Your memory may not go back that far, but there was a day when all the communities had a choice as to whether to allow cable t.v. in their town.It was put up to a vote,and it was a huge controversy! Those apposed,( and my husband at the time was one of them) said, why should we pay for something we can get for free now? I had listened to the explanations, and understood that this would bring us enormous choices far beyond the three local channels we had at that time, and there would be a chance that one could have something to watch all night long if one wished, which at that time was a totally foreign concept. We debated the issue, and decided to disagree, but now, after cable is an accepted daily fact of life for nearly the whole civilized world, I can see the wisdom of his words. We may have gained hundreds of television stations, and almost instant news coverage from around the globe, but we lost something too.Now that we have HBO and Showtime, PPV and AMC,and all those other movie channels, none of the local or network channels even bother to program late night movies at all anymore. If you still have cable this probably doesn't bother you, but if you are like me, and my house, we have eschewed cable due to it's increasingly worldly content, and offensive themes, violence, language and situations.Most of the time, this does not hinder my day to day enjoyment of what little time I have for mindless relaxation and fun, simply because I have two VCR's, and a DVD player, and almost endless sources of clean, well written, and equally well performed movies,plays and musicals, and perhaps hundreds of preaching tapes with which to refresh my mind and spirit.To put it simply, I do not miss cable, in that way. However, there are times when I do lament the loss of the Friday or Saturday night movie times we used to have, when the family could make a big batch of hot buttered popcorn, turn on the television and see an old classic movie, or even a new movie. It was fun because even though the schedule said, Movie, nine times out of ten, you didn't know in advance just what the movie would be, from what era, or even who was in it.That was part of the fun! The surprise. Now, of course, you can still go to the video store, or even pick up old classics at the nearest grocery store or convenience shop, but the surprises are all but gone.Every movie is so over-advertised, criticized,critiqued, praised, lampooned, glamorized, touted and argued about long before it is actually available to the public, it's like you have already seen it before the opening credits hit the screen.The cast has already made the circuit from Jay Leno, to Letterman, to (blah) O'Brien,to this morning show and that morning show,and all over every t.v. tabloid, that you might just as well fast forward to the end of the film, to see the conclusion, and not waste your time with the first hour.Which, I suppose accounts for the increasing tendency of filmmakers to throw things into their work that has the most shock value.In trying to duplicate the surprises of their past works, they have painted themselves into a corner,and now must come up with something new and fresh to get the public's attention! Well, here's an idea.How about releasing good stuff for late night t.v.? In addition, drop the "saturation campaign" in favor of announcing the name of the film, and who is in it,and let the public wonder. Given a chance, human imaginations run wild! Now that would be a surprise!
OUI?
Posted by: RONW | January 14, 2006 at 08:28 AM