Here we find ourselves mid-2016 award season, and I find myself becoming less and less excited over new releases. Looking for a Saturday night date this past Valentine’s weekend, my husband Sean and I trolled through the local showtimes and came up empty handed. I had a medium interest in seeing The Revenant, but not enough interest that I couldn’t wait for it to come to Redbox. Sean wanted to see Zoolander 2. I didn’t even want movie theater popcorn enough to sit through it, though I have to admit I did think the first Zoolander was funny.

I remember not that long ago when I couldn’t wait for new movies to come out… I think the last movie I was really amped up to see was The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. Now, I rarely see features that even peak my interest. Maybe that’s just a part of getting older. What happened to all the really great movies that had me making plans and buying tickets in advance? Do I have to starve for that anticipation just because I’m not a Star Wars fan?

Instead of a going-out date, we had a stay-at-home date: pizza and a rental. Despite the bonus of being cheap and leisurely, I also found that there weren’t many new release rental titles that looked very interesting. As a fan of thrillers, I picked Crimson Peak (Sean picked Jurassic World, which we have yet to watch). I thought Crimson Peak was very beautiful visually, and I actually found the plot to be fairly solid for a movie about a haunted house. Even with some room for improvement, we really couldn’t go wrong since the rental was free with our pizza. Not to make this all about money, but where I live a movie costs $10 – $14. I can skip the candy, but I must have a bucket of popcorn the size of my head: $8. Then a tub of Pepsi because of all the salt: $6. For two, that’s over $30. Even though that isn’t much, if the movie is awful, I just paid over $30 to see it. I heard a blurp on public radio suggesting that the price of admission should be based on the quality or demand for the movie. Though it sounds logical, it’s highly unlikely. In that reality, though, I wonder how much tickets would be for Zoolander 2, The Boy, or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies…

The most telling part of this whole harangue is that on Sunday, I found more enjoyment in catching the last twenty minutes of Casablanca on Turner Classic Movies.