Court is in session, and the defendants are 50 movies wearing capes and reasonable NDAs. The bailiff is a trailer voice whispering, ‘In a world,’ because apparently it’s never just this one. The jury is twelve algorithms and one guy who thinks every film is Citizen Kane if Kane were a car.

I take the oath and cross-examine the hype. Hype pleads not guilty to emotional fraud but admits to conspiring with a trumpet that only plays in crescendos. The trailers object to my attention span; sustained orchestral thwomp, objection sustained.

Fifty titles—enough to fill an advent calendar for a deity that snacks exclusively on intellectual property. Each poster promises to change cinema, or at least rearrange the same three faces into a triangle and call it depth. The fonts arrive so bold they should pay rent.

Audiences line up to pre-feel things, pre-laughing at jokes they haven’t met and pre-crying over dogs they haven’t yet been introduced to. Ticketing sites time you like a bomb defusal, which is dramatic until you remember you’re racing to watch pretend people perform pretend tax evasion. I watch the audience like the final co-author, scribbling notes in popcorn butter.

To survive the trailer montage, I don my noise-canceling trailer-reaction headset. It filters out horn blasts, slow covers of pop songs, and my own creeping suspicion that we’re applauding a release schedule. Without it, a single key change could launch me into a tears-and-goosebumps bankruptcy.

Franchises mistake volume for plot the way toddlers mistake glitter for quiet playtime. If a scene isn’t working, they add a helicopter, then light the helicopter on fire, then reveal the helicopter was your father the whole time. Somewhere, a screenwriter typed FADE IN and was immediately replaced by a fog machine.

Behind the spectacle: a spreadsheet wearing a tuxedo and whispering box office projections into a caviar tin. An algorithm writes the logline—’A morally gray protagonist confronts legacy and weather’—and tests it against an audience of lab mice fluent in CinemaScore. Marketing’s newest innovation is the edible QR code, because if you can’t chew your ticket, did you really believe in it?

Premium packages now include spoiler insurance, a grief counselor for post-credits scenes, and a souvenir air horn for when the plot naps. For an added fee, you get a collectible popcorn-bucket humidifier, ideal for keeping your expectations damp and pliable. The luxury lounge offers artisanal silence priced per minute.

In the corner sits the indie slate, wearing thrifted gravitas and a hand-knit budget. One film is just a microwave defrosting a frozen hope, shot in real time, with a twist ending where a fork sparks. Another is a love story between two people who speak exclusively in parking validation stamps.

Prestige returns too, with a sepia-toned epic about the ethics of whispering in large rooms. The camera lingers on a ledger until you feel history breathing down your neck and asking for receipts. There’s a cameo by the streaming service that financed it, playing the role of a concerned parent.

Meanwhile, the audience edits in real time, stitching memes into the fabric before the end credits yawn. I watch the business behind the spectacle and the spectacle behind the business until they swap name tags. The final act is a standing ovation for attendance itself—cinema’s last true practical effect.

Verdict: Anticipation is guilty of breaking and entering your calendar and will serve the fall with no possibility of subtlety. Sentencing includes mandatory community service whisper-coaching for franchises that shout. Court adjourned—please return your 3D glasses, your dignity, and, if found, my noise-canceling trailer-reaction headset, which the hype has been wearing as a crown.