When is this movie really going to start? I’ve been here half an hour.

[Marcel Birgelen]

My two cents when it comes down to cars, filled to the brim with prejudice.

Japanese cars:
- Pretty reliable, mostly no-nonsense cars that get the job done.
- 13-in-a-dozen design from the outside.
- The inside often feels like a memory trip back to the 1980s.

German cars:
- Fantastic to drive, Germany clearly is a country in which cars are built to be driven...
- Expensive and often over-engineered, which often leads to all kinds of little problems that require expensive maintenance.

Italian cars:
- Very nice to look at
- Often built to go pretty fast...
- ... just not that very far...
(By far the most issues I had was with Italian-built cars)

Korean cars:
- Uninspired design, with a handful exceptions
- Gets the job done

French cars:
- Love it or hate it features, the French really know how to cook up controverse.
- Some reliability issues included.

American cars (not cars built by American-owned companies built for Europeans):
- Way too chunky to fit on the road here, if I'd to park a F150 on the public parking around the corner, I'd take 4 parking spots, instead of one
- Way too gas-hungry due to size-over-function for European gas prices
- Pretty cheap, plastic interiors

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Marcel....

I'll take a Citroen any day. One of the coolest cars ever built. A friend had one back in the late 70's. They could still be bought new back then. Some one posts about them on Instagram these days. They do a complete body off restoration of them to like new condition. Citroen was supposed to introduce a peanut sized electric car here pretty soon, not that I am going to buy an EV.

[Randy Stankey]

...if you need a US vehicle I would agree with that being Ford.

...Ford still has the others beat.

Ford is the only American Made car I would even consider buying, anymore.
When I was younger, it was Chevrolet. Then, they went under and had to be bailed out like Chrysler. Since then, "Chevy" has become just another word for "crap."

I bought a Dodge Neon in the 1990's and it was a good, reliable car. My wife (now ex) bought a Neon and it was good and reliable, too...until she cracked it up and totaled it. All things equal, if Chrysler still made the Neon, I'd buy another one. Today, I don't see a single Chrysler product that I'd even consider buying, reliable or not. Chrysler just doesn't make a vehicle...ANY vehicle... that I'm even remotely interested in. Besides pickups, I don't even know what kinds of cars Chrysler offers. I won't drive a pickup. I'm not against them, per se, but they are expensive and wasteful. Unless I had a reason to drive a pickup, if I was a contractor, for instance, I'd consider it but I'd never use a pickup as a "daily drive" vehicle.

My previous car was a Mazda 626. I drove it with nary a hiccup until the wheels were ready to fall off. I traded that in for a 2001 VW Beetle. It's a good car but expensive to drive and maintain. I liked it but for that. I wouldn't buy another one, though. Too expensive. If Mazda still made the 626, I'd buy another.

Right now, I'm driving a 2003 Ford Explorer (AKA: "Exploder.) Yes! The car that had tires that exploded. It's got 196,000 miles on it with very few problems. The only thing I've really done is replace the alternator. It was quick and easy. I did it right in the driveway. As to the tire issue, just keep the air pressure above 30 psi. And, of course, don't put Firestone tires on it.

To be honest, some of the cars people call the best are the ones I wouldn't even consider but many of the ones people think are the worst are actually at the top of my list.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Circling back to the original topic:

As a traditional theatre that also shows film engagements, we have the luxury of no ad packages or pre-roll (unless we want one). But being 1300 seats we do often hold the start of shows for congestion/line reasons, though rarely for film, as it's harder to fill 1300 seats for that.

But I feel like the whole industry could borrow from the traditional theatre world here. Advertise "Doors" and "Feature" time separately. If you have a 25min ad loop play it during doors. If it's a 5 min pre-roll play it right before the feature time when trailers start.

I don't think anyone minds trailers, as historically in the US they started at the advertised screen time when the lights go out... it's the ads bloating the pre-roll that bug them. They don't have to go away, they just shouldn't take up space after the lights dim and the screening time has arrived. If you want people to actually show up early enough to see some ads, put something of value ahead of them. Go back to showing a shorts or an extra before films. People still make short films, or every festival would not have a category for them!

But I realize changing how screen times are listed across all media would be a massive (probably unrealistic) change!