A Night at the Movies

I woke up this morning feeling bleak. I might be able to attribute that to the fact that my daughter shot -as was once said on "The Worst Show"- LIQUID POO at me whilst a 3:00am diaper changing was commencing. Maybe it is the thought of political and economic uncertainty in the wake of a media darling occupying the most powerful seat on Earth. Is it moral bankruptcy, lost innocence, the nature of the sacred and how it is mocked by our populous? Is it because -as My Chemical Romance has so eloquently shouted- these teenagers scare the living s*** out of me, simply by their all-encompassing yearning to live like they do on The Hills? Is it the sense of entitlement our society has that is eroding all hope? Is it that my hairdresser used too much bleach in my coiffure last night, and my vain attempt at holding fast to my youth has left me looking like a pock-less Gordon Ramsey?

Or is it simply because all excitement has been kaibached from the movies we are subjected to thanks to cable TV and the over accessibility of film on DVD? See kids, back when there was no accessible media and cable was something that only Greg Funkhouser had access to because of that giant dish in his backyard, you could usually count on one of the THREE major networks blocking off a couple of hours of prime time air to show last year's great blockbuster. But it wasn't just showing a movie on TV. They would advertise it far in advance to get you prepped for it, and every show would open with some cool intro like the one above. Am I the only one that misses getting permission to stay up until 10 to watch the Network Television Premier of (fill in the name of any 70's or 80's movie here,) after anticipating its airing for weeks? Remember what it was like to fill a paper grocery bag with popcorn fresh from the hot air popper and gather with your family to watch it? It was a friggin' event! As time went on, you would even tape it and be very careful to edit out the commercials so you could move through it easier during repeated viewings! Do you remember how comical it was to watch "Arthur" in such a fashion because the network's editors obviously over-dubbed Dudley Moore saying "wash my NECK" when you knew he said something much more dirty in the real film?

Do you remember when you anticipated the release of "The Empire Strikes Back" so much that you would clip any scrap about it out of your mom's Good Housekeeping just so you could prepare yourself for it? Am I just an angry old man, spurned on by the flash-in-the-pan nature of today's infotainment-overload? Could be, but there is just nothing to look forward to any more because all of the pageantry has been taken away in lieu of more choices.

Case in point: Billy Crystal once said that cable was a sham because "....you pay 40 bucks a month and you get to see 'The Beastmaster' 53 times." It is happening more literally than he could have joked. "The Wedding Singer" has been on TV EVERY NIGHT THIS WEEK on three different cable networks. I am not even kidding. It was funny once.......once.

Maybe we were just more easily entertained back in the day. Maybe I just need to put more effort into making an event out of something trivial purely for the sake of recreating that kind of feeling for my daughter.

Speaking of which, I should probably start working and stop typing this so I can do so. Sorry for the rant. Discuss......