So, I decide Saturday to go to a 2:20 movie at Malco’s Paradiso Theatre. We’re rushing because we’re late, but we get there just as the house lights are dimmed and the advertisements begin.
Yes, I said advertisements.
The show time given in the newspaper wasn’t the time when the movie or the previews would began. Rather, it was the time when those godawful, aggravating advertisements bombard us as we enjoy our $15 worth of popcorn and Diet Cokes.
Finally, the ads end after about seven minutes, and the previews begin. The first preview featured flatulence, a second one was built around a tube sock and self-gratification and several stale sexual innuendoes and the third was about a threesome…in high school.
By the time the movie I came to see finally started, I had endured a spate of ads that I didn’t want to see and three previews that injected a coarseness into our afternoon. I’ve never been a prude, but the sexual jokes these days are just cheap laughs from uninspired screenwriters.
And Hollywood can’t figure out why we aren’t buying as many movie tickets.
