reasons i have not been to the movies in switzerland in ages3 min read

there are many reasons, why i have not been at a movie theater for ages, it must be three or four years at least, but the main reason would be people. seems like, at least here in switzerland, people go to the movies to do anything BUT to watch the movie. they go there to eat, to talk with their friends, to make out, to talk on the phone, to shoot up heroin … i dunno. they just go there, because it’s a dark place, where they can annoy the few others, who actually do want to watch the movie. i mean, sometimes it is like magic, when a whole theater full of dedicated movie watchers falls silent and gets wrapped into the action. but then usually some loud punk comes along, late, starts burping and munching and smelling up the place. or the bag ladies, seems like there is always some old fart, that starts rummaging through her plastic bags during the quiet scene.

the thing is, if you ask the loud people to please be quiet, rarely they just ignore you, but usually they will comply and proceed to find another way to annoy you. this being switzerland, the passive-aggressive capital of the world, it is not easy to communicate with people. often i remember movies not by their plots, but by the annoying people that we had in the theater. in that way narc will forever be linked to the two junkies, one of them made it clear to everyone, that he had seen the movie before and kept giving away the plot points, less to his buddy, who had dozed off, than to all of us in the room. classic. in fact, that must have been one of the last times i went.

but. while the movie theaters can’t do much about people’s behaviors, there are a few things that they could improve. one thing, that is extremely annoying are the previews and commercials you have to suffer through before the film starts. in france they found an easy solution to this. they communicate two starting times, one for previews/commercials, for those people who do like to watch them, and another when the actual movie starts. another very annoying thing in switzerland are the breaks. they will stop the movie somewhere in the middle to sell ice creams, show more commercials, give smokers a chance for a nicotine fix. quite a few films really suffer from such an interruption; mullholland drive, a david lynch movie!!!!, really fell apart for me, because of that stupid break. then they assign seats in swiss movie theaters, and what a stupid thing that is. they cluster everyone at the center, creating a totally unnatural seating pattern, and the customers, being swiss, they will actually insist on getting their assigned seat. i have observed many fights about this.

in short, usually there is no reason to go suffer in a movie theater, when i could enjoy the films in the quiet of my home. so usually i just wait till the movie gets shown on cable, released on dvd, or there are a few other options out there, i won’t mention here … ^^ (lately i have watched a few movies on my ipod touch. brilliant). but ok, it is also because there have not been that many must-see movies lately. however at the moment i am tempted to go see der baader meinhof komplex. do i dare? because there is always the risk that a perfectly decent movie goes to waste. remember narc. nah, i won’t go …

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