Dear Theatre Chains

Dear Theater Chains:

I've had it with your shit. Refusing to show movies that simultaneously debut On Demand was the last straw. It's bad enough that you only show the Top 5 movies at any 1 time. Like cinematic feces spreading out from an overflowing toilet, The Peanuts Movie is showing on 8 screens while little films I've heard about but that didn't get the promotional equivalent of being a cum dumpster at a Friar's Convention, like Freeheld for instance, just wither away into the Bluray ether. And I have nothing against Peanuts. I love those characters. I see lots of popcorn flicks. But when you remove all sense of choice from the equation, forcing me to sometimes travel an hour into the city so I can actually go to a real cinema showing a lovely assortment of indie films along with The Peanuts Movie, it makes me mad. I understand that it's a business for you. But you charge $12 for a bag of popcorn and a soda. Not to mention the theaters where you serve dinner and drinks. Then we're talking upwards of $150 for a family of 4. Never mind the extra $5 you add on for seeing what usually amounts to Godawful 3D on something like Black Mass which is not aided by 3D in anyway whatsoever. I think all that green you're raking in can afford for you to actually have some fucking dignity and love of the business that you are supposedly in, namely cinema, and show decent, worthy films in at least 1 cinema of the 12 in which you're screening Pixels. But no. What do you do instead? When 1 little independent movie decides to cover all bases and go to On Demand as well as the tiny closet sized theater you would afford it in the tiniest fraction of your market (usually only the city venues), you throw what amounts to the tantrum of a child and refuse to show the film at all. Essentially, you are a disgrace to cinema. Not only did you and the four or five other  theater chains that seem to own every theater in the country monopolize and homogenize the moviegoing experience, but you've now become like the cinematic viewing equivalent of the mafia waving your gun around to show how scary you are. It's ridiculous. I'm always going to go to the movies because I love them. So you've got me there. But I'll never stop raging against conformity, bad taste, and business over integrity. But you know...fuck you, in closing.