Bye Bye Big Screen

"Christ!" Great, the guy next to me just spilled his nachos
all over my pants. To boot I just stepped in something thick
and sticky. My drink holder is cracked and about to let lose
my eight-dollar bottle of Poland Springs. Not to mention the
annoying teenagers sitting behind me who can't seem to
shut up about Jessica Alba's hair! I use to enjoy the coming
attractions but now I have the fifteen-minute pre commercial
commercials. What the hell?!? This is what I'm paying (now ten dollars) for?

I've always had a love affair with the big screen. The box at
home is okay, but there is nothing like the actual big screen
experience. It's true that home entertainment systems have made
significant strides in surround sound and HD but still, it's a
poor substitute for the real thing...or is it?

Yes, I have to sit next to some guy coughing and hacking his
lungs out. Yes, I stepped in some mysterious sludge which
I’m sure will follow me not only into my car but into my apartment
where I will have to mop the floor…again. It’s expensive, it’s crowded
and its kind of gross, yet there is nothing else like it.

With new formats like pay-per-view, direct TV and on demand
lots of films are already being released directly to television.
From what I’ve read in the trades Disney is the hand holding the
smoking gun. It is ABC (which owns Disney), which is seeking to
promote this new skip-the-theater-all-together kind of innovation.

While I really won’t miss seating on broken seats, or paying ten
bucks for a sub par flick, but the experience won’t ever be the same
sitting in your living room. The big screen is what makes movie star and
celebrities. When you see someone on the movie screen scale they
literally become bigger then life. When you take the stars of the
screen and put them in the box, they become normal people.
They are just like you local news anchor. Somehow in the transition
from big screen to small screen the glamour is lost. Maybe that is not such a bad
thing. Personally, I would miss the big screen.