When we walked into the theater we noticed several seats that were marked “Reserved for DBOX Customers” and so we simply avoided them and sat elsewhere. This cinema has stadium seating so you could really sit anywhere, except right up in front, and have an enjoyable experience.
The movie started, everything was going according to plan, trailers, opening credits, then the movie itself. Nothing exciting or untoward until the first battle scene. The loud noise from the speaker system was joined with a tactile vibration and a rather annoying single-note throbbing sound. Turns out, it was these DBOX seats. Someone apparently paid for one of them to be activated and it was making a hell of a racket. It was so unsettling and disturbing that it almost ruined the movie for me, except that the movie kind of ruined itself, sort of. It was unpleasant, to say the least.
This DBOX thing is the latest cash grab from movie theaters trying to make a buck. They screw you for concessions (there are two definitions for concession, yah) and then there are all the other little add-on bits, like the difference between primetime and matinée prices, which I will admit has been around for quite a while, but it’s still a cash grab, all the way to the most recent worthless misadventures in cinema:
– IMAX and IMAX 3D
– 42 FPS Projection
– Real3D
– DBOX “Feel Around” Seats
Each of these things is fluff. The 3D doesn’t really add anything more than eyestrain and cluster headaches, IMAX is just a double-sized screen and new projectors, the 42FPS schlock that Peter Jackson is trying to hawk is just as useless. One thing I will give 42FPS, when Peter Jackson uses quick-cut-scenes in his dialogue pieces in his movies, you can feel the crisp tight jarring all the more than you could with lower-FPS presented movies. The latest bit of movie-time bullshit is this DBOX crap. Seats and shake and throb, little more than magic fingers for movie seats. It’s the collision of sex toys and movie making that I never thought I would witness in my lifetime. It’s loud, it’s distracting, and it damages whatever movie it’s paired with.
I left the theater glad I only spent $10 bucks for two people, but bent that I had to endure exposure to this cash-grab DBOX bullshit.
What’s the answer? Now that movies take only one to two months to come out on BluRay or DVD, there is something to be said about just waiting around for them to hit Netflix, RedBox, or hell, even a video rental shop and just popping it in at home.
The only reason to go out to the movies is to actually GO. It’s a special space, it’s dark, lots of strangers, there’s a spectacle and you might just lose yourself in what you’re watching. Now, with all this assorted bullshit surrounding the experience you want, making it worse I would argue, it ruins the “going out to the movies” specialness. Not only is it distracting and unnecessary but the collateral damage from some of these fluff bits (like DBOX) just ruins it for everyone, and it adds more price and distance between the movie-going-public and these cinemas. For an IMAX 3D movie, with DBOX seats, with 42FPS projection, a soda, popcorn, perhaps a box of candy for two, you are starting to breach the $100 mark of obnoxiousness.
So what’s going to happen? Cinemas will add more bullshit and the public will eventually erode away. It’s like trying to grab a handful of sand, the harder you squeeze, the faster the sand runs out of your clenched hands. They will have priced themselves out of business with all this extra fluff bullshit. Then, because nature and capitalism abhor a vacuum, there will be new movie theaters without concessions, with a shoestring staff and plain projectors and people will flock to them because that’s what they are after. Not the fluff, but the movie. If things go from bad to worse for the economy, this could be the exact thing that kills the cinema for good. Movie makers will just switch to the “Direct to BluRay” channel and skip theatrical releases altogether.
I Hope I Never Lose…
It’s laser-etched on the back of my iPod Nano that I received as a gift for Christmas 2010. “Be a Jackass”. Specifically speaking to the passion of life and willingness to do apparently crazy things in respect to the deeper structures of order in life. I get criticized quite often in my work life and my private life for being outspoken and dangerous. It’s shocking to me that something so fundamental should be so remarkable. What is the point of life if you aren’t outspoken? Why hide the truth, hide your feelings? If you bottle them all up and shove them under the carpet of your life eventually they’ll start to wear their shapes into the carpet and eventually the carpet will break apart for their presence. It’s far better to share what you feel when you feel it, to say what you think, to speak from the heart and to respect your instincts. If something is wrong, take a stand, even if it leads figuratively down the drain. Living this way is the only authentic way to live, any other way is self-deception and self-defeat.
Tron: Legacy
Last night some friends and I went to the Rave Theater in downtown Kalamazoo to see Tron: Legacy for the sneak-peak midnight showing. I have to say that I was filled with trepidation surrounding this movie, since I absolutely cherished the original Tron movie from 1982, I was utterly terrified that they would jump the shark and make this movie a wretched retread and try to drive it like Disney drove Tron back in 1982. I can say that I was happily surprised. The movie was very well done. The plot I can appreciate, it’s rather fluffy in places but does have some slight surprises embedded in it that make it a more complex story than the original beloved movie had.
The absolute best part of Tron: Legacy was the soundtrack/score. Daft Punk established the atmosphere of the film nearly pitch-perfectly with their soundtrack. Without the soundtrack the movie would be an utter mess. It’s a gestalt thing I think, the video and audio are passable on their own, but when together they make something that is way more than the sum of the parts. I did feel chills/tingles for many scenes and that’s what I use to gauge just how good a movie is. If it can affect me on that level then the storyteller did something right and I think they should be rewarded for it.
Now Tron: Legacy does have some negative aspects, at least for me. Chief amongst it was the CGI rejuvenation of the lead actor, Jeff Bridges in the few opening scenes of the movie. This is purely a “me” problem, as nobody else seemed to be as upset by it as I was, but when the camera swings around and you have to contend with a digital simulacrum of a well-known actor there was a part of my limbic system that wanted to scream, vomit, and flee. Thankfully the unbearably inhuman simulacrum only lasted for one short scene and after that I was much better. For some reason the same simulacrum which was used repeatedly in the movie for another character didn’t affect me as strongly as when I first saw it. I think, for me, when the scene with the father and son is playing out, the plastic-man-rubber-face’ness of the digital simulacrum hit me square on. I think it was a situation/context issue, that the intimate and tender scene in the beginning clashed so violently with my inner revulsion that the upsetness of the fakeness joined with the clash from the context just pushed my already jumpy limbic system nearly to the edge. It was an odd sensation. I had this distinct urge to stand up and do something, and the fact that I wasn’t just added to the overall discomfort. In no way would I expect this outcome to be true for anyone else, this apparently is just my very instinctual response.
In general I give Tron: Legacy a solid 8 out of 10 stars. What the digital simulacrum took out, the score and soundtrack made up for and then some. I can recommend it at 2D and 3D for full price and come away feeling good about the experience. They honored the original Tron, and for that I am very thankful.