By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Peter Howell says it's over and it makes him sad
While Toronto Star’s Peter Howell has a 2005 top 10, he’s sounding the knelliest of death knells for the cinema-going experience: “We may look back on this year as the beginning of the end of movie-going as we know it. I’m referring to the magnificent ritual of the past century, whereby film lovers congregate in dark public auditoriums to gaze upon a silver screen reflecting wondrous images. I see this rite changing dramatically, and it saddens me.
This might sound alarmist, and I wish it were simply that. But technological and cultural innovations of the past 12 months have pointed the way to a revolutionary future for the movies, one that few could have envisioned until recently. Watching a film is fast becoming a hermit’s pursuit.”
After a stretch musing on the iPod, Howell writes, “Traditionalists who demand a larger screen may well opt to stay in their basements, viewing a DVD on a new high-definition TV, because the cost of turning your abode into a bijou is rapidly dropping. How many times have you heard people say in the past year that they’d prefer to stay home and watch a movie on DVD, because the quality is so good, the price is right and they don’t have to put up with the cost, the noise, the ads and the rude patrons found in cinemas?… The century-old habit of going out to the movies could become a cult pursuit indulged in by the nostalgic, much like the people who gather for antique car shows. And the films that do get shown in public theatres will either be blockbusters like King Kong or sentimental reissues of Casablanca and other classic fare. Independent and foreign films will be virtually shut out. The vast middle ground of popular entertainment will have been ceded to the single end-user, huddled in a basement or coffee shop.”