Regal Cinemas: Lamer than Bob Dole minus Viagra

Mandy and I went to see "Red Eye" last weekend, and I must say, I was highly impressed. Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy showed how talented they are and it was the best horror/suspense movie I've seen in a long time. However, what almost ruined it for me was how annoyed I was with the Regal Cinemas rewards program.

I signed up for this thing because I figured that Mandy and I would be seeing lots of movies this summer and it would just be a good idea to take advantage. However, as it turns out, this is the lamest rewards program ever. Seriously, it sucks. Let me walk you all through this. If you spend $40, you get a free popcorn, if you spend $80, you get a free soda, and if you spend $120, you get a free movie ticket. This is where it really gets lame, though, because rather than upping the ante after $120, the popcorn-soda-ticket rotation just starts over again, meaning that unless you want to spend almost $500, there's really very little incentive to go to the movies and spend more money. Full details of this lameness can be found here.

But wait, there's more. After a frankly really disappointing summer at the movies (seriously, with few exceptions, does anything really stand out from all this crap?), I had finally spent enough to get a free movie ticket and planned on using it to see "Red Eye." However, despite me having my card that proved I had spent $123 in various Regal Cinemas, I was told that I couldn't receive my free ticket without bringing in a receipt from the last time I saw a movie that had my total "credits" listed on it, and was reminded to do so next time in order to take advantage of this great opportunity. Fuckers.