Look, I’ll Pay You For It

I love movies. I appreciate great films and excellent filmmaking, but I also enjoy watching mainstream movies. I love everything about the movies.

I grew up with a TV in the house (I’m not that old), but watching movies at home was very rare until I was much older. New cable channels were arriving that carried movies and sports when I was in middle school, but we didn’t have the money to subscribe until I was in high school. My first trip to a video store was also not until high school when we went to pick out a laserdisc to see at a friend’s house. I don’t think we owned a VCR until I was in college.

Now we live in a completely different world. At our house we watch movies on our iPhones, iPads, and computers. We also fire up movies from a variety of providers on the XBOX, PS3, and AppleTV, not to mention all the choices on the plain old TV. It’s hard to even remember when you couldn’t just re-watch a great film almost anytime, and anywhere, you wanted.

Even more than the films themselves, I think, I’ve always loved “going to” the movies. When I was a young boy, I remember my mom piling us into the car along with some of our friends for a trip to the drive-in movie where we could see three movies for $7 for the whole carfull. Drive-ins were becoming a thing of the past, so they adapted to survive. It was a blast, and on some days it worked out to about forty cents per person per movie.

There is something about that experience I still love, but going to the movies has its disadvantages. The ticket is expensive. The popcorn, which is terrible in most cases, is expensive and you’re told that keeps the ticket prices low (thereby conditioning you to expect higher prices someday), and to compensate theaters for your sloppiness. Meanwhile, many theaters turn a blind eye to loud and disruptive moviegoiers, which can ruin even a very good movie.

So, it’s nice to have the option to see some movies at home.

But it would be better if we had even more choices. The movie industry, like the music industry, tends to fight changes that would be better for viewers, and in the long run better for those who make the movies too.

Things are changing. Independent filmmakers are trying new methods of distribution, and even some of the Hollywood mainstream are starting to experiment with using Torrents or direct to Cable/Satellite distribution models.

I can’t wait for the day when movies are available on a variety of platforms all at once when they are initially released. I am willing to pay fair prices for movies if I can see them when I want, where I want, and how I want. Let’s make it happen.