There oughta be a law

(warning: pure stream-of-consciousness ahead)

You know what gets my goat? Theater finders on movie websites.

What typically happens whenever you try to use one of these: you go to the site, you go to the page for the movie you want to see, you go to the 'Showtimes And Tickets' tab for that movie and you put in your zip code.

It gives you a list of every theater in your town. None of them are playing the movie.

You sign, go back a couple pages, try the same thing again, get the same results, try a different, totally inconspicuous box to put your zip code in, and find a message saying, "Sorry, this movie is not playing in your area."

No "find the nearest theater playing this movie" option, no drag-down box saying "Find all theaters within 25/50/120 miles", nothing that indicates that, for all you know, they're even looking outside the zip code that you live in. How in the name of Chester Alan Arthur do they claim to know what my "area" is? I mean, I know I live in a cultural wasteland, I just want to find out how many deucing hours I need to drive to see Children of Men. You don't have to rub it in my face, Fandango. (And Google Movies, too; they really disappointed me. And Moviefone, and--but we won't get into that.)

I'm going to go start putting in random zip codes for nearby metropolitan areas. Wish me luck.