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A Theater Experience By: Andrew Moran There was a time when going to the Picture-House, or as people call it now the Movie Theater, was a treat. In the early days of Cinema, films only used to cost a nickel. With that nickel you’d get two features, an original experience and an escape from reality. Now you only get one of those aspects. Guess which one.
The Movie Theater now is nothing more than a current even issue for many people. I, for one, find it an extraordinary occurrence every time I enter into another dimension of the world. The doors close, the lights go off, the projector starts and you enter a whole new world. Cinematoriums don’t offer much anymore, for me anyway. Every Picture-House offers more concession stands then actual pictures. The price of a ticket is an astronomical amount. The people are more annoying with their technological gadgets and their constant chatter. Also the advancements of technology in a theater are quite irritating. I find that it is a distraction when they have 25 Dolby Digital Surround THX sound on every side of the cinema. What happened to mono sound? However, it’s all worth it when those doors are closed and you’re experiencing a suspenseful situation, a fantastical journey, an assassination plot against a political figure or just slap-stick comedy of the Marx Brothers…Wait, they’re dead. A lot of people now wait for DVD to see a picture. This is definitely a bad thing. People would rather pay $5 for a DVD rental, the comfort of their own home, eating their own food and being absolute zombies staring at a television set? I definitely wouldn’t want to! I don’t own a lot of DVD’s except for old talking pictures, Woody Allen pictures and some new ones that I utterly enjoyed. I’ve also noticed that when you watch a picture in your own home, you get easily distracted therefore you miss the art that is being portrayed for your own entertainment. You could’ve missed a terrific angle, or a great piece of a score, or even an important foreshadow of the film. A lot of people can make a case that going to the cinemas nowadays in a horrible experience. Sometimes I could agree with those people. Punk kids keep talking throughout the film; someone answers their handset and others who emphatically chew their popcorn. That’s why I keep pleading to others that technological advances should’ve stopped, unless it’s in research & development purposes, in the late 60s early 70s. However, that’s a whole other discussion. In the end, I’d choose going to the theater instead of renting a picture. Plus I rarely experience aforementioned above. But I go to Canada Square on Sundays or I go to a major theater on an early afternoon. Just imagine would you want to miss a movie experience like the one people had in the 40s with Humphrey Bogart playing Rick in Casablanca? I certainly don’t. On a side note: A good picture on this topic is Meetin’ W.A. by Jean-Luc Goddard. Woody Allen and Jean-Luc Goddard explain this topic more in-depth. |
