Movie Going

When I was a kid, there was a time that it wasn’t just enough to see a movie on opening weekend. I simply had to see the sneak preview premiere. Thankfully, most of these happened in the summer, so it wasn’t out of the question to stay out late on a Wednesday or Thursday night.

But these were in the days before DVDs. So even though home theater screens could be large, the best video quality you could get came on VHS tapes. Actually, that’s not true. A few of my friends had those giant laser disk players too.

It seems, these days, that movie theaters are suffering the death of a thousand cuts. There are more and more reasons that people are reluctant to go out to the theater.

Nowhere was this more striking than in Saratoga Springs last Saturday. After the Beer Summit, I decided to catch a 10pm showing of Moonlight at the fancy newish theater just off Broadway. And it was like a ghost town in there. Seriously, it was so slow that the theater wasn’t running ticket sales from the concession stand.

But people were out in droves. The bar was so packed at Druthers I couldn’t get a seat. So it wasn’t as if people weren’t out having a good time. It’s just that their good time didn’t include the movies.

What does any of this have to do with food? I’m getting to that.

As always, before the feature played, the theater ran a bunch of ads. And, like always, one of those ads was for Coca Cola. The copy said something like, “Movies go better with the great taste of Coca Cola.” I’m paraphrasing. But that was the idea.

The visual was the timeless image of a cold and refreshing cup filled with ice, with a sharp focus on the effervescence of the soda.

All I could do was think about how anachronistic this pitch seemed.

Honestly, I don’t know what sized cups the Saratoga theater uses. But the one pictured on the screen appeared to be no less than 32 ounces, and probably it was much bigger. Now perhaps it’s because I’m getting older, but I don’t think I could drink that much liquid and make it through a feature without an intermission.

Even beyond that, the collective innocence about soda is a thing of the past.

The idea of the cinema as an extension of the candy store made a lot of sense when movies were a nickel and kids had the freedom to go see a picture unsupervised.

But in this day and age, as the theaters get fancier, prices go up, and the venues become more adult spaces, it makes sense that the concession stands evolve to keep up. And they have. There’s now wine and beer in many theaters. And a host of other options.

It’s really just the ads. The ads haven’t changed. Which makes it feel like someone is clinging to the hope that this last bastion of soda consumption can keep its grip on the American consumer. However, to me, it would appear as if the American consumer has already decided to catch their movies at home on Netflix.

Let’s be clear. This is tragic.

More tragic might be the city of Troy making all sorts of concessions to build a new movie theater on a precious waterfront lot, in an attempt to bring people downtown who have largely abandoned the cinema.

Troy’s magic is in its history. And part of its history is the river. It makes sense to commercialize the property. But when there is a classic theater that’s sitting empty in downtown, just a couple of blocks away, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around this new project.

A small art house theater would do wonders to stimulate the organic growth the city has been experiencing. Maybe a place that sold switchels and shrubs instead of sodas. But a multiplex feels far more suburban than artsy and urban. Especially today.