Rental Window

i swear this is my last movie post for a while.. i swear. when i was a wee lad (geddit?), there was two methods of delivery to see a movie. at the cinema or on the telly. although VHS (and Beta, ooo, don't forget Beta) were around, we hadn't smacked down the cash yet for device soo powerful it was the size of a small car.
Cinema is cinema is cinema, and the experience of going hasn't really changed all that much. Telly is another beast all together. There was something magical, so very powerful about the family all gathering around the telly to watch the Sunday night movie. There had been ads all week (in fact, I always watched to the end of the previous week's movie's end credits to see the ad for next week's movie, and if there wasn't one, TV Week would tell me) promoting the movie. The anticipation would build during 60 Minutes or whatever the program was before. Somehow i missed all the celeb interviews on 60 Minutes when I was a kid.
The drumroll, the movie commenced. And typically in those days (we are talking early eighties) they ran around 20 minutes of program before the first ad break! inconceivable! then they would slowly increase the number of ads across the full program so that a two hour movie ran about 2 hrs 20 mins. They didn't have tickers, watermarks and other items obscuring the screen. They didn't cut bits out going to or coming out of ads. And the credits weren't squashed and sometimes people didn't speak over the end credits at all! Shocking I know!
And back in those days they were constantly running movies, Monday night, Wednesday night, Friday night, Saturday night, weekend afternoons, and most middnight to six am slots also. Nowadays you are lucky to get a handful of movies a week across all the networks. it's all sport, variety, CSI and telemarketing. Spiderman debuted last Friday night with barely a ripple.
It's said that studios want DVD to be released the same day as the cinema release. i don't know how cinema will survive like that. at the same time, i don't necessarily agree with this attitude of starting up 3D cinemas. WTF? Maybe, I don't know.
All I knows, is that I likes me movies. And on the bigscreen with a big audience and a big popcorn. None of this namby pamby home theatrette. WTF is that all about? I have a basic one and I love it. But it will never replace going to the flicks.