Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

I went to see The Pursuit of Happyness at the theater this evening. I arrived about half an hour before the posted 7:00 start time of the show. The actual movie didn't start until 7:30, which means that I sat through about an hour of advertisements. If I had shown up on time I wouldn't have been able to get a decent seat, but I would only have to sit through 30 minutes of ads.

Now I'll admit that a couple of the ads were quite good, especially the Vaseline ad that spoofed a horror flick and actually drew applause. But theater owners complain about box office receipts being down, though if they actually had to sit through their own non-stop commercials they might understand why.

Every once in a while there was actually a MasterCard ad that proclaimed "Seeing a movie before it comes out on DVD: Priceless." Let's think about that though. I had to line up for tickets - $20 for two of us. I had to line up to get into the theater. We had dinner first, but otherwise we would have had the pleasure of paying upwards of $20 for soda and popcorn for two. And then we sat through an hour of ads and previews in moderately comfortable seats until the movie actually started.

Or I could wait a couple of months, rent the DVD for $5, and sit in my very comfortable chair with my home theater, eating my food and having a nice glass of wine. I could pause the movie when I wanted to, adjust the room temperature of necessary, and generally be much more comfortable.That's priceless.

And really, what movie has Hollywood produced lately that you just couldn't wait a couple of months to see?

Okay, besides Pirates of the Caribbean. But that's about it.