Commercials and advertisements are everywhere. They’re on television, in newspapers, all over the Internet. There used to be one place free of these commercials, until now – the movie theater.

The movie theater has always had previews, but most wouldn’t consider those the same boring commercials seen everywhere else.

Then, this weekend, I found out the movie theater is so hard up on money that this weekend when I went to watch a movie I saw commercials.

It’s ridiculous that people are being forced to sit through 10 or 15 minutes of commercials.

These aren’t the cute little Coca-Cola commercials with the polar bear which are sometimes mixed into the previews; these are for local businesses.

The previews which many people enjoy were shortened to accommodate the time constraints made by the commercials.

People are paying for a Hollywood blockbuster they don’t see until after 25 minutes of commercials and previews.

This is an example of a movie theater trying to make a little extra cash from local businesses, at the expense of their customer’s time and money.

The previews before the movie are great, but commercials can’t be tolerated.

This brings us to a new emerging problem with the movies. Not only does a person have to sit through the commercials and previews, but they then also realize they’re watching a movie which was nothing but hype.

Everyone has been to at least one movie which didn’t live up to all the hype and felt as though they were cheated out of their time and money.

Films today are nothing more than carefully-crafted marketing masterpieces. The film’s trailers show people four hilarious scenes, but those turn out to be the only four funny scenes in the entire movie.

Hollywood can make a person believe a third-grade class project could become a timeless epic everyone must see.

So, how are people going to be able to read through all the hype to find the good movies out there?

The current theory is blind luck; there really isn’t a sure-fire way to read through the hype.

One possible way to tell is if every single clip in the entire movie trailer is unbelievably funny, it’s probably too good to be true.

Sequels are almost always a guarantee of hype rather than a good movie.

Another possible solution is if the movie doesn’t seem exceptionally great but appears as though it might be worth a person’s time, it could be a good movie.

So, why do people waste their time going to movies if they are all just hype?

Probably the reason the movie industry does okay in Iowa is that there is nothing else to do for the price.

When people are bored, one of their solutions is a movie, despite the fact that many of the movies are all hype.

Movies are still a prime source of entertainment and will continue to be in the future, but be aware of the commercials, which will no doubt become the newest distraction before a must-see two-hour flop.

David Frost is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines.