Cinema vs. DVD: A New Battle Emerges

The above sight, depending on the way you look at it, can either be a magical place or a terrorizing one. Such perspective used to be developed by the quality of the movie showing in the theatre, but as of late, it's become doubly hard to enjoy a movie.

By the minute, audiences become more and more obnoxious, with members talking on cell-phones and to each other every left and right. The teen demographic, which I unfortunately belong to, accounts for the majority of this, but that's not saying there aren't other theatre patrons who partake in annoying those of us who go to the cinema to escape.

Being both a newly hired theatre employee and a constant filmgoer for years now, I've seen it all. An eighty-year-old woman who brought a flashlight and a dinner-plate into The Human Stain. Kids who danced in the aisleways of Barbershop as it was playing. Teenagers who were practically playing musical-chairs in My Boss' Daughter. Idiots laughing at totally unfunny passages of serious, disturbing movies. It's enough to kill a brain-cell or two.

But I get off easy, in comparison to some. I think I've probably attended under ten showings which took place past 7 'o clock PM in my entire lifetime. Usually I'll hit the 10AM, where there's me and a few other people in attendance. And I still can't stand it.

Why are box-office-numbers down so drastically this year? No, not ticket prices. The average person goes to the movies probably twice a month--maybe less--so what's two bucks more to them? It's everything that is triggered by the whole moviegoing experience.

I hate to say it, and I never would justify the actions of someone who pirates a movie online, but perhaps the reason for a lot of the illegal downloading going on over the US' side of the internet is because of the hassle that multiplexes cause.

Not to mention, because movies have been so bad lately, why waste one's time seeing something that will probably only barely entertain on DVD, amidst a couple hundred obnoxious viewers?

In the privacy of one's own home, they can do whatever they want when seeing a movie. If they want to talk, make out, have sex, whatever, they can do it. If they want to watch the movie without any crowd-prorblems or errors on the part of the projectionist, they can. That's why certain movies are doubling their theatrical grosses on DVD. Older folks, in particular, have really no reason to waste their time stressing over something so silly as a movie, right?

I truly try to defend the authentic experience of going to the movies and seeing something, but it's becoming harder and harder as time rolls on. I, myself, find it harder to become immersed in a movie on DVD than in the theatre, presuming the audience isn't too destracting. I also like to see things as early as possible. But, in the next few years, this all my change for me.

I've considered converting Bucket Reviews into a DVD review site several times, but I dunno what I'd be without the experience of diving into a bag of popcorn and watching images being projected onto a larger-than-life screen each week. I tough it out when I have to for the sake of being truly rewarded when the experience proves worthwhile (I pick and choose, optimizing with the correct theatres and showings, so that is still the outcome most of the time).

As home entertainment continues to evolve, theatres may become a thing of the past. Still, I'm hopeful that they remain, and eventually the rambunctious audiences of today learn that their behavior is... well, frankly, unacceptable.

The year is now half-way through and I've yet to see many great movies; perhaps it has been some some rotten filmgoers that have made me into a grouch?