I go to the movies not to be impressed, but to be overwhelmed. In the movies, you have humanity right next to you (presumably not using a cell phone), and humanity in front of you, so outsized and vivid as to sometimes be overwhelming. I like being in the presence of images that are much bigger than I am, particularly faces. I don’t like being around people who look at their cell phones in the movies (you know who you are), but I love being with a group of people all sharing the same experience, even if we’re not necessarily having the same experience. But even though I have watched my share of movies on television-as so many people do while growing up-my dirty little secret is that I love leaving the house. There’s also “I like watching stuff at home, where there are no annoying people to bother me,” which, on my darkest days, I admit is a compelling argument.
A third argument-“It’s so expensive to go to the movies”-is, sadly, extremely defensible, so in that instance I have made it my policy not to accept any nickels. Another popular phrase, “I’ll watch at home when it shows up on ” would further enhance my kingdom of nickels. If I had a nickel for every acquaintance who has told me, “There’s so much great writing on television! So much more than in the movies!” I would never need another nickel again. And if the filmmaking landscape has changed considerably over the past 20 years, it has changed radically in roughly the past five, as television has stolen so much of filmmaking’s glory.
Naturally, there’s a broad middle ground of mediocrity.