My elder brother, Mark, does enjoy watching movies a lot. However, he often complains that watching movies at the theater is a costly venture. Going to the theater means we have to pay $20-30 for entrance charges and a further $15-20 each for snacks. A movie also lasts about two hours and having the time to park the car, find a seat, watch the previews is usually hectic. With a tight budget and a busy schedule, it means that he cannot watch all the movies at the theater. Therefore, for these reasons, he has devised a ranking for the movies that he watches at the theater and at home. The ranking is as follows: films that he will watch at the theater, films that he will rent and films that he will watch on the TV at home.
My brother has devised rules to assist him. He says that he will only pay to watch three types of movies: literary adaptation movies, family movies and sci-fi movies. But sometimes all these movies may overlap, and thus may be overwhelming to him. At the theater, my smaller brother and I my accompany him and thus he says that there is immense pressure to watch a family or a children’s film. He complains that if he denies us the opportunity, we may hate on me or that if he accompanies us to watch a ‘bad’ film, we may classify him as boring. Mark loves sci-fi movies and he says that such kind of movies’ special effects is better watched at the theater. He says that he has been able to watch movies like the “Star Trek” or “Star Wars” immediately a new episode is out. Maybe due to his aggressive behavior, he says that some literary adaptation movies necessitate their own special experience to him. Not long ago, he left us behind and went with my best friend to watch “Dark Shadows” by Tim Burton. The movie is a horror comedy. Such kind of movies may be too scarier for us and that is why he says he will not let us start experiencing nightmares.
Mark says that most of the movies that he will not pay to watch at the theater, he will then rent; the ones that are rated PG-13 or worse. This is because the movies are unsuitable for children under the age of 13 years or must be screened before the children can watch them. He however complains that although the previews for such movies do sell them well but not so well to be put on the must-watch movie list. So these are the movies he rents when he feels that he needs to watch something at the comfort of the house. However, Mark just says that he has realized that finding time to watch a rented movie is no mean feat, especially at the house. Weekdays he is usually busy but he does squeeze sometime during the weekends to watch these movies. Interestingly, when alone watching these rented movies, he ends up falling asleep just minutes into ‘enjoying’ my movie. It is interesting that sometimes he will return the rented movies without even watching them. Were it not that that “Minority Report” was very interesting, it could have suffered the fate that “Artificial Intelligence” suffered of being rented and returned without being watched.
Once in a couple of weeks when there is nothing serious on television, say like presidential debates, he’ll flip through the many channels trying to look for an ‘interesting’ movie to see. Luckily we do not pay for any of the so called ‘special channel movies’ as my parents believe that they will never see a return on such kind of investment. However, Mark says that he has managed to watch several movies this way, albeit not always fully as he usually sleeps midway. He reckons however that such movies as “Last King of Scotland”, ‘Prison Break”, and “Last of the Mohicans” have been watched through this way. He however hates the many adverts that are flashed over the TV during breaks.
In spite of these classifications, Mark says that he has realized that most movies are boring and they end up being on the last category; the television group. The best movies however make it to the theater group and the rest are for the rental category. He says that because most of the movies he watches at the theater are top rated; he never sleeps unlike when he is at home watching rented movies or those on the TV.