Category: Culture

I generally always feel like I want to see more movies. A year ago I decided that if I signed up for an all-you-can-eat movie theater membership I might actually see more movies. Mostly thanks to the sunk cost fallacy. Accordingly, I signed up for AMC’s version of the program and waited to see what would happen.

This cost me $21 a month. In order to avoid having to make a spreadsheet, I decided my break even target was 2 movies a month. In Seattle, the average ticket runs around $12, but matinees are like $6, so I figured 2 movies a month would be a simple target.

As it turned out, I saw 28 movies at AMC theaters in the following 12 months. Definitely worth the while! July was my most rapacious month, in which I saw five movies. I saw nothing at AMC in February, cause it’s a bad month for movies and I was busy watching noirs, and I saw nothing at AMC in September, because I spent two weeks on vacation and then got sick.

I only really regret one of them, The Hustle, not to be confused with Hustlers which I just saw and really enjoyed. Even the relatively bad movies like Glass or Godzilla: King of the Monsters — I mean, I’d take those four hours back but it was worth the risk. (I knew The Hustle was gonna suck and I saw it anyhow. I don’t know why.)

And man! I would not have stumbled across the dark slice of neo-noir, Destroyer. I would not have caught Overlord. I probably would have put off going to see The Favorite and it’s one of the best things I saw all year. The slight sense of wasting money pushed me to take more chances. That worked out perfectly.

Overall? Well, I’ve watched 51 movies this year and it’s not over yet. Last year, I watched 49 movies total. Year before that, just 37. That was about typical, so looks like the membership paid off in general. That’s a happy ending!