I'm poor as hell. Not having a job for the last seven months will do that to you. It's difficult for me to go out with my friends if I do not have money to spend on anything because I need to save it to pay my phone bill. Where this really hurts a wannabe cinephile like me is at the movie theater, where right now there are multiple movies that I would very much like to see (the posters for two of those films are above). However, thinking about it now, I find that even if I did have plenty of disposable income to spend on movie tickets, I still probably would not go out to see a film like "Haywire" or "The Grey," even though they both appear to be high quality films judging by their scores on Rotten Tomatoes (80 and 78%, respectively). That both of these films were released in January, a month where the studios usually dump their foulest drek (see Contraband) makes them more worthy of attention when the options for quality films in theaters remains limited. Yet despite this, I still would not see them in the theaters, even if I had the money, and I have a few reasons why:
1. Tickets are expensive
The most obvious reason, but no matter how rich I am, I still would feel conned when I give the movie theaters 12 dollars to see a movie on a Friday night. In my opinion, it makes very little economic sense to go see a movie that does not carry a guarantee that I will approve of it and therefore make it money well spent (If you want that guarantee, go see The Room at midnight and thank me later). Plus, with Netflix, I have so many more options for much less money. One movie ticket costs almost one month of what I pay for Netflix service, and if faced with paying 10 to 12 dollars for one film and two hours of viewing time or 17 dollars and 20 hours, I'll take the latter equation every time.
2. I can wait to see it through Netflix
While I may really want to see these films, the desire to see them on the big screen does not register strongly enough for me to pay the money and make the drive to the theater. I can wait until they are released on DVD and put them in my Netflix queue and watch them on my 55-inch HD screen from the comfort of my couch. In the meantime, I'll just watch the other movies that come in from my queue without feeling like I am missing out on a transcendent theater-going experience.
3. The quality of the home-viewing experience
These days, home theater systems are so high-performance that one can very nearly replicate and in some instances exceed the experience of watching a film in the theater. One can do all of this without having to drive in the cold to a megaplex filled with annoying people who insist on talking and texting through the entire film. No one who truly values the movie watching experience like myself wants to put up with these plebeian imbeciles. Add in the fact that theaters have a captive audience to show commercials (which I hate) and previews (which I love). On top of that, once the movie starts, if you have to go to the bathroom, you are SOL because you can't pause the film. It's the same argument for watching sports at home: convenience remains king, and having to put up with all of those uncontrollable external factors is the farthest thing from convenient. Maybe theater chains should sue electronics manufacturers for making products that are so good that it hurts their bottom line.
4. I don't like seeing movies alone
I of course mean I don't like going to theaters by myself, but watching alone at home feels completely normal. Call me weird, but going to the theater by myself makes me feel like a total lowlife who has no friends. I've only gone to the theater by myself three times in my entire life (Clerks 2, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, and Tree of Life) and each time it was a strange feeling. My ability to watch the film was not affected by being alone, but to me, the theater was always meant to be a social gathering place. Yes, the irony of hanging out with friends without being able to talk to them is not lost on me, but for me, the theater-going experience is always better when shared with people I know and care about. We can laugh, gasp, or cry together. Doing that alone makes me incredibly self-conscious because I do not know if the other people in the audience are viewing the film the same way I am. What I enjoy as much as the films themselves are the few minutes fresh out of the theater as the credits roll and the music plays. I can recap with my friends or family member, hear their opinions, share mine, crack jokes about the film, and just generally enjoy each other's company. The point is that because I am far and away the biggest film buff in my friend group, the only films I can see in the theater with them are the summer blockbuster action movies and the big Christmas movie. Finding someone to accompany me to all the awards contenders and art-house curios I want to see remains tremendously difficult and therefore not worth the effort of going to the theater.
(Note: my father is the only person I know who rivals my voracious cinematic appetite and could possibly solve that last problem, but he lives halfway across the country, hence the conundrum.)
I'm not one of those people that despises the general theater-going experience, even though I mentioned numerous things that bother me about it. What keeps my desire to go to the theater strong is the possibility of a memorable experience like seeing 300 with hundreds of other gawking fanboys, seeing Borat and laughing at the Jewish jokes louder than everyone else, or even experiencing the horror of the last Indiana Jones film at midnight with a sellout crowd (actually, never mind, that last one never happened). I go to the theater hoping for a memory like that, and when I see a film I'm interested in like "The Grey" playing in theaters, I pause and weigh the probability that I will have an unforgettable theatrical experience. After maybe a minute, I will come to the following conclusion: It just doesn't feel like something I HAVE to see on the big screen (see: Tree of Life) in order to obtain maximum enjoyment, which is the whole reason we go to the movies at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment