Taking a break from the cinema for a while.
For a number of reasons.
The last time I went to Centertainment, the lights didn't go out properly for the main feature, but were on at about the same level as they were during the adverts. Ten minutes in, no-one from the cinema had noticed, so I was forced to leave the theatre - missing some of the film - to find someone to tell about the problem. Surprisingly, the matter was not addressed, and the lights stayed up throughout the performance, and no apology was made to the patrons at the end of the show.
Now, it's been a while since they messed up a performance (ironically, this was the sort of thing where "technical issues" would be a plausible explanation), and everyone makes mistakes from time to time, but this was a bit of a last straw moment for a couple of other reasons.
I am getting thoroughly sick and tired of people using their bloody mobile phones during a performance. I'm annoyed that Centertainment doesn't have a policy against it and eject people themselves, as I believe some cinemas do, and that I have to confront these rude obnoxious asshats myself.
It didn't used to be so bad when the phone users were mostly teenagers in packed-out screens showing "Action Movie III: Everything Explodes"[0], because such immersion as exists is almost entirely based on loud noises, flashy lights and constant distraction, and requires very little brain to follow. Any mobile phone use under those circumstances is hard-pressed to be enough of a distraction to compete with the movie itself, and unlikely to cause others to miss vitally important dialogue or plot points.
The trouble now is that even somewhat older patrons (but probably not as old as me, rah!) are using their phones during less-busy screenings of smaller movies that do require some attention to follow. Their distractions are most annoying, and I'm getting sick of it.
My third reason for staying away is that, once again, the MAFIAA have roused my anger and left me seething at their asshattery. With their Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property they have proposed that they should have the right to install viruses on your computers, which monitor what you are doing, and, without any kind of oversight - judicial or otherwise - if they think you might be a dirty pirate, lock up your computer and refuse you access to your files, until you call the police or pay them money or some crap like that. Which is, as the Boing Boing article points out, pretty much by definition, Ransomware.
Now, as much influence as the entertainment industry has over various governments, I don't think they're likely to get something like this to pass. However, the fact that these people think that they should have more control over other people's property than the owners themselves do, is utterly infuriating. I just don't understand the arrogance of that position, the idea that someone could think that because they're not making quite as much money as they think they should be making, or think they deserve to be making, that they think they ought to be able to just directly deprive someone else of their property. I mean, what are they thinking?
I get the idea that, if these people were told that they might be able to raise profits by clubbing baby seals to death, they'd give it a go without hesitation. They wouldn't agonise about balancing the callousness of the act against their fudiciary duty to shareholders, but they'd grab the nearest stick with a rusty nail poking out of it and start hunting.
And I can't believe I'm funding these wankers.
Of course, I could still go to the cinema. I could find a cinema which has competent and courteous staff, which has a zero-tolerance policy on mobile use and will eject anyone who violates it, and only watch independent movies which were not funded or distributed by the big six studios (or their subsidiaries). (The Showroom may fit this bill?)
But. I don't want to be that guy, the one who's a apparently a big movie fan, but can't talk about the shared pop culture of cinema because he's not seen anything you've ever heard of, but wants to talk your ear off about this very emotional black-and-white story of starving immigrant Belgian artists in the Basque Country.
So, yeah, taking a break for a while. Sorry to those who've said you'd enjoyed my reviews that there won't be any more for a while.
[0] I'm trying to remember a comedy sketch from the '90s that did a parody trailer of something like this. I can't remember the proper main title of the film, but I'm pretty sure the subtitle was "Everything Explodes". It also had a "Featuring - Danni Wellard"(?) with a tomboyish woman firing a machine gun, and a line about "special effects so expensive, we have to show them three times" - cut to a garden shed exploding from multiple angles. Can't find any mention of it on the tubes though. May have been Enfield/Whitehouse. Anyone have any ideas?
The last time I went to Centertainment, the lights didn't go out properly for the main feature, but were on at about the same level as they were during the adverts. Ten minutes in, no-one from the cinema had noticed, so I was forced to leave the theatre - missing some of the film - to find someone to tell about the problem. Surprisingly, the matter was not addressed, and the lights stayed up throughout the performance, and no apology was made to the patrons at the end of the show.
Now, it's been a while since they messed up a performance (ironically, this was the sort of thing where "technical issues" would be a plausible explanation), and everyone makes mistakes from time to time, but this was a bit of a last straw moment for a couple of other reasons.
I am getting thoroughly sick and tired of people using their bloody mobile phones during a performance. I'm annoyed that Centertainment doesn't have a policy against it and eject people themselves, as I believe some cinemas do, and that I have to confront these rude obnoxious asshats myself.
It didn't used to be so bad when the phone users were mostly teenagers in packed-out screens showing "Action Movie III: Everything Explodes"[0], because such immersion as exists is almost entirely based on loud noises, flashy lights and constant distraction, and requires very little brain to follow. Any mobile phone use under those circumstances is hard-pressed to be enough of a distraction to compete with the movie itself, and unlikely to cause others to miss vitally important dialogue or plot points.
The trouble now is that even somewhat older patrons (but probably not as old as me, rah!) are using their phones during less-busy screenings of smaller movies that do require some attention to follow. Their distractions are most annoying, and I'm getting sick of it.
My third reason for staying away is that, once again, the MAFIAA have roused my anger and left me seething at their asshattery. With their Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property they have proposed that they should have the right to install viruses on your computers, which monitor what you are doing, and, without any kind of oversight - judicial or otherwise - if they think you might be a dirty pirate, lock up your computer and refuse you access to your files, until you call the police or pay them money or some crap like that. Which is, as the Boing Boing article points out, pretty much by definition, Ransomware.
Now, as much influence as the entertainment industry has over various governments, I don't think they're likely to get something like this to pass. However, the fact that these people think that they should have more control over other people's property than the owners themselves do, is utterly infuriating. I just don't understand the arrogance of that position, the idea that someone could think that because they're not making quite as much money as they think they should be making, or think they deserve to be making, that they think they ought to be able to just directly deprive someone else of their property. I mean, what are they thinking?
I get the idea that, if these people were told that they might be able to raise profits by clubbing baby seals to death, they'd give it a go without hesitation. They wouldn't agonise about balancing the callousness of the act against their fudiciary duty to shareholders, but they'd grab the nearest stick with a rusty nail poking out of it and start hunting.
And I can't believe I'm funding these wankers.
Of course, I could still go to the cinema. I could find a cinema which has competent and courteous staff, which has a zero-tolerance policy on mobile use and will eject anyone who violates it, and only watch independent movies which were not funded or distributed by the big six studios (or their subsidiaries). (The Showroom may fit this bill?)
But. I don't want to be that guy, the one who's a apparently a big movie fan, but can't talk about the shared pop culture of cinema because he's not seen anything you've ever heard of, but wants to talk your ear off about this very emotional black-and-white story of starving immigrant Belgian artists in the Basque Country.
So, yeah, taking a break for a while. Sorry to those who've said you'd enjoyed my reviews that there won't be any more for a while.
[0] I'm trying to remember a comedy sketch from the '90s that did a parody trailer of something like this. I can't remember the proper main title of the film, but I'm pretty sure the subtitle was "Everything Explodes". It also had a "Featuring - Danni Wellard"(?) with a tomboyish woman firing a machine gun, and a line about "special effects so expensive, we have to show them three times" - cut to a garden shed exploding from multiple angles. Can't find any mention of it on the tubes though. May have been Enfield/Whitehouse. Anyone have any ideas?