What Happened to the Movies?

With all the recent bad weather we became victims of cabin fever. We avoided the stores starting the week before the 25 because of the crowd. Add to that the nasty road conditions and then you get the two of us looking at one another for several days.

We decided that maybe a trip to the video store was in order. There was a time when we would see every art film that hit the theaters in Portland. Since then there had been promise that local cinemas would dedicate one of their screens or one day to art films and that promise fizzled fast. We no longer go to Portland on leisure often enough to keep up on what is good and what is not. I haven’t been to a theater in the last five years; sad but true.

As we strolled down the wall of recent releases I was shocked at the movie wasteland. The wall was filled with films that were in the theater for a week; if that long. There was nothing outstanding. They were mostly chick flicks and movies for 16 year old white boys. After looking for nearly an hour I left with the new Morgan Spurlock documentary, Looking for Osama, which was cute at best. I was pleasantly surprised by my wife's selection, Stranger Than Fiction. I groaned when I saw Will Farrell as a cast member, but this is a really good film. It has Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson and Tom (hasn't been in a film in 17 years) Hulce. This is a quasi narrated film. It's worth a look.