 Editor:
Dave Uphoff
This weekend Judy and I attended a movie in Indianapolis. My how times
have changed! First of all, I had to recover from sticker shock when I
found out that tickets cost $9 each and popcorn sold from $4 to $6. I
remember when it costs 14 cents for a ticket to the Minonk Theatre in
the 1950's and popcorn was a dime.
I stopped going to movies
many years ago because I really just lost interest. I was an avid movie
goer in the late 40's and the 50's watching cowboy movies, The Three
Stooges, The Bowery Boys, Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Cagney gangster
movies. They were rather simple movies that were entertaining. After
awhile I found it hard to sit through a movie. Everything became
predictable in movies. I became jaded. After a few hundred movies, you
pretty well know what is going to happen next. The best movies that I
have seen in the past 30 years were "The Yellow Submarine" with the Beatles and "Babe" a story about a pig saved from the butcher block. That pretty well sums up my eclectic taste in movies.Even
though I enjoyed the above movies, I have always preferred biographies
or documentaries over fictional stories. This includes not just movies,
but television shows and books. Real life events are not only more
interesting, we can also learn something from them. Fiction such as the
Star Wars trilogies or sitcoms bore me because they are the figment of
someone's imagination and nothing is usually learned from them. Fiction
such as cowboy movies or horror movies are ok when you are young and
just want to be entertained. But as I get older, I want to learn as
much as I can by observing real life events. I don't want to waste my
time on being passively entertained. I do enjoy a good joke, however. While
at the movies I couldn't help notice the clothes that young people
wear. Most of the young boys in the theater had on t-shirts that hung
down to their knees and baggy shorts that came halfway down between
their ankles and their knees. Some wore pants that were split 6 inches
up from the cuff. It seems that it becomes a contest to see who can
look the most ridiculous. If kids wore clothes like that when I was
young, we would have laughed at them and called them a sissy.
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While
the boys looked mostly neuter in their gender, the girls definitely
showed their femininity with their tight pants and sweaters. Are girls
really built better than what they used to be or is it just the
clothing that makes the difference? What
really annoyed me about the movie was the endless parade of previews
before the main feature and the many advertisements. There were at
least 6 previews lasting over 20 minutes prior to the main feature.
Whatever happened to cartoons or news reels as lead ins? I thought it
might be a good idea to show news clippings of all the bombings going
on in Iraq to remind us how good we have it back here compared to the
poor Iraqi's and the American soldiers over there. The
sound in the movie theater was deafening and became downright annoying
after awhile. After watching the previews and the movies, I came away
with the impression that special visual and sound effects are the only
thing left to lure customers into the movie houses. All of the plots
have been used up! In fact, what is happening in movies seems to mirror
what is happening to our culture in general. Technology and violence
have replaced drama and plots in our movies and in our lives. No one
has the patience to sit and wait for a plot to unfold. Violence and
special effects are needed to hold our attention. Patience is no longer
endured in our society. It
will probably be a long time before I go to another movie. I find them
too annoying, too expensive and too boring. I will take the History Channel any day. After proof reading this editorial, Judy told me, "Don't rain on my parade, #$*%!." On
the way home I made another observation. Why is it whenever I want to
take an exit off of the interstate I have to follow 4 trucks going 55
mph bumper to bumper for a mile before I can get off? Like I said, no
one has any patience anymore, especially me.
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