Why go to the movies? Is it really a pleasurable experience any more? Sure the seats are bigger and arranged in “stadium” style seating so you don’t have to view a film through the tangled jungle of some obnoxious roller derby queen’s big hair, or peer around the abnormally sized head of some super male, chromosomally endowed giant who seemingly intentionally sits in front of you, as if ruining your movie going experience validates his existence.

But the employees still don’t give a drizzling shit about their jobs or you, and any film must be endured under the constant chattering of the idiots who go to a theater whenever they want to have a conversation with their friends. At times it indeed sounds like some zookeeper has brought a family of spider monkeys on a field trip to the movies. Then I feel obligated to politely remind people, in the nicest way possible, to please be quiet, employing phrases such as, “pretty please with sugar on top could you keep it down”, or “hey asshole, shut your fucking cockholster I’m trying to watch a movie.” I usually go directly to the latter, mainly because it better fits my personality but also because calling someone’s mouth a “cockholster” usually really pisses him or her off, and I like that.

Now why would anyone go through all this shit when they already now how the movie ends? How do I know, you ask. Am I a Hollywood insider? Am I best friends with Miss Cleo and her clairvoyant tarot deck? No. I know because they already told me how it ends in the trailer.

Movie trailers used to be used to entice an audience, to build the public’s curiosity about a film. Lately a negative trend has been developing in Hollywood which makes it seem as if the studios have adopted a policy of “no surprises” when promoting a film. Countless times I’ve seen trailers that featured characters spouting such lines as, “we made it,” “…there was another woman at your house while you were gone,” or “…you were gone for fifteen years, everyone thought you were dead.”

Do we really need the studios to hold our hands and show us the most pivotal, dramatic scenes of a film before it’s even released? Do they think we will avoid a film that may contain surprises because it’s too risky or dangerous? I firmly believe that we can handle a shock and generally appreciate them in most cases. We don’t need to know for a fact that Tom Hanks’ character gets off the damn island before we go and see his movie.

Reason does dictate that he will get off the island, after all if he survived Dragnet he can get through anything, but we don’t need to know without a doubt that he does. Why kill what little suspense that such a one-dimensional film can actually have? If they were made today the trailer for the Empire Strikes Back would end with Darth Vader’s confession that he is Luke’s father, Casablanca’s would contain Ilsa Lund getting on the plane, and Citizen Kane would perhaps be touted as “the story behind the sled.” This is not the way to interest or entice an audience. It doesn’t motivate me to pay $9 bucks and lose two or more hours of my life watching the damn thing. In fact it makes me wonder what the point of going and seeing it at all would be.

Even though Titanic can’t really be blamed for this, after all anyone who didn’t spend their teen years sniffing industrial cleaners in their kitchen knew for the most part what was going to happen, when I saw it I found myself anticipating and even yearning for the end of the film. After trying my best to stomach De Caprio and Winslet’s sappy anti-chemistry for nearly two hours I found myself squirming in my seat silently saying to myself, “God, I wish that fucking iceberg would hurry up. When is this goddamn boat going to start sinking?”

Due to the trailers I find myself in a similar predicament with current films wanting characters to hurry up and win, just get off the stupid island, and buy a clue and realize that your husband had an affair and the bitch’s ghost is living in your bathtub. What’s taking you so long, didn’t you see the trailer?

This promotion strategy is questionable at best. Trailers are meant to generate interest in the film they are not meant to be a visual form of Cliff Notes. I’m not afraid of plot twists or surprises. On the contrary I enjoy drama and suspense in a film. Go ahead and surprise me, I dare you. Hell! Shock the piss out of me and I’ll probably come back and see it again. I’ll gladly come back and pay too much for stale popcorn and fork over three times the amount of money I’d spend on a two liter bottle of Coke at the store for the watered down 20 ounce cup of Coke flavored ice that one gets at any theater these days.

I would be happy to do this for a surprise because lately the only thing that has been surprising about Hollywood is the depth of their stupidity.