On this week’s episode, The Sweats look at the pros and cons of streaming movies at home versus watching movies at the theater. They start with Chris, who brings up advancements in technology that have leveled the playing field when it comes to the visual and sound quality between the two. Ryan gets sappy and romanticizes the theater experience by mentioning the smell and the sound of fresh popcorn when you first walk into a theater. He also says he doesn’t get as excited to watch new movies at home as he does in the theater because it doesn’t feel like an event. Derick gets real and discusses his anxiety and its impact on his ability to enjoy the theater experience since he doesn’t like sitting down and doing nothing. Ryan, being the lazy guy he is, responds by saying he excels at sitting down and doing nothing. Ryan then reveals the optimal place to sit in a theater, which is dead center in the row behind the handicapped row. Ryan also recommends sitting in the front row if you want to experience neck pain. Take notes, listeners! Derick then randomly mocks movie sound engineers by making a funny nerd voice. The Sweats then get into the meat and potatoes of their discussion by diving into another pros and cons list. Derick starts theater pros by saying production companies make movies with theaters in mind. Ryan mentions the crowd experience with people cheering and clapping as a pro, which prompts Derick to recall himself receiving a “firmware update” while seeing the 2014 Godzilla in theaters and how he’s now reactive to media thanks to that experience. Yay emotions! Chris decides to get into the cons of streaming at home and vents about how many garbage movies get made that go straight to streaming and how little effort seems to go into them. Derick brings up the “smoothing” feature on new TVs as a big con for streaming at home since it makes movies look like soap operas. Chris agrees with Derick’s assessment and explains that buying new TVs has become a stressful process for him and that he sometimes gets motion sickness from watching TVs with this feature. Ryan lists convenient accessibility to a bathroom and the ability to pause as a pro for streaming movies at home and blesses the listeners with a WAYYYY TOO LONG anecdote about having to pee while watching Across the Spiderverse in theaters and his struggle to find a part in the the movie to use the bathroom. Chris expresses his love for theater concessions and says nothing is better than a box of $15 movie theater sno caps. Ryan reveals his life-changing “butter popcorn trick” life hack (listen to find out exactly what it is!). The inevitable topic of costs for theaters and streaming comes up, which sparks a funny discussion about sneaking food into the theater and the strangest thing each Sweat has either brought in, or saw someone else bring in, during a movie. Ryan admits he has snuck Taco Bell, among other fast food items, in during his theater-going career. Chris chastises Ryan and says he doesn’t need to treat himself to a full course meal to enjoy a movie. The Sweats conclude the episode with a brief discussion on theater audio vs at home audio. Derick expresses his love for sound and argues at home sound is too variable and not as consistent as theater audio. This prompts Ryan to refer back to his Across The Spiderverse experience and how Sony had to “patch” the film and release a second version with better sound mixing. How did they forget to talk about trailers??? Guess that will be shelved for a future episode.

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