Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Harry Potter and the Cauldron of Ads
I made a mistake yesterday. I went to see the new Harry Potter movie.
Nah, the movie's fine. Probably the best of the lot (I reserve final judgment on that until I have it at home and can watch it a couple more times). Certainly the darkest of them all, appropriately enough.
The problem was with the ads which ran before it. There were 7 trailers for upcoming movies. There were 4 full length ads for television shows. And there were two ads for the military. It took like a half hour to get through all this crap.
Because of our care-giving situation, it is very rare that my wife and I get out to see a movie in a theater. We have to make respite care arrangements, and that can only really work in the afternoons, so we have to catch an early matinee - which are usually limited here in my little city to big-name movies. Probably the last one I saw was Goblet of Fire. So I haven't slowly been trained to accept so much an intrusion on my time. And I resent it. Deeply.
It occured to me as I was sitting there, counting off the ads, becoming more annoyed, that this was a perfect metaphor for our culture. We've been groomed to be nice and patient consumers - to sit quietly and let others force-feed us bullshit, with the reward of something mildly entertaining at the end of it. You certainly see it with television (one of the reasons I just don't watch anything right off the box anymore...if there's something I want to see, I'll record it and skip the ads). You also see it with sites running little ads and promos before you can get to the content (the damned dancing chunk of coal or whatever it is that shows up over at PZ's site is one example).
And lastly, you see it with the promises from religion: play nice now, give us your money, sit and listen to our moralizing, and when you die you get to go to heaven. Depending on the flavor of religion, you get to be in His Presence, or unified with the One, or can play harps forever, or see all your progeny increase your status, or get to screw however many virgins the bidding now is up to.
It's all bullshit. It's all just a waste of the only time you have, here and now.
Jim Downey
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Ads and more ads
I own a lot of TV series on DVD, and over time, the programs have gotten shorter and shorter. In the early seasons of Cheers, for example, the episodes are about 26 minutes long; by the later seasons of Frasier, they are down to about 23 minutes or less. More recent shows are even worse. Same goes for "hour" shows, which are now about 42 minutes long.
At the beginning of your post, I thought you were going to link commercial culture with the current US political situation; instead you went with Pie in the Sky. Nice!
Movie ads
I tend to take my DS (backlight feature) along so I can play it during the ads. This time as it happened I didn't, but the majority of the ads were for films that looked interesting. The add for scion.com was a treat (killing all those sheeple sounds like fun), there was only one ad for the military at my theater (well, we're in suburbia, mostly white, and probably wealthy enough not to need to jump into the meat grinder for money).
One thing I hate about DVDs is that they're having longer and longer commercial periods before the show, as if this weren't enough some of them have figured out ways to make their ads unskippable (well, nearly, I can usually figure out what button to press) what really pisses me off is the "Thou shalt not copy and distribute this media" message, it's generally unskippable whereas on VHS I could just fast forward. I like anime DVDs, they don't usually have those (or the stupid "the ideas expressed within this media in no way reflect the feelings of the distributor" message, I mean who the hell even thinks that! "maah!" oh right, sheeple). The trailers are either skippable or an optional extra.
Cliff's Notes for movies
Not only are feature movies preceded by longer and longer blocks of trailers and commercial spots, the trailers seem to have gotten astonishingly stupid. Is it just me, or do trailers now insist on giving away everything? After most trailers, I feel like I've seen all the highlights and plot points. How would they advertise The Crying Game today? "See the guy who looks like a cute girl!" I hate movie trailers. Hate 'em.
I've found that it's best to
I've found that it's best to stand atop your movie seat and point your wand at the screen, yelling "EXPELLIAMUS!"
Or, call forth He Who Shall Not Be Named, out of his cushy little management office, to complain. You know...take the Dark Lord by the wand, so to speak? :)
Ooooooh, better yet, send Warner Bros. a howler.
They're not here to stay
At the risk of sounding excessively libertarian, the secret is competition. There was a period when all of the theatres in the area (SF) were doing something similar, and the patrons finally voted with their feet and said, "Screw it, we'll wait for the DVD." Several of the larger houses started advertising (in print) "No Ads" and "No more than three trailers." It worked and pressured the other theatres to cut back.
Complain. Sometimes it works.
I don't bear a grudge. I have no surviving enemies.
I don't go.
Yeah, as I indicate, I just don't go very often. Not worth the hassle - just wait a few months and get the DVD/put it in the NetFlix queue.
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Rented DVDs not much improvement.
I haven't been to a 'real' movie in decades, and we see very little TV, too insultingly stupid and we only get three channels poorly, one of which is fortunately PBS. We do rent the DVDs when they come out and what bugs me is the ads and trailers on the rented DVDs. It's about the same thing as you describe Jim, half a stinking hour of trailers and other self promo. And the worst insult is that on the worst offenders, the 'skip' button won't fast forward, you have to watch it all before the actual flick.
Spelling Police!
You'll want to edit the post title as the word is spelled "cauldron"
Aside from that, I feel exactly the same way. Unfortunately it would seem that ads in theaters are here to stay. As you note, it's a captive audience and if there's any way to use that to generate income, someone will find it!
Thanks!
...for catching the spelling error - and to Brent or whomever fixed it.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
I don't see that many ads browsing the web
Get Firefox with AdBlock+. Browsing the web without AdBlock is just too painful. It won't get stop the stupid promo pages, but you'll be able to find the 'skip ad' tag much quicker. As far as advertising goes, I differ to the wisdom of Bill Hicks.
Same here
Firefox rules. Especially for those of us still on dialup who really don't want to wait whole minutes for the flash ads to finish loading. Flash Block is another good add on. Looking at Pharyngula I can see there are several things from doubleclick (I blocked that long ago), so I guess that's why the only ads I noticed were the books.
What promo pages?
Movie Ads
In Heaven, all Christian men will be reunited with all their ex-wives.
Just evil.
Hank, I believe in activism. But you're just evil.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Feeling better...
...but as you can see, still cranky. I can at least think a little more clearly this morning, so long as I take the OTC meds at appropriate times for the symptoms. So, I should get a new and longer post about the Gala at the Heinlein Centennial done and posted over on my blog later today, probably this afternoon. It doesn't seem to really be suitable for UTI, so I invite you to check it out over there, later.
(Edited to add: it's posted.)
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
My fave's still Prisoner of Azkaban
I saw the new Harry Potter flick also...it was enjoyable. But my favorite so far remains The Prisoner of Azkaban. It was the most poignant film, I thought, with the most raw emotion. Harry finds, then loses, the best teacher he's ever been able to relate to; finds a long lost relative who knew his parents intimately...
The climax of that movie, when Harry realizes his dead father is NOT coming to save his bacon & his friends and it really is up to him to act, that whole scene literally brought tears to my eyes. Very emotionally gratifying for an atheist viewer, I guess, though perhaps I did not make that connection consciously at the time.
I've never actually read any of the books; I just enjoy the films AS films.
Most trailers these days, my usual comments are "boy, I'm sure not paying full price to see THAT!".
We also had 2 military ads---1 Marine Corps, and 1 National Guard ad. Very rare to see USAF or Navy.
I'm usually at the theater early, so I also sit through those stupid "still" slides, too.
I usually bring a book to read until the house lights go down, then just munch on popcorn while they get through the previews. I also hate "unskippable" previews on rental and purchased DVDs, though sometimes if I can get the root directory menu to show up I can jump to the start screen...but some DVDs disallow this function. I agree about Anime DVDs--the previews are an "added" feature you can choose to view--or not--at your leisure.
Sometimes my PS2 doesn't like certain DVDs and I end up having to watch them on my laptop. One of my Gunslinger Girls Anime DVDs did that to me once, actually--but curiously not all of them.
Show up late
I'm rarely on-time to anything but on the rare occasion that I go to a movie I make sure I'm at least 10 minutes late, Actually the last time I got dragged to the theater was for "The Departed" (which was lame) and we had a few beers and shots at a restaurant in the mall prior to the show. BTW: if your about to see a bad movie a big ass over-priced shot of 151 is a great head start. enough 151 dulls any pain, but be careful, its flammable.
As for DVD's yeah that shit is lame, I bought this product I should have the right to skip whatever I want to skip. You'll notice the Ads for HD-DVD says that the go immediately to the movie, just like what they said when DVDs first came out. OH and my response if I can't skip ahead is usually to turn the movie on then use the bathroom or grab a drink or do whatever its not like I can miss anything it stops at the menu anyway.