Specials: DVD vs. Big Screen, Kiarostami

Today’s specials:

Welcome to Looking Closer, where the only cell phone ringing is your own.

• More people are staying home to watch movies. Are you?

  I’ve gotta admit that, unless the film has a notable cinematographer or an abundance of special effects, I’m more and more inclined to avoid the crowds and watch it on DVD. Who wants to be surrounded by talking, crunching, snoring, restless, smooching masses providing their own commentaries when you could be at home with the option of the filmmaker‘s commentary? And if you need evidence of a literacy problem in America, note how many people can’t read the Turn Off Your Cell Phone messages. If theaters want to be appealing to patrons, they need to make the place more comfortable, they need to pay projectionists enough so they can hire people that know what they’re doing, and they need to enforce more strictly the No Cell Phones rule.

  I once turned and reprimanded a young woman for talking on her cell phone DURING the movie. I said, “Didn’t you read the instructions at the beginning of the film?” She replied, “It said to turn off the ringer on the cell phone. It didn’t say you couldn’t talk on the phone.” Her boyfriend, meanwhile, looked incredibly disinterested in the film… which happened to be Spider-man… on opening day. Twenty minutes into the fast-paced action, I heard him sigh deeply and mutter in complaint, “This is the longest movie.”
  I fear for the future of our nation.

• I’M NOT SAD. BUT UNIVERSAL PICTURES IS.
  Was the title Cinderella Man too “girly”-sounding for Russell Crowe fans?

• LESSONS FROM A MASTER DIRECTOR
  What could you do with a camera in an elevator?

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