Ahh, movies. Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em. I see dozens a year – just can’t get enough of…waitaminute…do I see that many? Lemme do some quick calculating…
mm hmmm…ok…carry the two…mmm hmmm…
Ok, revised: I used to see dozens a year. Now I might get to the theater once a year, and rent maybe three or four. Wow, times have changed. I used to read the IMDB Daily News religiously. Coming Attractions was one of my favorite sites. My “movies” bookmark list was 40 sites long. But it’s all over now.
“Eight Below”? Never. Fricking. Heard of it. It used to be that if a film was #1 at the box office, it was a safe bet that I’d owned a healthy number of HSX shares in it for at least six months. Now, were getting #1’s that never even registered. Sheesh…
I can think of three main reasons for this:
My daughter – Three-month-olds aren’t conducive to moviegoing.
DVR – We watch next to no live TV anymore. Since we tape everything, all the commercials get zipped through. No more seeing previews.
Telecommuting – Ever since I started working from home, I no longer have to fill in the slow periods with things that look work-related (like reading up on movie news).
Ah well…I understand that that guy from Lord Of The Rings is making a giant monkey movie…I’ll have to make it a point to go see that when it comes out.
You do need to check the pulse every once in a while for the release of Legend of Dirty Bum. In fact, you need to go to the website and pre-order many, many copies for yourself and your family and your neighbors and your friends and total strangers off the street.
Yes, it’s an indy film. Yes, I’m in it. Yes, I’m getting paid on contingency. Why do you ask?
Yeah, but ‘top of weekend box office’ is a pretty lame reason to call a move #1 at the box office. Technically true, but for only a two day period, it really doesn’t mean much.
You’re not missing anything. I, too, have been seeing significantly fewer films that I used to. I don’t have a kid or telecomute or any other excuse, and while I may have gotten kind of burned out on my 6-10 film viewings a week, I think a significant contributor to my lack of moviegoing enthusiasm is the dearth of entertaining films lately; not just in the last few months–November and December are typically Oscar-bait, and Jan through March are the dumping ground for films nobody wants to run during the summer viewing season–but in the entirity of last year I probably caught less than thirty movies in cinema, which is a ridiculously low number for me. Heck, there’ve been a couple of weekends that I wanted to go catch a film and couldn’t find anything worth watching.
I still enjoy the old standards (Rear Window, Casablanca, Some Like It Hot) and recent goodies (Being John Malkovich, Master and Commander, City of God) that I have acquired on DVD, and occasionally I’ll snag a film that’s worth watching in theatres (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), but by and large, movies have just been shiite, lately.
Are you by chance in your late twenties, early thirties?
Because I could have written your post!
I thought the same thing JUST THIS MORNING when I scanned the Box Office headlines.
I specifcally thought, “what the hell is Eight Below?” As a regular reader of EW, I seem to think it has something to do with snow and the guy from Too Fast, Too Furious, but I cannot be sure.
I don’t even care enough to Google it.
The reason I ask your age is because I think about then you really have your shit filters customized to keep things out of your head that don’t need to be there.
You have less time and mental resources to commit to stuff you don’t need. You find your niche and enjoy that.
Reason #4) Movies really, really suck lately. There are the handful of indie flicks and a blockbuster or two during the year that are worth my time, and I don’t go to the show much, so I wait for those indies to show up on Sundance and IFC. But I’ll tell ya… lately, movies serve me better as a sleeping pill than as a form of entertainment.
(However…I’m gonna enjoy Eight Below when it comes out on DVD just because I think it will have beautiful scenery to go with those beautiful dogs – the movie itself will probably suck.)
Since I started teaching kids in their late teens, I’ve been to see a movie in a theatre two times. Theatres are full of obnoxious teens. They are allowed to be that way, I was like that myself. But dealing with them at work all day leaves me little to no patience of having to share a movie experience with them.
I go and see movies that I feel must be experienced on a really big screen, But the release time for DVDs is getting closer to the opening of the movie and many times I feel I can wait a couple of months. Last year I went tos see Batman Begins and Serenity… wasn’t there another…?
Oh yes, Star Wars. Make that three times.
I do think there are enough good movies coming out. But the experience of being in a theatre is grating.