Puck’s Blog

It’s amazing that Hollywood can manage to crank out the occasional brilliance and nuance that it does while being completely unable to laugh at itself.  Mel & I caught the last half of the Oscars last night, which we only turned on because Jon Stewart was hosting.

He was funny, though we missed out on whatever opening bit he got to do.  But the audience just sat there and didn’t play along.  It was like he was The Enemy or something.

And then I read “Those big stars just don’t get Jon Stewart” on MSNBC that feeling solidified.  It’s a great read and points out exactly what was wrong.  Jon was great, it was the audience who sucked.

And what was with the constant “You can’t get that experience from a DVD” bullshit that everyone kept slipping in to their speeches?  It was so fucking blatant it made me angry and made me want to see LESS movies in the theatre.

Let me tell you what drives me away from seeing movies in the theatre:

• Audiences.  First and foremost, other movie-goers are tremendous jackasses.  From the jerkoffs who don’t turn off their cell phones despite being reminded to prior to every single screening, to those that insist on talking out loud.  I mean, ok, sometimes you want to whisper something to the person next to you, but the moron who is constantly saying “Who is that guy?  What’s he doing?  Oh no, this isn’t going to be pretty!” always seems to be sitting behind me.
• Prices.  For the cost of Mel and myself going to see a movie, we can own the DVD and watch it ourselves.  I’ve got a nice surround system, and the only thing holding me back from the full experience is our TV, which we’d like to fix in the near future.  And that cost doesn’t include gas to get there, parking, time spent waiting in line.
• Prices.  Yes, a second time.  No, not the movie itself, but the outrageous cost of food when you’re there.  Fifteen cents of pop and twelve cents of popcorn ends up costing nearly $10.  This is because the movie studios take the large majority of the admission price so the theatre has to make up their money somewhere.
• Convenience.  Want to see a movie after work?  You have to start at 7 or 9 (ish) and stick with it the whole way through.  Need to pee?  You miss part of the movie.

Sorry Hollywood, but DVD wins for enjoyable experience these days.  And soon it’ll be digital delivery, once the broadband ISPs realize that we actually want the bandwidth we’re paying for.

With the cost of digital production rocketing downwards, you’re going to see more and more non-Hollywood releases.  The future is bright, my friends, even if Hollywood isn’t.