Ads in movies
I can't be the only one tired of the rapidly growing parade of ads at movie theatres.. New York and Connecticut have been looking at passing ordinances fining theatres that don't post actual movie start times. Over the last two years, the actual start times of the films have been creeping to around the 15 minute mark from the published time, subjecting the audience to dozens of commercials.
It's not just movies; ads are encroaching into our personal lives everywhere. It's not like we have that much discretionary time anyway, do we really need to give back another 10 minutes here, 30 minutes there to being an audience for fizzy, bouncy, insipid advertising?
Ads are on the backs of cabs in New York, subway cars in Washington DC, cars in San Francisco. Every square inch of unused space is being sold to someone to use as a tabula rasa for their marketing messages. What's wrong with white space? It's impossible to relax with the bombardment of neon and noise that makes up our daily urban life.
And the best part of all this is movie studios are complaining that box office is down this year. What a surpise. Lousy movies, ten dollar stale popcorn and enough ad stimulation to make you feel like Alex in Clockwork Orange, strapped to the chair, watching ultra violence with his eyes forcibly kept open.
Lucky man. At least he gets Beethoven.
Hollywood doom articles:
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/56019.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/26/news/midcaps/movies/
Posted on November 02, 2005
