Movie Migrane

     There has been a lot of talk lately on the news about movie studios.  The movie studios would have you to believe that they are going broke, because people are either buying pirated copies of the movies, or are waiting until the movies come out on DVD.  While this may be true to some extent, the movie studios have to accept some of the blame for themselves.  Like everything else in life, movies have outgrown the common man.
     Friday, my wife and I decided to treat our 3 kids to a movie.  They had been wanting to see the new Alvin and The Chipmunks movie, so we decided to give them one last treat for Christmas.  The last few times we had splurged for a movie we had went to the drive in, which was $15 a car load, and took our own snacks.  This time, we were going to the theater for a matinee.
    I knew that movie prices had skyrocketed, but never imagined what I was about to encounter.  The price to get into the movie, for the matinee, was $6.75 per child, and $7.00 per adult.  Before we had even set foot inside the theater, we were out $34.25.  Now, I have a decent job, and make decent (not good, just decent) money, but this was still about 3 hours worth of work, for 87 minutes of movie, and almost 30 minutes of previews.  This had me amazed, but what I saw next made me downright floored.
    The kids of course wanted popcorn and a drink.  We walked up to the concession stand to check out the prices.  Earlier in the day, when I was looking for movie times at this theater, I had run across a coupon for the concession stand.  The coupon was for a small coke and a small popcorn for $7.  I thought there had to be a misprint. I was wrong.  The price of a small coke at the stand was $4.50.  I was having sticker shock by this time.  A small popcorn was $5.75.  Needless to say, the kids got gum out of my wife's pocketbook to snack on during the movie.
     This is just one more small joy that has been priced out of affordability for the average family now.  I know that my family can hardly afford to put out $35- whatever to go see a movie very often.  This is truly a shame.  As for my family, we will stick to cable TV, On Demand, and RedBox for our movies from now on.  Maybe the movie studios and cinemas should take a long hard look at their ticket and concession prices to see why most families are no longer going out to the movies.