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
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.

ellery911
549 posts
 
Wow...what a great topic. I think I could get up on either sides soapbox and and legitimately argue for both.

I personally love HT. Yes, it does let me enter the land of the dumb and allow me to be spoonfed my entertainment for a couple hours however, this is just how I like to be "entertained". The $$$ amount spent on a persons HT is completely irrelevant. Alot of people will want to argue the discretionary income thing. Dumb, Fat, Stupid, Lazy, Unaware, Selfish Americans are being created long before they ever set foot in a home theater. Somewhere I remember hearing that the average american spends 8 hours a day watching tv...Me?...I dont even have cable and only get NBC with a pair of rabbit ears.

Now do movies dumb down america?...Sure, there are alot of bad movies released nowadays, but there are also plenty of exceptional ones. Big $$$ hollywood flash is not always the best place to look and some of the indie film companies have put out some masterpieces. At least with a movie, I'm only out $2 to rent it and if it sucks, I can turn it off and do something else...then again, I'm not always sure if that something else is bettering my life in any way either. Would it be better to sit on the couch stuffing my face while critically listening to whatever my latest gear/software purchase? Hell, for a hundred bucks I could get a playstation and really ruin my life.

Ok lets face it, our society is FAR from perfect, but i think that the most important thing that everybody must realize, that although we will usually not agree with everybody elses ideas, something of value can be learned from EVERYONE if we allow it to be so. Too bad our society is one that has a hard time being truly selfless and rather it's actions are usually in the pursuit of immediate self gratification or self interest. Maybe someday we will have a society where kids play sports on a field instead of a television, where we all had better diets etc etc.

On that I will close...these are only my opinions. Maybe a good Movie Recommendation right now would be "Pay It Forward"

Oh...and do something nice for somebody today with no strings attached
nanderson OP
291 posts
 

I had to respectfully laugh for quite a while upon reading the "summary" statement that our society is far from ideal offered as almost an excuse not to live an Examined Life vs the Unexamined Life (actually it is "Examined" by the media that tells us all we need to know. Why do people Examine the assumptions only after a traffic accident like 911 and ENRON?). So often that summary seems to make people feel good inside in some perverse way and make things right through the non-reflective self-answer: "Wow, we are all in this soup together so our collective ideas must be right!" Mike Tyson and variety of misfits have used the phrase "I am not perfect so....blah blah blah". Seeming to imply no one is perfect so we should not question the extent of our own imperfections as a person or as a society. Almost everywhere in the world outside of the US. People have the opinion like the other audiogoner presented above:

"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?"


Most successful European Countries do not work as many hours because of some weird notion they have that "Time is more valuable than Things" (I think they got that idea from talking to some corpses:). In America you do not have Time for Things you buy because you are always working to buy them. Then when you get them they do not make you happy. So, with the assumption if you made more money you could buy even more expensive things which will make you happy since the cheaper ones did not, you go for next higher job which requires more Time so you have less Time for the things that cost more that still do not make you happy. So you go for the next higher job....blah blah.....".

Things change initially by being introduced to other points of view. How many movies that are widely distributed challenge us (challenge should not be bad word but somehow in US the media wants it that way)? Of that small select group of films that expand our view of the world how many would make a hill of beans of difference if you heard through a 4" TV speaker or $120,000 ATC System? Volume maybe is only necessary if what you have to say is not obvious without making it the only thing your brain can deal with because it overwealms all other senses.

I once heard that people need stronger spices in food as they grow older because their senses have dulled. Maybe that is the logic of Home Theatre?

Growth and wonder are prime ingredients in bringing excitement to life and the true value of youth. Whereas stagnation via a broken record of non-ideas is very dangerous and unhealthy. This is not a matter of litening up (another cliche excuse to go brain dead or asleep and focus on primal sports metaphors for making decisions in life). Rather this is about putting some high octane fuel into the engine of wonder: The Brain you own but that Media apparently is renting with right to purchase at the end of the lease.

:)

PS: I think it does matter how much one spends on anything since it puts a cap on or eliminates other options including charity. In addition, there is more than a strong tendency to give a disproportional amount of time on things we over emphasize in our family budgets often far beyond our actual fulfillment or enjoyment of them.

:0 What an Insightful Real Life Concept!

By the way, doesn't it sound like a new Star Wars Sequel "The Axis of Evil"

kslim
3 posts
 
North Korean goverment called US "The Empire of Evil" after being called "The Axis of Evil", which for sure reminds me of Star Wars Sequel.

Children exposed to these days media need extreme cares/attentions of their guardian, so that their brains can function when they grow up. Perhaps it'd be a way better, had they not been exposed to these at all. At least not until they establish some ability to be self aware.

For the grown-up, I think self-controlled exposure to media can be entertaining without too much damage. We all die :)
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