I predict a Noiry autumn this year.

You're in for a treat. Those are some of my favorite noirs, particularly The Killers, and Out of the Past are top ten in the canon for me. Also, I'm fond of the Alan Ladd/Veronica Lake trilogy of noirs, including The Glass Key and (especially) This Gun For Hire.

Yes, I have seen at least one of the Ladd/Lake ones, but again it's been so long that I can't recall which.

In a way my post nicely ties in with yours about availabilty, David, and I do agree with a lot of those points. But I've been seeing a lot of "what's happened to boredom?" articles recently, which suggests something of a meme.

Also, it's one which apparently hasn't quite reached my kids, as I still hear "I'm booooored" reasonably often.

Heh. Coincidentally my Film Noir Collection Boxed Set arrived on Friday with 9 DVDs: The Killers, Double Indemnity, The Big Steal, Crossfire, Out of the Past, The Blue Dahlia (Region 2 FTW!), The Glass Key, This Gun for Hire and Murder My Sweet (aka Farewell My Lovely).

What a great set. I love The Killers and Out of the Past.

If you can access it there, I highly recommend the "Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir" podcast by Clute/Edwards on iTunes. It's from a few years ago, but all 50 episodes are still free on iTunes here. They have an episode each for The Killers, Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, The Blue Dahlia, The Glass Key, and Murder My Sweet.

Drop Everything; Saw one yesterday. A Bronx Tale Also, for much of the movie, the kid's high-school-aged

In a bit of synchronicity, this is the third article I've read today talking about the problem of living in a culture where all songs and all movies are instantly available. Which, of course, we all love, but it's also had all these unintended side effects which damage institutions of culture: bookstores, record stores, film series.

I've been writing up a blog post (for work) about this very thing. I'm also referencing Bowling Alone which makes many of the same points.

I've been writing up a blog post (for work) about this very thing.

It's in the air, right? I really think we're undergoing a huge sea-change in how we receive culture and we really don't understand the implications. But we're starting to see some of the downside along with all the positives.

Some of the articles about DC's reboot have noted that they'll also make download versions available on the day of release, and what's going to happen to comic book stores then? Those of you who had holds at your store and talked to the clerks and browsed for stuff for your nieces and nephews and got cool buttons for The Umbrella Academy. That's going to be in jeopardy just as record stores and book stores have become scarce.

Wasn't it a Patton Oswalt piece a few months ago about how everything available all the time ruined being a geek or some shit?

About movies, specifically, a bit of Ebert's recent column for Newsweek/the Daily Beast gets at it also.

Ebert laments the communal joy of going to a movie theater to see a great movie (vice watching quality TV by yourself) and a commenter points out that Ebert's movie-going experience is not the usual.

A lot of folks would rather watch a movie by themselves than risk the shared experience happen with jerks (like the Alamo Drafthouse girl); I'm not sure, but it's possible that hiveminds like the Buffistas will spring up around watch-and-post or other types of communal experience.

These will still be curated, though - the magic of meeting new people, being exposed to new stuff? Crazy random happenstance? Not sure how that is going to happen.

the magic of meeting new people, being exposed to new stuff? Crazy random happenstance? Not sure how that is going to happen.

Umm... there's an app for that?