I saw Project Hail Mary recently, and while I leveraged my assigned seat to show up at the listed time -- even though as a kid I developed the instinct that you need to be at a movie early -- I couldn't quite bring myself to trust the conventional wisdom as to how long the previews and ads would go on after that.

I need to get over it. It was something like 28 minutes, and made the entire experience less fun than it should have been. I'm seeing Dune in the theaters, and maybe the Mandolorian movie if the reviews are decent (I'm still a sucker for Star Wars. Is what it is.). If I get to three in a single year, that will actually be a new high for me in the last 10-20 years.

Everything else is fine at home. We have a pretty big TV and a sound bar, and for all but about 1-3 visual and communal experiences per year, that is all I need. I remember when we were living large with a 32" CRT and stereo speakers that faced forward, so I still feel special watching on a "bigscreen," and the kids these days (LOL... I'm old) all spend most of their time staring at screens from 5-11", so a movie on the big old TV is already a special treat.

My comment history is littered with this idea, but cinemas are settling into their best use case when they can't benefit from a captive audience. They are there for big events and film devotees, but everyone who went to the theater because it's the only place where you could see a movie on a half-decent setup will find other options. It's not entirely unlike live theater before it, and all the grousing from auteurs will not change it. I'm not even saying they're wrong, just that they benefited from the fact that they the artform they love had built-in technical and economic advantages that gave them a false idea about how invested the broader audience was in the nuances of their work.