WTF Is a Pre-Movie Speech?  − 13 April, 2008

Tonight was the first date night my wife and I have had in I don't know how many months.  My parents came up today to watch the kids and we headed out.  It was going to be dinner and a movie, but by the time we got going it was only going to be one or the other, and we weren't particularly hungry.

There's really not much of interest at the movie theater right now.  Leatherheads was playing, and since we both thought the previews looked funny, it was settled.

We were there plenty early so we got some overpriced snacks and settled in to talk and watch the pre-movie trivia slides intermixed with local advertisements.

And now we come to the meat of why I felt the need to write about this...

Just before the movie began, the screen went dark, the lights came up, and a theater employee (all decked out in a maroon jacket and bowtie) appeared at the front of the room.

"Welcome to Castle Rock Stadium 12.  How is everyone tonight?  Are you ready to see a movie?"

No response.  Everyone exchanged bewildered looks.  Someone may have coughed.

"Aw, come on!  That was weak!  Are you ready to see a movie?!"

This time there were a few muttered responses, but I dare say they were more along lines of "Start the fucking movie, asshole!"

The poor fool kept on going:

"Well, what else are you going to do around this town?  Pretty boring..."  and he continues to drone on about the purgatory that is Castle Rock.  Hey, genius, we're living at the base of the Rocky Mountains, if you're bored then you need to get your punk-ass off the sofa and away from your Playstation and get outside.

Really need to work on that, dude.

Near the end of his speech, a few high schoolers sitting in the front decided to have some fun with him and kept calling out, "Rap for us!"  (Which, of course, I thought was hilarious.)

He wrapped up by saying that if there's anything we as moviegoers need, we just need to stop by the Customer Care desk in the lobby.

He then took his leave.  And none too soon.  I swear I saw the guy in front of us cocking his arm back to let fly a fistful of Junior Mints.

Don't get me wrong; I really did feel sorry for this guy.  He probably took the job not realizing some fuck-wit would come up with the brilliant idea of having him do this pre-movie speech.  Poor bastard...  how many times a day, every day, does he have to do this?

And I'm willing to bet ours was one of the less hostile reactions he's received.

I haven't been to the movies much in the last few years.  Is this customer care speech thing a common occurrence?

Incidentally, Leatherheads was a reasonably cute/funny movie.  I wouldn't spend the money to see it in a theater, though.

Comments:

PandoraBox (April 15, 2008. 06:08pm)

It is pretty common. In Montreal they started doing those speeches when the big cinema complexes opened. I really feel for those guys...

kga245 (April 16, 2008. 08:08pm)

When I was a kid I wanted to have a movie theater. That desire has never gone away. There are a few movie theaters left where the audience brings as much to the screen as the filmmakers do. They serve beer. They tend to be in college towns. That's the kind of theater I want to own one day. Movies, to use the parlance of the day, are best when interactive.

intrepideddie (April 17, 2008. 12:38am)

Oh, man, there was a small theater in Biloxi, Mississippi, that served beer, hotdogs, pizza, hamburgers... Tables and chairs that you could move around... It was AWESOME! I went to opening night of Mortal Kombat there, and the audience was seriously into it -- cheering, booing, it was great! At that theater, you just weren't enjoying a movie, you were enjoying the atmosphere, and actually having fun.

kga245 (April 17, 2008. 05:14pm)

That's the theater of my dreams.