"The old formats are dead! Long live the old formats!"

We have been awaiting the death of movies, film, flickers, the studios, for decades now, but looking at the boxoffice figures for 2009 we can see that it was yet another stellar year for the industry. The thing that continues to change is not the appetite of the movie going audience but how they "see" film, how they view movies not only in the theaters but at home as well. The 2009 holiday shopping season saw the rise, not only in the number of advertisments but in sheer tonnage moved out the door, of Blu-ray high definition movie players and large flatscreen tvs, showing once again that if you make quality goods affordable to the middle class, technology, and peoples tastes, will change.

I am happy, once again, for the change. I like to stay a trend or two behind the bulk of humanity. I like to catch up after the parade has passed and reap the benefits of the discard pile. Right now is a grand time to be a film collector. VHS tapes for fifty cents a throw, pawn shop DVD's going for little more than a buck, second hand hi-fi players for under ten dollars and used dvd players for less than the price of a movie ticket.

For the time being I am not too worried about the imminent demise of Hollywood Video or Blockbuster rental stores. I am not struggling with the high cost of retail films or outrageous ticket prices at the door. I have my own "movies on demand" system going on at home 24/7 and have hundreds of movie titles to choose from. Let it rain, let it pour. The Futon Cinema is always ready to screen something new or old, and baby, if I haven't watched it before, it's all new to me.

Action!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Road trip elixers

There was a time when I was young and wild, had hair on my head and had the strength and fortitude of a Titan. I think we all did, back in our twenties. I was lucky, too, back then, to have a partner who thought the world of me, who was proud of my academic achievements and who trusted me enough to send me off to Northern California one summer with an old bachelor pal of mine to do the Renaissance Faire. I suppose she also wanted to have the apartment to herself for awhile, but every give should have a take.

Back in the day we drank like Titans. We were educated, urbane, thought ourselves to be witty, artistic and imaginative. We favored quality bubbling wines and knew how to brew our beer just the way we liked it. We didn't mind playing dress up at faire, didn't care a bit whether or not other folks thought us to be too loud or boorish or cocky. We were young and full of ourselves and felt that the world was ours and that the little things, like being unemployed or, in my case, still being years away from my academic goals, was just a small, insignificant inpediment to our happiness.

I can relate to the lead characters in Sideways. I, too, was a font of knowledge, puffed up like Mr Toad with all the bits and pieces of meaningless information that college can fill you up with. I was caught up in myself and didn't really care too much about the feelings of others, regardless of my stance as a Neo-Romantic. That road trip Stehen and I took to Napa and Bay Area was grand, but neither of us really got along with each other that well. My pal was as selfish as I was. We were both caught up in our own dramas and while we thought we were the best of friends, looking back I can see that that trip was fraught with tension. It was all internal, that uncertainty about ourselves and our place in the world. We covered it up with bluster and homebrew and an awful lot of wine, good wine, grand bubbly, nice visits with friends and a very great day in The City. And while we weren't having some last great blow out before a wedding, it was the last of the great summer trips I took for a long, long time.

Watching Sideways still affects me deeply. I feel for that Giamatti's hangdog man, the one who can't seem to find his way out his wine sack. I can appreciate the road trip of life that he was on, the one that he achingly yearned to get off of for awhile. I can relate to that character for he and I share a similar goal: to finish writing the Great American Novel, to be at peace with life and all it's hard decisions and to find love, real love, at the end of our travels. A good glass of wine at the end of the road wouldn't be a bad thing to find, either.

Action!



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