Went to the Movies this Weekend

My wife and I had an idea to go see a movie this weekend.  We used to be regulars at our local theater, but since our son was born we have only gone to 2 movies in 2 years.  We made it to our third yesterday.  We called up my parents for a little babysitting duty, and left at what we thought was a reasonable time to get us to the theatre.  Normally, when we see movies we go online and get the tickets ahead of time… not this time.  It was a spur of the moment decision.

We had originally gone to see Iron Man, as I am a big superhero guy and she likes them as well.  Unfortunately, when we got to the theatre, we were basically 5 minutes early for the movie, and the line outside looked to be at least 10-15 minutes long.  Neither of us want to see a movie from the front row of the theatre, or come in 10 minutes into it.  We got in line and saw that Indiana Jones was playing in 25 minutes, so we figured we would see that. 

Unfortunately again, as we were waiting in the slowest moving of the 6 lines (no kidding, the line next to us could have saved us about 5 minutes!) Indiana Jones sold out.  So we were down to our third choice, and the only one left that played anywhere near our required time-frame, Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian.  We opted for that one, and got our tickets.  After about 25 minutes of waiting in line for popcorn and a drink, we settled down to watch Prince Caspian.  The movie was fine from my point of view, not fantastic but entertaining.  We had seen the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe previously, and my wife and I read some of C.S. Lewis’ books when we were younger.

What really bothered my about the movie is the fact that most of the scenes in the entire movie were less than 3 seconds long.  Many scenes were under 2 seconds!  This led to me having a raging headache by the end, and it left me wondering why modern movies do this.  Doesn’t anybody remember when actors actually had to act?  Not the cinematogrophers and effects people doing the acting?  What happened to the still shot with the characters having a dialogue?  No wonder kids today have ADHD, the movies flash from scene to scene and image to image in 1 or 2 seconds!  You are subjected to over 2 hours of this!  Unbelievable.

I guess I expect too much or am getting older, but I can hardly stand to watch these modern films.  The previews are even worse.  MANY of the previews didn’t have ANY scenes that lasted more than 1 second.  ONE SECOND.  Really.  I know it’s a good way to create energy, drama, feelings of chaos, action, etc.  but I would really much rather have the script and the actors do that.  Not cutting and dicing constantly to a new scene.  I just don’t like the way many movies are made these days.

What’s next?  Sensory overload films with nothing but flashing images for 2 hours?  The images come at you at a rate of about 10 per second, loud music will be blaring and they will call it a movie.  No thanks.

The other thing that bothered me is the number and ages of the children in the movie theater.  This was too violent a film for kids under 5-7 years old, in my opinion.  Yet I see kids younger than that watching it,  and watching Pirates of the Carribean, etc.  Violence is acceptable, I guess, to many parents of young kids.  Film and video game ratings seem to be more of a joke than a guide for parents.  I know many kids playing M (18+ mature) video games when they are under 10 years old.  I have seen many kids under ten watch rated R (17+) movies and PG-13 might as well be G.  What happened to our innocent youth?  Looks like for many kids, they are long gone. 

When you read the book as a child, your own imagination created the scenes in your head.  Violence in a book was reletive to your ability and experience with it.  Seeing a person in a movie get stabbed, violently beat-up or shot is too graphic for young children.  These kids should be reading these types of stories, not seeing the movies yet.  But then again, I guess I am a little old fashioned. 

Tags: , c.s. lewis, chronicles of narnia, dads, dadsworld, indiana jones, iron man, mature, moms, movie ratings, movies, parents, pirates of the carribean