The life and death of movies

With home theaters, big screen television and other temptations to make you wait for the DVD, the movie industry clearly needs new dazzle to lure moviegoers to theaters. The enhanced 3-D digital of Beowolf certainly present an enticing carrot.

Spears and Grendle come right at ya, and it's all in all a pretty wowing movie experience, but I felt like I was witnessing spears being driven not into sea monsters so much as moviegoing with the flip side of the experience.

The digital theater in town, where you had to go for the 3-D version, offers dazzling clarity. Still, I have to wrangle with Christine to convince her to go to that Carmike-owned establishment over the locally-owned theater closest to the house. She doesn't worry as much about crystal clarity as I do.

But for 3-D she agreed.

Only to be subjected to what she hates most about the Carmike theater, where we used to get a Fantanas concert every time we went. As Entertainment Weekly once put it "enough with the $3%@*(&^*%*% Fantanas."

It's the holiday movie season so there are more commercials than ever. We got an extended music video about the National Guard then a host of paid commercials, then a string of previews including a cool new I Am Legend trailer.

Then came the message to put on the 3-D glasses, a demo of 3-D effects, a preview of a a 3-D U2 concert video--Bono comin' at you--and a preview for Journey 3-D with Brendan Fraiser.

Then more previews.

"This has been going on for half an hour," Christine said.

She was right of course.

Once Beowolf started and we settled in and enjoyed it, but I'm going to have a heck of a time making another "it's worth it for the digital experience" argument.

Enough with the overabundance of commercials. I know I'm not the only one saying it. That's because it's true.

Keep it up, theater chains, and I will wait for the DVD.