Over dinner the other night a friend asked, “Do you go to the movies often?” It’s a pretty simple question, but every time I get asked it, I get a little embarrassed.
Most people enjoy going to the movies.
I don’t.
Most people enjoy IMAX, stadium seating, wearing high tech eye wear to see objects fly from the screen into your face.
I don’t.
Before the Borat movie came out, the last time I was in a theatre “The Muppets Take Manhattan” was the box office hit of the week.
It’s not that I don’t like movies, it’s that I don’t like Hollywood. Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour and Bing Crosby aren’t on the road anymore, Robert Mitchum is six feet under and today it takes plenty of gore and dismemberment to scare an audience when in the past just a glimpse of Boris Karloff would do the trick.
Actors in the glory days of Hollywood weren’t actors, they were “movie stars.” Many got their start in Vaudeville or in professional theatre companies before leaving their mark on the Walk of Fame. A quick scan of actors starring in the movies playing today on Turner Classic Movies is a venerable who’s-who of what-was. They didn’t drop the f-bomb every three words, making love was a kiss on the cheek and when someone got shot there always was a lack of blood and the victim never got blasted with assault rifles.
Today, we don’t have “movie stars.” I don’t know what you would call the actors of today’s Hollywood. I certainly can’t lump people like Johnny Knoxville into any category occupied by the likes of Vincent Price or Shemp Howard.
Rather than going to the theatre to spend $8 on burnt, salty, over buttered popcorn and $10 on a bad movie, I’d rather curl up on the couch watching Orson Welles in Touch of Evil while waiting for cheap delivery pizza to arrive.
Most people enjoy going to the movies.
I don’t.