i don't know what kids think of the movie experience nowadays, and i mean kids as in elementary to high school age. but me, i think that sitting in a darkened theater as everyone around you periodically checks for cell-phone messages, and bearing thru an endless terminal of tv commercials before even the trailers begin, is becoming untenable. i don't mean to sound like a grumpy old man at all, it's just that if i wanted to see commercials i'd have saved myself $9.50 and watched tv at home.

the cell phone thing is well here to stay. i just shrug and hope the movie is loud enough to cover over my seatmates screaming into them. but really, if the film industry really do want to get more people out to the movies then for crissake bring back double-features and cartoons. intermission shorts and the like. make it an event, and not an ordeal to suffer thru.

nothing beats the magic of the cinema, esp. when you and the rest of the audience morph into 1 big collective eye. i go to the movies because i don't want to watch television. i wanna see a reality created however fancifully on a big screen and i want to forget i'm sitting in my seat.

today my brother and i went to see 300. we were supposed to see at at the imax, which is a think a 3-story screen, but the showings were all sold-out. so we settled for a conventional theater. i don't go the movies that often. for me it's an event. esp. so when the film is a comic-book retelling of the battle of thermopylae that i've been waiting to see for months now.

it was a decent sized audience. 2 out of 3 seemed to have a small rectangle of blue light hovering in their faces for the duration of the picture. and the ads before the film, god i almost walked out. but i stayed. and forget about the rest of the audience. and became my own big eyeball. and it was good.