This is not one of those “Japan is Better than the US” types of arguments. But let me tell you how disappointed I was to find out there’s no such thing as a “Movie Pamphlet” being sold at theaters in the States. Come on! If you can spare room to sell nachos, then there’s gotta be a way to sell these pamphlets!

Maybe my frustration stems from my childhood when I used to enjoy buying them (or have my parents buy them for me). Once settled into my theater seat, I would read about the movie and the resume of each cast member before the 10 minutes of previews started (yes, the previews used to be short, relatively speaking). Besides, it gave me a way to ignore my parents as they lectured me about not having done my homework.

I suppose the frustration also comes from the fact that I used to like collecting stuff (my wife says I still do). And having dozens of these movie pamphlets stacked up on a book shelf satisfied my OCD urges very nicely. Every once in a while, I would pull out one of the pamphlets and read, for example, about Chuck Norris in “Delta Force” wondering why I couldn’t grow any facial hair.

Nobody keeps their movie stubs, so nobody remembers what movies they’ve seen anymore. How about introducing the movie pamphlet to the US to save me from that embarrassing moment when I can’t answer the simple question, “What’s the last movie you saw?”