2. home-theater
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Movie Software make HT a Waste of Resources?

This may be just me but how often after you seen the "cabon copy" explosion riddled movie trailer and said to yourself "God is this stuff stupid or what" and even worse.

As a music listener how long would we put up with consistently poor quality software that offends our intellect?

Seems to me that the movie industry thinks we are just stupid apes willing to buy anything the Hollywood Marketing guys/gals can regurgitate at us. Seriously, think about this next time you see a totally pointless plot but with your rerun "Take" 865.95 of bombs and flashes.

On the other hand where would Casablanca or Citizen Kane be without that great 7.1 sound :)?

I saw a bumper sticker a few years ago that read: "The more you know the less you need" . In the case of movies, maybe another sticker could read "The more you think the less you are willing spend in front of the screen watching carbon copies". Once in a while it is fun to watch a good boom boom if there is something to fill the space between the boom boomies such as Saving Private Ryan.

I am probably missing something here but why is home theatre worth ten's of thousands of dollars of our discretionary income?

Maybe that old song "In the year 2525 we will not need our minds, will not need our eyes...." was overly kind with respect to the date.

nanderson
avguygeorge
2,300 posts
 
Hi, Noel;
Just gotta love a guy who can quote Zagger and Evans.
I'm a full range/no subs kind of guy myself. I rent lots of movies;--New HD projector.--- Yes soooo many plots are reconfigured from movies that wern't that good anyway. My mind is blank now--(I think it came that way,and I want to keep it intact)--but there are also some good movies. I would guess we all have different tastes/ ages/and the like.

Back as a kid--in reference to cars--there was an expression--"If it don't go (fast) ,chrome it"-- Well the movie makers figure if it ain't good--make it loud?? It seems everybody also needs multiple subs. --Gotta go with what they give you--??

The movie"Irene and Me"; I hated on dvd,was exquisite in HD (HBO).There are many reasons I love movies.--Color photography, music within the movie--oh yea,once in a while; the story.
kthomas
911 posts
 
Not sure I understand the point of this thread - you don't like movies, don't understand why people would spend a lot of money on recreating them in their own homes, and ????

If you're telling us that a lot of movies are stupid or bad today, just re-hashed stories, is this a revelation? Citizen Kane being an older movie that was excellent - is this to imply that there wasn't a lot of tripe passed off as worthy of a movie theater ticket back when CK was made?

I would argue that there are more good to excellent movies being made today than ever before - more styles, more creativity, more talent. There's no time, IMO, that spending a lot on high-quality movie reproduction in my own house made more sense - it's one of the best entertainment "investments" I've ever made. It beats the boat I didn't buy, the vacation home I don't own, the $50K SUV I find ludicrous. When I sit down to watch an "escapist" movie, I'm pretty cognizant of the fact that the movie is "stupid" - just like football games, most optional reading, and dozens of other discretionary activities I and others participate in. I actually thought the point of a lot of these activities was that they don't all have to challenge my intellect, that I can occassionally give my intellect a couple hours off.

What discretionary activities and expenditures do you see fit? I'd be curious to hear what you've found that somebody can't find a completely negative characterization of.

nanderson OP
291 posts
 

Discretionary income is what is left over after what is necessary has been purchased. What seems relevant is what portion of your income and the rarest of things, time, goes into this diversion. So little time in this country is invested in understanding our place in the world. To me, to be alive is to be aware. In fact, that is often the criteria for determining Quality of Life or if you technically Dead! There is such liberation and fulfillment that comes from understanding and exploring the world around us. From that simple, yet, profound lense: The investment in dollars in Movies is to me, not as, much a problem for the dulling of America as the amount of time occupied with escape to the manufactured, unreal (often not even remotely believable)worlds of Hollywood. Diversion is not a problem but it is when that becomes the greatest limitation to understanding the difference between diversion and what is real. So much about America leds to fat bodies and dull minds: An example, Go to work in a climate controlled driving space of a gas guzzling SUV, then go into the sheltered parking garage, enter into the climate controlled office building for work, leave for home after work in the SUV, hit the garage door opener so you don't have to make your legs work for 20 feet, go into the climate controlled house, get a cold one, enter into the home theatre room with multi-controlled lighting systems, turn on an escape movie, listen to some bombs from the left rear channels panning to the right front channels, then before going to bed listen to the news presented by Corporations interested in keeping the American Public dull and unquestioning of norms (by the way, check out www.fair.org "Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting" to see what I am talking about).

I think a better summary as delivered by another Audiogon'er who responded to the exact same question I posed in another section thread. Here is his response:.



"The sad reality is that, for a substantial portion of the American public, crap is now the acceptable norm. One of my favorite entertainers was Steve Allen, a true Renaissance guy, who some years ago wrote a book about the "dumbing down" of America. What is happening in the American movie industry is but the unfortunate reflection of a poorly educated (in the full sense of the term) and relatively uncultured American population. The barbarians are no longer at the gate -- they now represent a significant influence in the U.S. population. Is it any wonder that the Islamic countries worry about cultural decay due to American influences?"


Something is incredibly wrong when enrichment in a variety of things is seen as out-of-step with society and becoming fat in the body and mind is in step.

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