This fine youngsters are going to need neck rubs later.
Hey 3.5 readers.
BQB here. Who else would it be?
Sit down for this, because it’s time for me to complain, Uncle Hardass style.
Have you ever gone to a big movie, only to find that the last few seats are right up in front of the screen?
Seriously. What kind of BS is that?
I hate it when that happens. You just don’t experience the same joy in watching the film as everyone else does.
First, you have to crane your neck so badly just to see anything, that I feel like I have to get a Shiatzu massage just to be able to move my head afterwards.
Second, you can’t see everything. When you are further back, you can see it all. When you are up close, you have to look at one character and then when another character starts talking, you literally have to turn your head and look at the other character. This is madness!
Third, I don’t even sit that close to my television at home because it makes me sick so why would I do it with a ginormous screen?
This rant is coming to you because this has happened to me many times, most recently when I saw Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 last night, the East Randomtown Cineplex was so full that I had to be jammed like a piece of meat right up against the screen.
This is crap. Crap, I say! It shouldn’t be happening in America and I know you all have causes that are near and dear to your hearts but I urge you to drop all of them and join with me in focusing on urging movie theater companies to make their theaters larger so that more seats can be put in the back.
No one should have to sit right up front like a jackass. Literally no one enjoys this. Seriously, if you can find one person who can pass a lie detector test while saying, “I like sitting in the front row at a movie theater!” then I will give that person 3.5 dollars.
(Offer not valid in America, Canada, Europe, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Earth, the Universe, or any concept beyond the universe we have yet to discover, so in other words, nowhere.)
3.5 READERS: But BQB, you should have gotten there earlier. Then you would have gotten a better seat.
I have a life, 3.5 readers! I have a job at Beige Corporation and I have all kinds of mythical characters I take care of. I have a blog read by 3.5 people that I have to write.
Plus, so what? So what if I do start showing up early? What am I gonna do? Sit in the back and not give a crap about the poor schmuck who has to sit in the front row because he has a life? I can’t enjoy movies while I’m siting in the back of the theater while knowing that some poor person is sitting up front with a pained neck.
I’m sorry, people, but we’re either in this together as a collection of movie theater goers, or we aren’t in this as all. Big Theater, the term I use to describe the theater industry, wants us all to start fighting each other like one big production of Lord of the Flies with popcorn but we need to stick together. If one theater goer is not happy, then I am not happy.
Except the guy who isn’t happy because he’s asking seventeen questions about a scene that happened twelve scenes ago. Eff that guy. If you don’t get a scene, just do what I do and make some shit up to plug in the gap then go look up what you didn’t understand on the Internet when you get home.
3.5 READERS: But BQB, movie theaters will have to shell out a lot of money to make their theaters bigger. They make money by making smaller theaters and squishing more people into smaller spaces. They can’t afford big expenditures in an environment where the entertainment market has become saturated with umpteen zillion live streaming shows and services.
Stop being a sheep, 3.5 readers. No, you know what? Here’s my impression of you. “Bah! Bah! We’re 3.5 sheep! Bah, bah! Someone come sheer us and turn our wool into sports bras! Bah!”
You can be a sheep or a shepherd, 3.5 readers. Which one do you think Jesus picked, 3.5?
The theaters are shepherding you into believing this and you’re all just sitting in the front row with your necks craned up in the air, looking to the left when Rocket Raccoon talks and then to the right when Star-Lord talks and trying to contain the headache and neck pain you are experiencing because some corporate theater stooge felt it was perfectly fine to sell you a seat where your face is literally plastered to a fifty foot tall screen.
God, I wish I could start screaming like Sam Kinison right now. He was a comedian from the 1980s that screamed a lot, 3.5 readers. Go look him up. I don’t have time to explain who people are to you. Either Google things on your own without me having to tell you or get a time machine and go back in time and convince your parents to hump earlier so you’ll be older now and understand more things.
Besides, the fact that theaters have to compete with so many different live stream options now is all the more reason to make the movie theater experience a better one. Do you think if they keep making TVs better and better that I’m going to keep going to movie theaters and crane my neck up like a jackass?
Yes. I probably will. Because I love movie theaters. But most people won’t. And that’s a problem, because movie theaters are facing a lot of stiff competition and I absolutely do not want to see them go the way of the dodo, the way that bookstores and movie rental stores went thanks to the Internet. Movie theaters are one of the last true communal places we go as a society and if we lose them then we lose everything.
I’m here. I’ve got neck pain. I’m mad as hell and I’m not taking a seat up front anymore!
3.5 READERS: BQB, when you walk in the theater and see there are only a few seats up front left, why don’t you go back to the ticket booth and ask for a refund then leave?
“Bahh! Bahhh!” That’s you.
First, what am I going to do? Not see the movie? Usually, I have someone with me who wants to see the movie, so what am I going to do? Tell that person they can’t see the movie?
Second, I’ve bought popcorn and soda already. What am I going to do? Return it? They can’t take that back. I might have stuck an unsavory bodily appendage in there. I mean, I didn’t, but they can’t know that for sure so they can’t refund me and then serve the popcorn to someone else without one hundred percent assurance that I didn’t drop a booger into my popcorn bag.
And what would I do? Bring the popcorn home and eat it in my bed like an idiot, all because the theater did plan properly to accommodate all of their ticket purchasers? No. No, I think not.
Third, if it’s already a busy movie night where a big movie has been sold out, then that means I’m going to have to stand in a long line in the hopes of getting a refund, though in all likelihood, they’ll probably tell me they can’t refund it. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. I don’t know.
3.5 READERS: BQB you whiney bastard, do you have any real solutions to this national nightmare?
Yes.
#1 – Build bigger theaters with more seats toward the back. If not, then…
#2 – Put a sign in the lobby that a clerk is required to light up that tells prospective ticket buyers that only front row seats are available. Better yet, make it so that the clerk knows that when he sells me a ticket so he can tell me, “Hey man, you’re gonna have a sore neck, just want you to know for sure.” Let me decide if the movie is worth hiring a Swedish masseuse after.
#3 – The theater should provide complimentary neck pillows and Swedish masseuses named Inga to massage the necks of all who are forced to sit at the very front of the theater.
#4 – Just install some iPads in the front rows that are set to play along with big screen. Put those in the front row. I’ll listen to the sound and watch the film on the iPad. Smaller screen, but my neck won’t be in traction for days later.
#5 – Just kick me in the nuts and take my money because that’s literally how it feels like when I walk into a theater and find that the front row seats are the only seats available.
What say you, 3.5 readers? You’re all with me on this, right? Share your tales of bad movie theater seats in the comments.
Bookshelf Battle 