We've had some discussions here about new theaters, old theaters, good movies, and bad movies...the one common theme is that people just don't seem to be going to the movies quite as much as they used to...

What's your reason for not going to the films? Too expensive? Not enough worth watching? Home theater alternatives? Or do you go as much or more than ever?

I'll kick off the discussion with my own ten cents about why I don't go to the theater as much as I used to:

Content.

Considering what few movies I've attended in the theater are presaged with teasers from movies that are seemingly chronically targeted for the teenage adolescent bathroom/sex joke crowd, the gangsta rap crowd, the environicks hysteria crowd, or the goth/horror crowd, it is pretty clear to me that the current movie studios don't WANT my money. That's fine; it's their prerogative to make movies they think will make money.

There's been more than one occasion I've been interested in a movie on a Friday night, but looking in the paper or driving by the theater, there's not one offering among the 16 or 24 (or however many) screens that appeals to me or I deem suitable for my kids.

Considering that I believe a trip to the movies to be a treat at $8 or $9 a whack, combined with $3 and up popcorn and such, making either a date night for me and the wife to be every bit of a $30 proposition (excluding dinner out), I see no point in spending that money capriciously. For a familiy trip that starts to approach $60 (with two kids), that trip becomes even more special, and the movie had better be correspondingly good. The way I see it, they're not even making the kinds of movies I want to see. I'm just not in their demographic.

-SoonerDave