Fun at the movies

I enjoy movies a lot, and one of the best experiences of the summer can be going to see a movie in a cool theater on a hot day.

As the years have gone by, I have noticed a lot of changes when it comes to my movie theater experience. Of course, this happens with most aspects of life. For people my age, just about everything is different when compared to how they were when we were children.

However, the differences are dramatic when taking a close look at what makes up my movie watching experience today.

The first difference is the subject matter. A few years ago I graduated from the important 18- to 40-year-old demographic. That age group is the group that most movies are geared toward. On top of that, I am a male so I was a king when it came to the movies at my disposal.

Unfortunately, this has changed as I have grown older. I am finding that I do not have much in common with most of the new movies. It seems like half of them are about vampires. The other half are ultra-violent thrill rides that really are not that thrilling.

An excellent movie like Inception will come along every now and then. The rest of them are about as exciting as watching an infomercial about colon cleansing.

This does not mean that they are all bad movies. It just means that I have little in common with them, and if I cannot relate to a film, then it does me no good.

Also, the cost of going to the movies has become ridiculous. I was recently out of town and had some time to kill so I decided to go to the movies.

The cost of a ticket to a matinee was $7.50. The cost for popcorn and a soft drink cost about $11 dollars. So, the cost for one person was almost $20.

Multiply that number by four and it is quick to see that it can cost a family an arm and a leg to go see a movie.

I suppose the theater folks try to justify these prices by giving a person more food than they can possibly consume. The cup for my soft drink was so big that I could almost fit my head in it (and I have a big head).

The container for the popcorn was huge and could best be described as a small-sized grocery bag. I could not eat it all, so this became the first time that I have taken a doggy bag home from the movies.

I got the popcorn with "butter" on it. I put the word butter in quotation marks because it does not resemble any butter that I am used to.

After I had driven home with my grocery bag of popcorn, I decided to throw it in the yard for the birds to eat. When I went outside the next morning, the popcorn was gone, but there was a big stain that probably came from the "butter."

If that stuff is potent enough to leave a stain on grass then I guess I should not be putting it into my body. I hate to think of the poor animals who ate all that. My neighborhood now probably leads the nation when it comes to animals suffering from heart disease.

Despite my bellyaching, going to the movies is still an enjoyable way to spend time. After all, it provides us time to get away from the pressures of life.

And that is worth a lot these days.