoned mall and host one-night screenings of pirated films on high end portable projectors? Maybe this already exists and I just don't know about it.

Students at my high school were doing that (with the science classrooms rather than in an abandoned mall) like ~20 years ago. They were watching fansubbed anime though, not Hollywood movies.

You need a better theater.

And you realise you chose to buy that stuff, right?
Do you need popcorn and candy?
When I was growing up, and even into adult hood, never bought theater food. Not until I found a theater that has real meals and and their own craft beers.

Yeah I called bullshit that you got stale popcorn. Considering how fast movie theaters go through popcorn. And if you're spending $150 then you're doing something wrong. I mean that means that you spent about 50 bucks per person since it was only three of you. I see in another comment that you mentioned it was $32 each for movie tickets and you're in New york. I mean that's simply the case here is that you live someplace that's very expensive to do anything. And you chose to go to a movie theater that charges quite a bit. You could simply do something like a movie club like Cinemark or AMC's movie club or something like that which is a whole lot less per month you get free movie tickets and you get discounts on everything. I go to the movies three or four times a month and even with a family of four I typically won't spend more than $100 in my area. And that's usually buying the most expensive tickets as well which are usually like IMAX and d-box tickets etc.

I'm genuinely dumbfounded that you even managed to spend that much at the movies.

Rookie mistake. The movies are still pretty affordable if you plan it right. Go to a matinee or special pricing days. Smuggle in your snacks and drinks. Hell, I've walked in with a whole ass fast food meal before.

gambling is completely legal in the US again

Yeah that kind of just happened, didn't it?

gambling

brothels

I don't know sort of gambling you're into, but I'm curious to find out.

Yeah! I try to hit at least two a month!

If you can afford it, a lot of the theater chains have "clubs" where for a (imo) reasonable subscription price you get free tickets and discounted concessions. My partner and I spend $20 each on our subscriptions which is why we try to see at least two movies a month, combined with the discount on concessions we break even that way.

Through regal, idk about the other ones, there is also a reward system which I use for free concessions and free "premium" tickets (imax, 4d, etc)

I do, but mainly stick to the 2nd run theaters that play older movies. Last movie I saw in a theater was Carpenter’s The Thing a couple weeks ago.

I recently started going a little bit more, because a new one with certified IMAX (but not the biggest screen) popped up around 25 mins from home. It’s technically in another (smaller) city and for some reason not a lot of people know it exists so it’s never full and still very clean. The IMAX tickets on discount Tuesdays are $5, so we try to go to matinee screenings on those days. There’s usually fewer than 10 people whenever we go and there have been times where we had the entire theater to ourselves.

I would otherwise never go if my only options are the AMCs, Cinemarks, and Regals in my area. The only other theater I go to is the stand-alone huge true IMAX cinema that I’m lucky to have in my city, but only for special movies.

Rarely, because there are very few movies that are worth going to a theater to see instead of just waiting for it to come to streaming.

Yeah, there's a Europa Cinemas network with theaters in bigger cities. They show good movies from all over the worlds. The tickets cost 6€. I visit mine from time to time. I saw really nice Mongolian movie not so long ago.

This is a very narrow view. Between work, commuting, and general life maintenance it can be tough to actually commit 2+ hours to a film, uninterrupted. Tv shows, even long form/miniseries stuff, are just easier to slot. It's no different from scheduling a meeting at work: scheduling a 150 minute session is something you have to plan weeks in advance, you can get 30 minutes free tomorrow.

Where do you get those 90m movies? Most of the stuff I see is 120+? I yearn for shorter movies (70-80 has always been my favourite sweet spot)