Theaters should ban all commercial ads

Your Jan. 4 editorial on theater owners and the backlash of moviegoers (“Policing the talkies”) states that the goals of the executive board of the National Assn. of Theater Owners “include making the parade of pre-show advertisements more entertaining.” Theater owners are still not listening to us. It’s not that we want the commercials to be more entertaining, it’s that we don’t want them at all.

I go to a movie theater to have a film-going experience. I am resigned to the pre-show slides advertising everything under the sun. But I draw a line at watching commercials that I have seen on television or for products hawked on television. That is not what I go to the movies to see. If theater owners want us to return to the theaters, then they really need to start listening to what we are saying and not just paying us lip service.

LYNN M. ZOOK

Sherman Oaks