Comment by pwthornton

I am with you on everything but the TV speakers. They are awful because TVs are so thin. They are running into pure physics. Get a nice soundbar, and it's a huge upgrade. Get one with separate rear speakers and a sub, and it's pretty great.

But the experience is way better than when we were kids. Watching Jurassic Park on a 19-inch CRT with mono audio was nothing like going to the theater. The delta between home and cinema was massive. Now I have a 77-inch OLED with 4K HDR and an Atmos sound setup. I'd take my home setup over a generic cinema screen. Only the premium large format is a noticeable upgrade. It's hard to justify shelling out a ton of money for the movie and snacks for similar audio/visual quality to home, and the risk that the person next to me is checking their phone the entire time (happened a year ago, and it's super distracting in a dark theater).

I buy popcorn kernels in bulk at my local grocery store, and we go through a lot of popcorn. It might cost $10 a year in kernels to regularly eat popcorn at home when you pop it yourself.