« I'm watching a Simpsons marathon | Main | Spammers are taking time off, too »
December 24, 2005
Why I don't go see motion pictures, part LXXVI
Joe Morgenstern of the Wall St. Journal on why I don't go to movies:
Many movie theaters are no place to a see a movie. (Although it should also be said that some of the newest movie palaces are welcoming environments with luxurious seats, perfect sight lines and flawless projection, even if they do charge an arm and a leg, plus an extra pound of flesh for advance ticket purchase online.)When I went back to see a few reels of "King Kong" at the Sony Lincoln Center complex in Manhattan recently ... it was a multimedia surround light, as usual. The movie was up there where the movie should be, but smaller screens kept flickering in the audience as people checked their messages, reviewed their portfolios or issued not-so-whispered instructions to babysitters at home. The only bright figuratively speaking, was a young woman sitting next to me who answered a call on the very first ring and then told her caller, "Listen, I'm at a movie. Text-message me." These days that's almost polite.
...
In decades and centuries past, people plunged into novels or plays, and then movies, to escape from reality. Now, restless and frequently anxious, they're reluctant to leave the quasi-reality of the virtual world that's accessed so easily via portable gizmos. It may be significant that my text-messaging seatmate told her caller that she was at a movie, not in one. For better or worse -- and we really don't know how modern minds are being shaped by habitual infosnacking -- movies are becoming less of an immersive experience, as more and more moviegoers seek distractions from their distraction.
Posted by adrianjo at December 24, 2005 01:13 PM