Our family of 4 spends on average $70 per trip to the movies. That's not even going overboard. At $10.50 per ticket (DC area), that's $42 on tickets alone unless we go matinee when we can save a whoping $4. It is very easy to spend another $28 dollars at the concession stand (seems like a soda costs that much). That doesn't even include gas, parking and "collateral damage" (spending money at the mall while waiting for the movie to start).

Also, the experience has gotten worse. Nowadays a lot of theaters are using cheap DLP projectors and sound systems designed more to drown out crying babies than to reproduce good sound. People who end up going to the movies these days are those who don't appreciate a quality experience, because people like us have left the gene pool causing a significant spike in the moron/nice-person ratio.

We used to go to the movies about twice a month, more during the Summer. We now watch at least one movie a week at home. My Outlaw gear has pretty much paid for itself in less than six months of use.