Love the movies, hate the theater

When I'm at a party and the conversation lags (it tends to do that a lot when I'm at a party), I have one sure-fire technique for getting it going again that does not involve me leaving the room. I just start talking about some movie I've just seen.

Movies are the one safe topic in any situation, unless you get somebody who loved The Horse Whisperer arguing with somebody who hated it, such as myself. But mostly, everybody goes to the movies, and everybody loves to go on and on about their favorites, to the point of reciting lines of dialogue and expressing inappropriate urges towards the actors. Don't get me started on Renee Zellweger's turn in Chicago. I fully intend to abide by the restraining order.

Good thing party season is over, because these days I don't have much to talk about. Of the 22 films Variety.com lists has having a shot at major Oscars, I've seen exactly three of them: Burn After Reading, The Dark Knight and W.

The rest? I don't know. I've got Wall-E coming from Netflix and I'm interested in seeing Clint Eastwood's last role in Gran Torino, but I'm just not that curious about the rest of them. Benjamin Button sounded intriguing when I first heard of it, but I've seen so many stories and reviews since then I feel like I've already seen it. I'm sure The Changeling is a fine picture, but I find Angelina Jolie's lips a distraction, dominating every scene like a pair of fresh pork tenderloins.

But really, the biggest reason I haven't seen more of these movies it that it's not that much fun to go to the movies anymore. I spend the first third of any film waiting for some idiot to take a business call, or start talking to some other idiot seated next to him, or to start texting, his wonderful little iPhone screen an effective distraction to anything happening on the big screen. These things don't happen very often, but the expectation that they might always puts me on edge. I fear I might become confrontational, and any enjoyment the movie provides might quickly dissipate during the ensuing fistfight in the parking lot.

I may have mentioned my big TV. It's no subsitute for the grandeur of a movie screen and THX sound, but I prefer the TV because I can tell the dog to shut up and she's unlikely to want to make something of it. I can use the captions if I want. Also, my popcorn is better. The downside is that it takes me longer each year to get around to seeing the nominees. And there's always the matter of locating the remote when it's time to hit the bathroom.

We have a party each Oscar night, in which we pass around ballots for five bucks a pop and award the winnings to whoever makes the most correct picks. Tess and I always try to see as many of the nominees as possible, in the false hope of narrowing the odds, but that's not looking so good this year. I'm going to rule out the three I've already seen for the following reasons: the Coen brothers scored big last year, Heath Ledger died a year ago instead of a month ago, and George Bush is already yesterday's news.

That leaves 19 others. What do you think? Check out the Variety list and pick a couple of likely winners.

Comments

Unknown said…
I literally saw Burn After Reading ten minutes ago.

What did you think of it?
January 7, 2009 at 9:39 PM
Dave Knadler said…
We both loved it. I do think the Coen brothers were a little self indulgent with it, with its subtle little shout-outs to their earlier movies, but it's something I'll definitely want to watch again.
January 7, 2009 at 11:47 PM
Anonymous said…
Warren Theaters in Wichita, KS have a unique solution to this problem. So many movie viewers complained about cell phones in movies that they made a no cell phone policy and will request your phone if you use it during a movie. The choice, don't use the phone,sacrifice it if you do use it, or leave the movie. So far it seems effective. Substantially fewer small blue screens and irrelevant conversations during movies!
January 10, 2009 at 10:23 PM
Dave Knadler said…
I didn't see any evidence of that the last time I went to the 13th Street Warren, but maybe it's a new policy. Let's hope so.
January 11, 2009 at 8:48 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sleuths are only as good as their sidekicks

Image
I recently read the much-lauded Wash This Blood Clean From My Hands , by French author Fred Vargas, and like many others found it quirky and engaging. Her deft writing left me happy to have found another series character to follow: Commissaire Adamsberg. But that's not what this post is about. I've decided that others do a lot better job with reviews than I do, and I hate laboring over my shallow insights only to find later that I've echoed what everybody else said a long time before. (And yes, I can hear you saying: "But that's never stopped you before." True enough. Nor will it now.) So, short version: Wash This Blood is a good book. Buy it. But for all the talk about it being "eccentric" or even "kooky," it does share one key device with nearly all other detective fiction: the sidekick. Adamsberg's reliance on gut instinct and intuition is sharply defined by the hard-nosed, scientific approach of his second in command, Capitaine
Read more

A farewell to copy

Image
On Friday I walked out of a newspaper building as an employee for the last time. During the stroll to the far end of the parking lot, I did a brief review of my career. Here's the high point: I've worked at newspapers that have won Pulitzer prizes. And the low point: None of those Pulitzers were won while I was working at the newspapers in question. Hey, I'm sure that's just bad timing. Of the half dozen papers I worked for, the best was the Philadelphia Inquirer. The worst was the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont. When you enter the cavernous newsroom of the Inquirer, you pass by a wall festooned with pictures of reporters and editors who have won Pulitzers. It is a measure of my love of journalism that when I looked at these pictures, I usually reflected not on the prize-winning stories they reported, but on the clothes they were wearing. Look at them: All these gifted journalists, photographed at the very apex of their careers, and most of them are dressed like t
Read more

Wall Street and Willa Cather

Image
I've been reading My Antonia , Willa Cather's 1918 novel about growing up on the Nebraska prairie. It's a beautiful book, poignant and uplifting, full of characters who reflect the truth of life in all its joy and pain. It's also an instructive portrait of the time in America when explicit toil was required for mere survival, never mind success. I've been reading it against the background noise of Wall Street's collapse, men and women on CNN droning gravely about the consequences of greed, and the need to ensure that the greediest of all do not, in the end, go broke. It's a complex issue. It takes someone like Yale business student David Bledin, writing an op-ed for the Washington Post, to put a human face on the unfolding tragedy. You think you have it tough; think what it's like for Masters of the Universe-in-training who now rue the rigors involved in chasing a seven-figure salary: "... once I could afford to splurge on a Zagat-rated "$$$
Read more