Cinema Twilight: The Best of 2006

I was a bad cinephile this year, and most of the movies I've watched while in Bolivia have been on my computer (sigh). This no doubt contributed to a less effective screening of CHILDREN OF MEN, but I didn't seem to mind with LITTLE CHILDREN. Almost all of my favorite films this year were ones I saw on the big screen - HALF NELSON, THREE TIMES, THE PROPOSITION, L'ENFANT, BORAT, even CASINO ROYALE. When my roommate here watched a low-res, spanish-dubbed BORAT by himself on his iBook, I knew there was no way his experience could even approach mine: a raucous crowd in a packed Manhattan theatre on opening weekend. Similarly, I know my viewing of UNITED 93 - crowded room, small tv, with a bunch of eastern europeans who spoke bad english, I was seriously the only American in the room - couldn't have been close to what you guys experienced. So shmuck that David Denby is, I thought his article in the New Yorker raised some interesting questions. In a time when a film could be viewed anywhere from an iPod to and IMAX theatre, maybe THE WIRE has the advantage of a more consistent medium of exhibition.

Last thing: am I the only one who liked LITTLE CHILDREN? I thought it was fucking brilliant: honest, complex characters, terrific acting, one of the best-told stories of suburban, middle-aged repression I've seen (and far preferable to IN THE BEDROOM, which I always thought was overrated).

Actually, it does matter...I'm just kind of defensive about my portable DVD player, which has a nine-inch screen yet can still do many movies justice. I got my second helping of Kieslowski's RED, WHITE & BLUE trilogy on that thing and it did not diminish the quality of any of the films. If I viewed BORAT the same way—alone, on a plane—the movie might not even have graced my top fifteen, let alone top ten.

Oscar! You're great. I'm sorry you had to see CHILDREN OF MEN—which is an overwhelming cinematic experience that only the Big Screen can do justice—on the small screen. That Denby piece is a monster, but a very informed and informative monster. I especially love its description of the Arclight, a theater that I have been to many times in Hollywood that has better sound/projection/seats than any other cinema I've been to. The Arclight even has a Block Cinema-esque show captain who welcomes everybody before every show.

I would also like to congratulate Nihal on his hilarious use of categories; they were definitely laugh-out-loud-and-I-don't-mean-just-a-smile-with-an-appreciation-for-wit.

I will say that I have had some of my most precious cinematic experiences in my home theater. And one has to. Is Children of Men any more dependent on its big screen-ness than 2001: A Space Odyssey or the original Solaris or Aguirre, the Wrath of God - all of which are clearly preferable to see in theaters, but all of which I saw for the first time on DVD or laserdisc, and each of which is one of my favorite movies ever made. What I'm saying is: Cuaron can eat me.

...between seeing something on a nice, large, flatscreen television with proper stereo sound and seeing something on a portable player, or my crappy 19" TV for that matter. No comparison. I would argue that a 50+" TV with good sound is closer to the theater than a portable DVD player is to the 50" TV.

Does this mean that rich people are more likely to have good taste in movies?

that a 19" TV with a vhs tape playing on it is at best equal, but likely inferior to a 7" portable dvd player watched by someone with decent vision, mostly due to sound quality.

If not for the fact that I still use them to tape things off TV (like the Oscars), I would say death to VHS!

Watching anything on my laptop in bed with dope headphones can be pretty fucking theatrical when it's all up in my face--both an indulgence and a necessity with vision as poor as mine. The trick is to get that shit so up in your grill that you cut out any possibility of peripheral vision.

Also, though theatrical sound to truly appreciate the work of the foley artists is probably a crucial element of the experience, I tend to think music sounds better with headphones since you can hear all the low-frequency shit and other audio details that can be lost in air travel. This (headphones vs. speakers) is the subject of another debate, but don't you think there isn't anything more "surround sound" than inserting speakers into your ears and cutting out the middle-man--air?

Some observations/conclusions...

01. I'm an antisocial (and frugal, not to mention blind) viewer of moving pictures.

02. (a) One of the biggest obstacles to true enjoyment of audio-visual workz is open space. The less space between you and the (probably mediocre if from 2006) movie, the easier it gets to become sensically overwhelmed by the product, the closer you are to attaining verisimilitude. In short, claustrophobia can lead to profound engagement. Air is the enemy, people!

(b) Another obstacle related to open space is state of mind. The reasoning in the above subsection is based on an assumption that minimizing potential physical distractions enhances a viewer's ability to appreciate the work. Mental distractions--like worrying about other stuff in your life, or even just being a skeptical, judgmental asshole who can't take anything seriously because you think you're just so fucking smart, and since Hollywood caters its output to the modern consumer in mind it is impossible for anything to be either totally vacuous or, at best, meretricious--are equally harmful. That's why I also prefer to address--that is, eliminate--this obstruction in my capacity for suspension-of-disbelief with the help of some soul-soothin'Al Green. That sticky icky icky get yo' mind right.

03. Agreement on one note: contemporary American cinema's got nuthin' on The Wire. The extent of its utter magnificence has even made me go beyond the unextraordinary "movies-ain'-shit." There are times that I think contemporary literature may also have been sonned by The Wire, but then again I haven't read any literature in quite a while. Oh, The Wire, my love for and devotion to you cannot ever be adequately expressed. In my heart, your sublimity may have trascended all media.

04. There are few things I love more than proclaiming unresearched generalizations. I'm not even sure if my biggest hobby (of getting faded and watching shit) can even stand up to unresearched generalizations. I guess that hobby does contribute a great deal to the scope of how uninformed my generalizations are.

*There has been only one exception I have found to my sweeping assumption that this supplement can make almost any moving picture of any caliber--especially lowbrow mainstreamish feature films that get wide release--more enjoyable or endurable at the very least. In linkresearching for this comment, I discovered that there is a sequel in the works for this worst-shit-I've-ever-seen.

The size debate becomes moot when that shit is all up in ya grill.

No matter how "up in ya grill" a laptop or portable DVD player is, that can't (literally: cannot) make the image any bigger. Thus, while it is obviously preferable to watch a laptop 2" from your face rather than across the room, thus enabling you to read the tiny 8-pt. font notes written on various postcards strewn throughout The Player (just for instance!), those tiny inscriptions are still just as small and you STILL might not be able to read them.

WHEREAS! When you are watching a big screen TV or, heaven forbid, a movie screen, distance ceases to matter. Or actually, it matters inversely. The closer you are, the more distorted it becomes. The further away, the more clarity there is.

What I'm sayin' is: movies ideally should be experienced from a distance, unlike videogames, drugs and genitalia.

Alright, fine, ok, I know. I need glasses.

I'm glad that we can at least all be in agreement that The Wire is objectively the greatest thing.

I wonder if the variety of apparati for viewing movies is going to have the same effect on the medium as pop music adopting a more compressed sound to be louder on the radio?