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.
I'm not sure if I'm missing a connection here or not. Are those things that happen when you go to see a movie in a theater? I agree that seeing a movie in a theater can be a different experience from seeing it at home, but... I don't know, I'm not meeting new people at a movie. I'm just sitting near them.
I think, as sort of suggested here, having so much readily available content is more likely to lead to specialization than dilettantism. Which has a different set of problems.
I wish there were more second-run and dollar theaters around.
I am a fan of AMC's pre-noon $6 movies. That's how I see most movies these days. And I do love Going to the Movies. Big screen, loud sound, communal laughter and reactions.
Are those things that happen when you go to see a movie in a theater?
When you go to the Roxie for the noir fest, it is a social scene as well. There are bars nearby filled with people talking about it before and after the film. Even if you don't engage in conversation with somebody new, the buzz is part of the experience.
However, I've mostly talked about movies with video store clerks.
But things like noir fests at the Roxie seem to me like exactly the kind of media event that WON'T be going away - frankly, I doubt most people are going to such a festival because they really wanted to see one particular movie and that was their only way to see it. Most people are going to the noir fest to experience that exact buzz you're talking about, and that market will always be there. Just like live music survived records and theater survived movies. Yes, the markets diminished, but the more specialized the experience the more likely its market will continue to exist.
And I do think comedies in particular have much more effect and power in a large group viewing
Oh, Magnolia and The Bodyguard were HILARIOUS in a large group. And we were all sober! Also, the only ones laughing. *cough*
When you go to the Roxie for the noir fest, it is a social scene as well. There are bars nearby filled with people talking about it before and after the film. Even if you don't engage in conversation with somebody new, the buzz is part of the experience.
Yeah, that makes me TWITCH. TWITCH.
When you go to the Roxie for the noir fest, it is a social scene as well. There are bars nearby filled with people talking about it before and after the film. Even if you don't engage in conversation with somebody new, the buzz is part of the experience.
Also, the percentage of people who would never go to something like that are the majority of the movie-going audience. So the people who want it are going to make sure it's still available.
H and I had gone to see one of the largish movies of the last ten years or so, a matinee in a nearly empty theatre. I want to say--TTT? Something of that ilk. It was very low-key, and he didn't get into it much at all. I wanted to see it again and coerced him into coming along. The theatre was mostly full, and the electricity in the theatre enhanced the experience four- or five-fold. It was an audience geared for the experience though, and not some thinky dialog-is-important plotty cough-and-you-lose film.
We tend to save the theater experience for Die Hard 4, Avatar, PotC and the like. And The Girl With...etc. for the living room, the big screen, and no interruptions.
Despite my lingering unhappiness with the content of the recent Star Trek movie, it was great fun to see it in the theater opening weekend: the entire theater sparked when we heard Leonard Nimoy's voice for the first time.
I have no idea where to put this, and I want to share. Relevant to the interests of many of us, and movie-derived--
White Knights-Lose my Breath
When you go to the Roxie for the noir fest, it is a social scene as well.
But that's not typical. I can see how people probably have unexpected interactions with each other when they're in the audience for a concert or a sporting event. Movies seem like a different kind of experience.
