Well it's either that or you have to pay twice as much for the ticket.
I've worked out my local cinema shows approx 20 mins of adverts, so I just turn up 15 minutes after the start time in the paper!
I tend not to go to see films straight away on release, so I don't have much trouble getting a seat either.

Quoting northbloke:

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... I just turn up 15 minutes after the start time in the paper!

Yeah, one of those people who are standing in front of me. I think I'd rather watch the ads than the back of your... head/backside.

Worse than what they show are the people in the audience.

I have gone to two films in theaters in the past year. I used to go three times a week.

Why so few?

Beginning with rental video tapes, people learned that they needed commercial breaks to talk (having learned from TV watching), so, they either paused the video every 20 minutes or so, or they talked over the video. Same with bathroom breaks.

So we have audiences with 25 years of watching "uninterrupted" films in their living rooms, with mom & pop yelling at the kids to sit down and pipe down. The kids (and childlike adults) talking back to the film (everyone thinks they're better than MST3K). And all the while getting up, kicking their own furniture, answering their phone, eating whatever they cook...

And over the past 25 years, they've brought this behavior with them into the theater. A very little at first, but "free" cell phones broke open the floodgates.

Now dads think it's cool to explain every detail of every frame to their children who have zero attention span. Very loudly.

I have not seen a film in a theater in five years where the person sitting behind me doesn't constantly kick the back of my seat. Not once have they refrained from doing so. I've turned around and complained. It only makes 'em madder, and they kick more often and harder.

The ads are nothing compared to the crowds.

I can watch ads. But I cannot watch a film in a theater any more.

To quote Linus: "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand."

Quoting VibroCount:

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[Lots of true stuff]

Ditto...

Cheers,

Quoting ruineddaydreams:

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i've solved my problem.... when i do go to the theater - i tend to go to matinée showings during the week and not in the first week or two of release... that gets me a pretty quiet theater... i don't mind the commercials, i just play with the web on my phone

I, too, only go to the matinees.  First, I'm cheap, so I hate paying full price.  Second, most people don't go to matinees, so its less crowded (far fewer kids!).  I'm lucky, I guess, because the manager of our local theater (85 years old and expanding from six screens to twelve!) is a young woman who is also an huge film buff and she doesn't tolerate people who disrupt things for other viewers.  Makes it a very pleasant atmosphere for those who came to watch a movie.

While I'm at it, I can recommend two movies currently playing:

Jodie Foster in 'The Brave One' is a much more believeable, much grittier take on the vigilante theme than the old Charles Bronson flicks.  Foster just keeps getting better as she gets older.

Anyone who is a western movie buff knows the original '3:10 to Yuma' is a classic, with Glen Ford.  The new Russell Crowe remake is a worthy homage to that old classic.  It has the same sense desperation and inevitability, like a runaway train, that the original had, but it is not hindered by sanitizing of the Hollywood censor system that was in place in the old days.  Russell Crowe is superb as the outlaw who is both genteel and educated, yet coldly brutal and evil.

Matinée showings mean nothing around here. A few years ago, we went to see "Finding Neverland". Not exactly a boxoffice smash. We went to a matinée showing. We chose the first week, because the day it opened, it was scheduled to close within the week. Again, even at this film, cell phones were ringing, parents were failing to control their brats running in the aisles, the back of my seat was being kicked (amazing -- we could have had one row for each family or couple, with a row or two of seats between us, given how few were in the audience, yet some girl had to sit directly behind me, chewing gum with her mouth open, talking throughout the film, and kicking the back of my seat often), and it was as unpleasant a theatrical experience as I've ever had.

Nothing stops these yahoos. Nothing.

Well, because of such experiences I actually rediscovered a gem lost to memory: the drive-in cinema.

While they are few in number, technology did catch up there as well,

While in the past you had this small speaker you put in your car, giving you a "nice 'n' squeaky" sound experience, nowadays the sound is transmitted on an unused radio frequency and done so in Dolby Digital.

Throw in the possibility to bring your own food and beverages, have a comfy seat unused by others, untainted by spilled soda, popcorn and nacho chips leftovers, icecream and the mandatory chewing gum, no cell phones but your own, no surround sound conversations and a decent sound system (in my car, that is...) and the by far largest screen you can find in twon, it's actually a very nice experience again

The new Bourne movie cost $9 per adult and the movie was at 4:20! I really can believe how much it cost to go to a movie now.

I used to pay $3.50 to see movies before 6pm.

I hear ya.  The prices are outrageous, the audiences are rude, the sound level deafening, and the endless preview-commercials annoying as hell ..............

and yet, I still like to see some movies on the BIG screen 

my best story (worst movie going experience ) so far ....

Went to the first night of a Vietnamese film about the refugees who escaped in '75. A large part of the local VN community attended, which was cool.  What wasn't cool were all the elderly VN ladies (and some gents) who apparently had never been to a movie theater in their life, and proceeded to speak very loudly in Vietnamese to everyone around them, and call and/or take calls on their cell phones to speak very loudly in Vietnamese to everyone else they knew at home about the movie while the movie was showing 


second best (worst) story:

me and a date arrive to see a popular movie after the previews have started, but way before the main feature. There's plenty of room for both of us to sit together in a good row if a woman and her daughter will move over one seat from their perch in the exact center of the row  ........... but NO, nothing doing, nada, nine, nyet, forgetaboutit !

when politely asked why, the extremely non-cheerful response ........
"we got here on time and we're not moving from these seats!"