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Leave the Movie Previews Alone
A lawmaker has proposed a bill that would require theaters to disclose exactly how long the previews are. This is a terrible idea.
Peter H. Gistelinck, executive director of the Stamford nonprofit Avon Theatre, noted the importance of ads and previews to his bottom line to the Register Citizen ’s reporter: “Announcing the start time of the actual movie would … have a direct negative impact on our financial stability in an already so challenging environment,” he said. Not every exhibitor is AMC or Cinemark, but the bill as written doesn’t differentiate; burdening smaller theaters with rules of this sort would likely drive your already high admission prices even higher. Looney has characterized the previews as “an abuse of people’s time,” but I prefer to focus on their liminal nature: In spite of the capitalist audiovisual assault, they ease us from the outside world into the shared experience of watching a film in community.
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