DandomRude

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Well, I rarely plan to go to the movies—only on rare occasions, when I know a new movie I want to see is coming out.

I used to walk past the movie theater a lot, though, and see the posters and that’s how I found out about movies I didn’t know anything about or maybe knew of them but forgot. So it happened at least on occasion that I’d call some friends to go see the movie I’d just discovered by walking by the theater - on the weekend or something, not right away, of course.

I never really cared about the food options. Of course, I’d still buy popcorn and stuff, but a discount on it—after which the popcorn is still outrageously expensive—was just as little a motivation for me to go to the movies as any fancy seats or whatever. That’s all well and good, but it’s never been a reason for me to go to the movies. I went because of the movies—which I’d now have to research on my own, something I don’t do.

So: It may well be that I’m the exception. But in any case, I haven’t been to the movies since they replaced the posters with food ads. As I said, that’s simply because I don’t actively look up the lineup and therefore don’t realize that there might be a movie playing that would interest me—I certainly don’t care at all about the current popcorn prices, though.

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DandomRude @lemmy.world 6d ago

Well, that’s how it was for me at least. The movie theater is right in the middle of town, which is why you’re constantly passing by it anyway. I don’t actively look up the current movie lineup, but I used to always be up to date because I passed by that theater almost every day and saw the posters.

Now I’m no longer informed about the current lineup, but instead only about the absurd prices for popcorn and stuff—I can’t say that motivates me to go to the theater’s website to see what’s playing.

Like I said: I haven’t been to the theater since they took down the posters. That’s not because tickets and popcorn would be too expensive for me, but because I have no idea which movies are playing right now. I don’t go out of my way to find out myself, but I used to walk past the theater and think, “Oh, cool, movie xyy is playing—I should go see that with friends this weekend.” That effect is now gone so I don't go to the movies anymore.

DandomRude @lemmy.world 6d ago

Yes, that’s true, of course, but you’re not going to sell much if you don’t promote the lineup that actually draws in the customers, would you?

I mean, before, all you had to do was walk past the movie theater to find out what was playing. Like many others, I walk past it very often, and I’ve often spotted a movie that interested me and then come back a few days later to watch it.

Now I have to actively check their website to find out what movies are currently playing, which I don’t do very often.

The theater operators must be fully aware of this—as well as of the fact that the food options they’re now exclusively promoting are so expensive that they’re more likely to deter potential visitors than attract them.

It’s as if an attractive tourist destination were to advertise overpriced tourist-trap restaurants instead of the sights that make the destination appealing in the first place—and that would at least make the inflated prices somewhat understandable.

That should be obvious to any marketer or, for that matter, the management in charge. Customers, of course, aren’t interested in which products yield the highest profit margin for the company, but rather in what they get for their money—after all, no one goes to the movies for the popcorn, but for the films themselves. I’d say anyone who doesn’t understand that is completely out of place in this business. The experience has to be the movie; everything else is just an afterthought.

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DandomRude @lemmy.world 6d ago

Yeah, I guess I should. I just can't quite understand how anyone could fail to realize how absurd it is for a movie theater to use its most prominent advertising space not for promoting its movie lineup, but for food offerings.

To me, this strongly suggests that this movie theater—which is part of a large chain—now sees its main product as food rather than movies.

I have absolutely no sympathy for that, and I can only applaud it when a company like that loses customers because of its own idiocy.

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DandomRude @lemmy.world 6d ago

My local movie theater in the heart of downtown has taken down all the movie posters outside the entrance and replaced them with a single screen that only shows ads for overpriced popcorn "deals".

Before, anyone walking by knew which movies were currently playing; now, all they know is just how outrageously expensive the popcorn is.

I haven't been to that theater since.

DandomRude @lemmy.world 1w ago

I think Cage was having some financial trouble at the time, which is why he starred in just about every movie for a few years. I think that was probably right around the time when at least the first Ghost Ride movie came out. I think Cage just didn't care about pretty much anything, which added yet another funny dimension to his usual, amusing over-the-top performance. For some roles, that actually works quite well—especially since it's so meme-worthy.

Anyway, I saw the first ghost rider film: Can't say I was particularly impressed. If you don't take the movie seriously at all, it's actually kind of entertaining because it's so trashy, tho.

With Gosling, I suppose they'll take the whole thing very seriously and believe in its potential for a remake, like with Blade Runner, I guess. However, since Ghost Rider isn't particularly popular even as a Marvel character, I believe this plan is doomed to fail miserably from the start.

I think there are plenty of movies that would be more deserving of a big budget—even within the MCU.

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DandomRude @lemmy.world 1w ago

Yeah, that’s perfectly clear, but both of the nick cage films were pretty big flops, if I recall correctly. So I can’t quite figure out the logic behind another one—except, of course, for reasons of mismanagement and misjudgement of what the audience might want to see.

In any case, I don’t think the movie will make any money, especially since an A-list Hollywood actor alone is pretty expensive.

Of course, I totally get the Big Mac comparison, but I’m afraid it’s not really appropriate: While a mass-produced product of low quality is to be expected, the Big Mac actually sells—which seems kinda unlikely for a third ghost rider movie....

DandomRude @lemmy.world 1w ago

That reads exactly like this absurd video message from a power trippin reddit mod after he was removed for promoting a scam.

It’s just as completely out of touch with reality that you almost have to feel sorry for guys like that, because it’s obviously pathological.

On the other hand, though, people like that are a threat to others—in this case an immediate threat for freedom of expression and open discourse, the cornerstones of the Fediverse.

DandomRude @lemmy.world 1w ago

Great soundtrack—it's even been sampled a lot. Here's an example: Posta Boy—"Jurassic Harlem"

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DandomRude @lemmy.world 1w ago

Who would even make another Ghost Rider movie? Why on earth would they?

DandomRude @lemmy.world 1w ago

Yes, I’m afraid so too, because on the one hand, this regime is so criminal that everyone involved would likely face prosecution immediately after a new administration takes office—even under the dysfunctional U.S. legal system. Despite all the tricks and the expected election fraud in the event of another presidential election, I consider it virtually impossible that the MAGA fascists would be re-elected—they’ve pulled the wool over the eyes of their own, fantastic voters far too obviously this time.

On the other hand, ICE is quite obviously a secret police force whose mission is presumably to secure a coup d’état. I simply cannot see any reason other than the creation of a loyal terrorist force—which ICE already is—for its astronomical budget; it equals the military spending of a medium-sized country and, by U.S. standards, is more than double that of all U.S. federal agencies combined—such as the FBI, CIA, etc. The explanation for this is, in my view, obvious: ICE is intended to serve as a counterweight in case of doubt, should the military be unwilling to stand idly by in the event of an anti-democratic coup.

In short: I think that even darker times lie ahead for U.S. citizens, for they are being ruled by organized crime. I do not believe it can be removed without violence.

DandomRude @lemmy.world 1w ago

Tell him he's not welcome here. We have zero tolerance for intolerance and mindless hatred!

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DandomRude @lemmy.world 2w ago

How about a regime change in the U.S.?

DandomRude @lemmy.world 2w ago

I recently passed through Braunau, Hitler’s birthplace, on my way to a wedding in Hungary.

There’s absolutely nothing to see there.

If this is supposed to become an international gathering place for all those megalomaniacal Nazis, Musk, Trump, and their ilk will have to shell out a lot of money to make their pathetic ideas seem less pathetic than they already are.

I think even they lack the money for that, since their attempts across all of today’s media are already costing them a fortune, and they only succeed with people who are already so useless that humanity would be much better off without them.

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DandomRude @lemmy.world 2w ago

This, in turn, is because all profitable sectors of the public sector have been privatized, while the necessary but cost-intensive ones continue to be financed by taxpayers. It is the classic model of U.S. capitalism, whose goal is to help individuals amass astronomical wealth.

Please don’t get me wrong: I believe that democratically organized capitalism can work. However, it urgently needs regulation, as otherwise its inherent logic inevitably leads to monopolies.

Unfortunately, U.S.-style capitalism has prevailed, a system that allows for nothing but cutthroat logic.

Sadly, this is also the case in my home country, even though for a long time we had a fairly good, reasonably fair system with the so-called "social market economy" (Walter Eucken and such).

Unfortunately, the concentrated capital amassed in the U.S. has long since found its way here as well: supported by the long-discredited theories of economists like John Maynard Keynes and especially Milton Friedman, whose wreched ideas have now been translated into what is called “trickle-down economics.”

The idea behind this—which, in fact, has demonstrably never even in the slightest corresponded to reality—is that it would be a good thing if there were a few extremely privileged people whose immeasurable wealth would trickle down to those below them.

Well, now there are a few of those very, very, very privileged people, very few of them, who have it all.

We are seeing the consequences of this today: the exploitation of entire nations at the expense of their citizens, the privatization of profitable public sectors, and the socialization of costs, the destruction of our planet even.

This has absolutely nothing to do with communism. China is demonstrating just how successful this can be when paired with asshole capitalism. I don't like that but I'm inclined to prefer that over the US-Bullshit, since that also very much inhumane approach is not nearly as irresponsible as the US-System.I mean at least climate protection is a necessary goal for the Chinese—in this case, the public interest, or humanity itself, hasn’t been completely lost sight of. US capitalism on the other hand means certain doom for all of us. That much is certain, as demonstrated every day by the US regime and it's awfully billionaires.

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DandomRude @lemmy.world 2w ago

Well, the U.S. military is financed on credit, which someone like the orange pedo would of course never admit, but that’s the reality. His absurd economic policy—what his people call the Mar-a-Lago Accord (all those tarrifs and such)—is the result of decades of mismanagement. Even the term itself makes that clear: it’s modeled after the 1985 Plaza Accord.

At the Plaza Hotel in New York, the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and Great Britain agreed to deliberately devalue the U.S. dollar.

The background was that the U.S. had long been unable to provide a reliable gold backing—which had previously supported the dollar through actual gold reserves.

Even back then, reaching a compromise was difficult, as U.S. creditors were on the verge of losing confidence that the enormous amounts of money invested by other countries through government bonds—and, in a sense, bets on the dollar—would ever be repaid with interest.

In today’s U.S.-led economy, this is out of the question, because the U.S. is so deeply in debt that its economy will never be able to pay off those debts.

That is why the U.S. regime is now resorting to aggression, even against its own allies. It is an attempt to use what was financed by the borrowed money—including, among other things, the completely bloated military apparatus—to blackmail the world.

It’s a stupid plan that could only occur to complete idiots—who just happen to be ruling the country right now—but they’re doing it nonetheless.

In my opinion, the result will be an even faster downfall of the U.S., because it is far from being the economic superpower it was three decade ago, backed by the world’s concentrated capital.

The reason for this decline is essentially the same as that of Russia’s: greedy oligarchs who are lining their pockets to excess at the expense of the population. In the U.S., this includes, first and foremost, those billionaires who own the arms manufacturers and who, through their pernicious influence, have ensured that, to this day, billions upon billions are poured annually into useless military hardware instead of infrastructure, education, and so on—precisely the areas that would keep the country competitive and ensure its future.

The regime currently in power is cut from the same cloth as those who ruined Russia—it has the same goal: an autocracy that permanently uses force against its own people to keep the country in a state where only the super-rich profit from the little that remains.