The Where's Luke Movie Review: Inception

I saw Inception today. It was very good. I would recommend it. It is very engaging and even though it's two and a half hours, it moves along at a good pace. And below this post is a post I just wrote about Lost and the reason they are both here together is that I naturally compared them in my mind with Inception representing a "How To" and Lost representing a "How Not To" on creating an intricate story with details that you may ultimately want to leave up to the viewer.

I don't want to get into the plot because to start explaining it would require me to sortof finish explaining it and I don't want to do that. But I'll say this: the plot is a massive undertaking that requires serious attention to detail and I feel like all of the details were well accounted for. And sortof a side note, Joseph Gordon Levitt has some serious gravitas in his supporting role. There are some moments where it's like, "how come no one but this newbie ever thought of or noticed this before", but ultimately the story is engaging, intricate, and visually stunning.

If you want to go in with a fresh head, then stop reading right now. I'm not going to talk about Inception at all, but I'm going to compare it to some other movies and based on that you'll be able to infer some stuff about this movie. I'm just saying, I warned you. At its absolute most basic level this movie follows a pattern we've seen before in movies like 12 Monkeys, The Usual Suspects, and Total Recall. I think The Usual Suspects doesn't fit perfectly into this mold but at the end of that movie you can, if you are so inclined, argue about what was real and what wasn't and if you had just wasted your time or not. The simplest version of this type of story is Total Recall. But that's what ultimately makes it the least successful. It's ambiguous, yes, but ultimately entirely unimportant. Although I love the notion that the adventure was simply the "vacation" he paid for. It's somehow much more interesting that way. 12 Monkeys is the best example I can think of in this genre. At the end of the day in that movie, either he saved the world or the whole thing was just hallucinations of a crazy guy in 1995. And you really don't even think of the latter possibility until you let it marinate for a while. You're on board the whole time. And the movie doesn't end on the "what's real?" moment, it's just an organic byproduct of the plot. Really well done.

Inception is well done because in order to interpret one way or the other, you'll really need to actually search for the turning point. And what may be the obvious choice for that moment I think is not actually it. And I've only seen it once, so I can't really say where it is without seeing it again. And this is a movie that I will see again. Probably a couple times (on DVD, not like I'm gonna run out to the theater again). And while I'm leaning toward an interpretation, I do appreciate the ambuguity.

Tuesday Classic Internet Meme

Pre-Script: You should read Fail Blog. Be warned, though, you may find yourself reading it for many, many hours. Also you may find yourself LOLzing at work. Anyway, this is pretty funny.

The Reason Avatar is the Best Picture of 2009

I saw Avatar the other day. It was, and is, amazing. I've got to hand it to James Cameron, he really ascribes to the "go big or go home" school of film making. And for James Cameron he generally goes big in a good way. Unlike, say, Michael Bay, who thinks he's going big, when in actuality he's just making steaming piles of dung that happen to cost a lot of money to produce.

For James Cameron, he has consistently pushed the edge of the technology available in film making, while at the same time also concentrating on making the story interesting. I'm thinking of The Abyss, Terminator, Terminator 2, Titanic. All of these movies were on the cutting edge of the technology in their days, but each of them also had a pretty interesting story to tell. I certainly don't want to argue that Titanic was like the best movie ever or anything, but I will say that it was pretty engaging, made spectacular use of technology, and was downright epic in its scope. And let's not forget how groundbreaking Terminator 2 was when it was released. And if you've seen the Terminators that came after Cameron was involved, you have some good evidence of what happens when you take an interesting idea and a bunch of special effects without really caring for the story. You just get crap.

The skeleton outline of the plot of Avatar is fairly predictable. Given the premise, I'm sure you can guess exactly how it will play out. The humans go to a planet in some far off star system in order to mine some extremely rare compound. The bulk of the compound is directly underneath the settlement of the indigenous humanoid people. The humans are uncaring for the indigenous people, only want the compound, and are willing to force out the indigenous people if they won't simply agree to move. Part of their diplomacy effort was to create these "avatars" that look like the indigenous people and are controlled remotely by humans a lot like the virtual self in The Matrix. One of the avatar dudes gets lost and is taken in by the blue people and sortof acts as a spy for the humans while at the same time getting to know the ways of the blue people. You can imagine where it goes from there (I don't think they even have cable).

Anyhow, even given the predictable nature of the plot, the story is very engaging. But the story alone wouldn't make it the best picture of the year. It's not incredibly deep, despite the fact that it is very well told. What makes this the best picture is the integration of the technology into filmmaking in a way that I've never seen before. First of all, it's in 3D. If you've ever seen a 3D movie you know that the bulk of the time is spent just fawning over its 3Dness. Evil villains shooting their hands out toward the audience, some random object flying in your face, things that don't really fit just to be in 3D. This movie is not like that. After like 5 minutes, you don't even notice the 3D except for the fact that it more fully immerses you into the environment. It's not like I felt like I was on a distant planet in some far off solar system, but it was a step in that direction.

Even aside from the 3D this movie is rife with special effects. The bulk of the movie was shot in front of a green screen, and obviously all the scenes that involved the 9 foot tall blue people with tails were computer generated, though based on actor performance. Again, this movie was not a showcase for the effects, the effects really just served to tell the story. The way that all of those effects, which were essentially innumerable, were integrated in a way that didn't really stand out in terms of being special effects is really incredible.

Most movies, a good example is the suckfest of an (air quotes) "movie", Transformers, will spend all kinds of time on a special effect and then just bask in the special effect like, "yeah, that just happened. What!", instead of just telling the story. Special effects are cool, but if they don't help to tell the story, then they're just unnecessary.

I feel like the Lord of the Rings ushered in an era where special effects could simultaneously predominate a movie without overpowering it. And Avatar does this spectacularly, and on a whole new level. Watching this movie was an entirely new experience. And since this movie in a lot of respects is a game changer, a groundbreaker, a watershed (did anyone else just flash back to Dr. Gallo's class?), that is why it has to be the best picture of 2009.

Is There Anyone Who Doesn't Love This Movie?

Ok, just an extraordinarily unscientific poll. Is there anyone who was born between the years of 1976 and 1984 who does not love The Neverending Story? First of all, how many times have you watched this movie on channel 11 on a Sunday afternoon growing up? I've seen it, not hyperbole, at least 20 times. I have the DVD and every couple years I throw that bad boy in and I still love it just as much. I mean, like, I really just love this movie. And not only that, but I don't know of anyone who doesn't love it. So, if you're out there, and you don't love it, then make yourself known. I am of the opinion that you, much like Snuffleupagus, do not actually exist (yeah, I know that he actually does exist now for everyone and not just Big Bird. When did Sesame Street get so pussified, anyway?).

Now, Bastian was definitely a little bit (a lot) of a pansy, and there was a whole lot of unnecessary melodrama surrounding his sitting up in an attic reading a book, but that just adds to the childlike nature of the story, in my opinion. It's easy to watch it now and turn it into a drinking game or something where every time Bastian acts like a little bitch, you drink. Actually, shit, Open Bar, Side Bar, get the whiskey ready, we're doing that shit soon. Invite everybody. But you can also do the same thing with the original Star Wars (But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters.)

Personally, my favorite part is when Atreyu gets knocked out but Falcor flies him to to Southern Oracle and that little dude and his wife are running around and he's talking about his "scientific spesh-ee-ality" and he gets up in that little basket contraption.

Bonus points if you can tell me the name of Bastian's mother (without Googling it). I'll even put the scene up here for you.



I've similarly never met anyone who doesn't like The Princess Bride, although it's conceivable that The Princess Bride is the best movie ever, so it's not really even worth discussing. (I didn't care for the Godfather. It insists upon itself. I liked The Money Pit.) I have, amazingly, met a few people who don't like The Goonies. This is somewhat astonishing to me, but I am willing to concede that The Goonies is probably not as good as the other two aforementioned movies.

My New Favorite Rom Com?

In order for something to be a romantic comedy does it have to follow the rom com formula where boy meets girl, there's 90 minutes of silly contrivances, then they get together? If so, then 500 Days of Summer is not a romantic comedy. It does not follow that formula, but it is a movie about the relationship between these two people, Tom and Summer. Ah, what to say. It stars the kid from Angels in the Outfield, and who hasn't seen that at least 2.5 times on HBO, and Zooey Deschanel, who you may remember from Almost Famous or Elf. The only thing about this movie that is somewhat formulaic is this one satellite character who is just a caricature of a person. This one character is the guy who can't hold down a relationship, goes out and gets drunk all the time, says inappropriate things, even when he's not drunk, and doesn't have any feelings whatsoever. If you're reading this post, and you don't know someone like that, then you are that guy, by the way. Anyhow, if we're not counting this as a romantic comedy, then the I'd like to take this moment to remind everyone of my old favorite romantic comedy, Fools Rush In. (Click that link, read that post, and then come back here.)

Incidentally, Zooey Deschanel is also a really good singer, and has an album out with a band called She and Him. She's got a really great voice and she has sung in several movies, including Elf and this current one. This is beside the point, but this song off her album is really good, but the video is really weird.



Back to this movie. I guess all I want to say is that I really really really really really really really liked this movie. I found myself identifying with the main characters even though it doesn't really describe my relationship history in any way. I don't want to really talk about the plot in detail, but just take my word for it. It's a movie about their relationship, it's not formulaic, and it's really good.

What is the "Best Movie Ever"?

Not!

The world will never agree on what the Best Movie Ever is, even though it's quite clear to me that the answer is "Back to the Future."

See? You're already saying, "What the fuck kind of choice is that?" You might choose "The Godfather," and you'd have a hell of a case. You might say "Casablanca," and only an idiot would immediately disqualify it. You might run into some guy who thinks "Turtle Diary" was good. Of course, if that last case were to happen, you'd be within your Constitutional rights to throat-punch him, then go to his house, burn it down, and kick his dog, but let's be reasonable.

The point is, questions like "What's the Best Movie Ever?" are inherently subjective, and therefore cannot be positively determined. What makes a movie "the best" or even "good" differs from person to person. If the question is "What's the most influential movie ever?" then you at least have some kind of parameter. But even then, "Birth of a Nation" (in which the KKK are the heroes) would be near the top, and you'd probably have to include something like "The Jazz Singer," which is godawful bad, but it was the first "talkie," thus making it influential as all hell.

But the idea of a "Best Movie Ever" is nonsense. You could take a vote or something, but since when is art democratic? And who would vote? Everyone who's ever seen a movie?

I think the best answer to "What's the Best Movie Ever?" is whatever your favorite movie is. If it's your favorite -- and I don't care if it's "Citizen Kane" or "Billy Madison" -- that's the Best Movie Ever as far as you're concerned. Which again proves my scientific theory that "Back to the Future" is, in fact, the Best Movie Ever.

Why "Back to the Future"? Because I love it more than the others, that's why. And if I had to qualify it somehow, I would say that it does just about everything well, in terms of what movies can do: Great characters (George McFly, Biff, Doc Fucking Brown, et al), a super-creative story (boy travels back in time only to have his future mother fall in love with him), great music (Huey Lewis and doo wop?!), ground-breaking special effects, memorable dialogue ("I am your density...I mean, your destiny."), tremendous action sequences (the skateboard chase ending in manure-on-Biff), emotionally touching moments (George and Laraine finally kiss, and Marty can play the guitar again!), an excellent ending ("Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."). What more could you want out of two hours?

But that's just me. If we were, for example, to vote on what this blog's Best Movie Ever is, my money would be on "The Princess Bride." After all, it has certain qualities even "Back to the Future" (BTTF) can't claim. Some of these are fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, and miracles – all good things for a movie. And yes, BTTF has fighting, chases, escapes, true love, and – if you're a strict laws-of-time-and-space guy – miracles. But while these qualities have the same name, those things occur very differently in each film. If I had organized this post better, I would have used that whole bit as evidence that voting on the Best Movie Ever doesn't make it so for, say, anyone else reading this.

I guess the point is that calling a piece of art – in this case, a movie – the Best Ever is a waste of time if you're actually serious about it. LJT and I have argued for years about the Best Rock Band Ever, with LJT claiming The Beatles and my saying Led Zeppelin, but I think we both enjoy the argument more than the “answer.” He isn't “right” and I'm not “right” (even though I'm right). I agree with him that the Beatles are more “influential,” and he agrees that Jimmy Page was the Best Guitarist of either group. We both agree that John was the Best Beatle, and we've both recently discovered a greater appreciation for how awesome Ringo was, but neither of us would say he was a better drummer than John Bonham.

I guess the joy is in the discussion, not the resolution. Someone else could enter the room and say that Keith Moon was better than John Bonham, or that "Goodfellas" is better than "The Godfather," or that Pepsi is better than Coke, or that Walter is funnier than The Jesus, or blah blah blah ...

It all boils down to the fact that there's no way to measure these things. “There's no accounting for taste” and all that. It differs from an argument over, say, who the Best Baseball Player Ever was. With baseball, you can examine what each player actually did. Records are kept, and they offer clear-cut evidence of performance. If you analyze that, you cannot say with intellectual honesty that the Best Baseball Player Ever was anyone but Babe Ruth. If you choose someone else – and you are free to do so – I can show you piles of evidence that you're wrong. Baseball players leave an observable and objective record of performance, which we can measure, unlike bands or movies or even pieces of candy (Snickers being the best).

Anyway, I know a lot of this is fairly obvious, but it's something I've thought a lot about and this is a blog and as a blogger I feel obligated to let it out here, in the hopes of generating discussion, of course. Hell, if Side Bar can list a bunch of restaurants in Teaneck and elicit all those thoughtful comments, I figure “What's the Best Movie Ever?” might work.

"Back to the Future" is the Best Movie Ever. Am I wrong to say that?

Things That Are Overrated: Scarface

First of all, when I watch Scarface, what I find myself thinking is, "What freaking coke-head wrote this movie?" The answer, of course, is Oliver Stone, who was, in fact, a coke-head when he was writing this movie. The respective notions that this movie is a classic, is groundbreaking, is timeless, or is even inherently watchable are all ludicrous. Scarface does transpire in a frenetic, cokeheaded sort of way, but under the surface the movie is really formulaic, doesn't particularly explore any of its themes, and doesn't really resolve anything in a way that makes any sense at all. To say that this movie is a tragedy is an understatement, but just because everyone dies in the end doesn't mean you made some sort of grand statement about life.

I think the reason this movie is still even talked about today is because it seems to have a place in the hip-hop community as the movie that represents a particular kind of lifestyle that, as best I can tell, some people aspire to. I think the ruthless way in which Tony Montana handles things must have struck a chord with some people. And then a lot like the Yankees or slap bracelets, other people become fans without really knowing why, and without really understanding what they claim to enjoy.

I mean, there are other, much better, gangster movies. Goodfellas is a far superior movie in every respect, even down to quotability. Hell, even My Blue Heaven is a better gangster movie than this one. There are other, better, Al Pacino movies that don't get remembered with as much fondness. Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico come to mind. Donnie Brasco is better than this. The Godfather movies are clearly better than this one. And those are gangster movies with Al Pacino. Why choose hamburger over steak? Why this one movie stands out for some people over those others is really beyond me.

Also a lot of the movie is pretty silly. I mean, the scene with Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino dancing in the night club is just ridiculous. Michelle Pfeiffer is waving her arms all over the place like a wounded chicken. Al Pacino can't dance to save his life. I mean, he's supposed to be Cuban. And Michelle Pfeiffer does not play a very convincing cokehead. Just because you thumb your nose at the beginning of a scene doesn't mean you're a fiend.

And who in the world thought that this hairstyle for Gina was right for anyone, let alone a girl who's supposed to be beautiful? Gina Montana, your brother is a drug kingpin and you own a beauty salon. Can you get a haircut that doesn't look so silly, please? It's distracting.

And what was the whole deal with the subplot about Tony's unnatural incestuous fascination with his sister? If you're gonna put that in the movie, then at least explain it. All they did here was that every time Tony's sister was on the screen they would show a close up of his eyes and play some high pitched synthesizer music. And from that we are supposed to infer every aspect of their relationship past and present. And the same is true for most of the themes in this movie. No words, no exposition, no flashbacks, just synthesizer music.

And let's be honest, there is just far too much synthesizer music in the movie for me to take it seriously. This is the most '80s movie this side of Manhunter, the 1980s version of Red Dragon with Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecter. Side Note: get a hold of both Manhunter and Red Dragon and watch them both consecutively. It's astounding. But Scarface is a very dated movie. For me, it has too much synthesizer, crazy neon colored sets, like Frank's office, which we are to believe has 3 black walls, a black ceiling, and one wall with a huge mural of palm trees near the beach at sunset.

And an I really supposed to believe that Al Pacino, Robert Loggia, and F. Murray Abraham are three Cuban criminals? Michael Corleone, Feech La Manna, and Antonio Salieri? Was Joe Mantegna unavailable?

In summary, this movie is overrated. It is hyper violent, hyper '80s, untertold, and over dramatized. The best part of the movie, however, is when he's in the tub and he goes, "Look at them pelicans fly. Come on pelicans!"

The Oscars are Fucking Terrible

I am an "average" movie fan. I do not see every movie that is nominated for an Academy Award, but I do usually see all of the best picture nominees, and occasionally a handful more (even if I do not get around to seeing them all until after the Academy Awards, as this year).

This weekend, Mrs. Side Bar and I saw Slumdog Millionaire on Saturday and Doubt on Sunday. Both were excellent (side note: I have a bit of a, er, reputation, for bringing less than the most critical eye to movies. But whatever. Both of these were legitimately good movies). Slumdog was a funny and uplifting story (with very harsh realities mixed in throughout), and Doubt was simply phenomenal stage acting captured on camera (it was a play before it was a movie, which makes total sense). If you wonder why Viola Davis was nominated for an Oscar after only appearing on the screen for 12 minutes, then you haven't seen the movie yet. And Phillip Seymour Hoffman's scenes with Meryl Streep were incredibly engaging. The movie felt like it was 20 minutes long.

So having seen two of the more well-known movies of the year, and committed to seeing Milk, The Reader, and Revolutionary Road at some point in the next few months (side note: I have no interest in Frost/Nixon. Absolutely none. It is 2009. Stop it. Just get the fuck over it and move on. He was an asshole, he had some guys break into a hotel like 180 years ago, and he got caught. No more movies, no more books, no more awards. Please just stop), I sat down with some measure of interest to watch the Oscars (I am using "Oscars" and "Academy Awards" interchangeably. Ok?).

What a fucking nightmare.

I do not even know where to start. First of all, they load the show up with so many fucking montages and musical numbers that it is impossible to keep track of the six things anyone cares about: best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best director, best actor, best actress, and best picture. That is it. No one cares about cinematography, let alone best animated short. But at 9:08 p.m. eastern on a Sunday night - right smack in the middle of prime time - I am listenting to the producer of La Maison en Petits Cubes (loosely translated: "I am a French d-bag and I have little cubes in my stupid French house") talk about how much this 8-minute cartoon can change your life.

Where the fuck do you even go to watch an animated short?

I will give $50 to every reader of this blog who can prove to me that they saw La Maison en Petits Cubes before last night. And I am sure you were all relieved to see that Smile Pinki beat out The Conscience of Nhem En for Documentary Short Subject. We were actually going to go see that one, but it has been sold out for the past few weeks. Je. Sus. Christ.

But the stupid awards are not even the worst part. The show just drags on and on and on. Finally, at like five minutes to eleven, when I am sure they will get to the stuff I care about, the announcer says, very dramatically, "coming up . . . a tribute to Jerry Lewis!" Are you fucking kidding me? That was enough for me, so I shut it off and went to bed, catching the last hour this morning on DVR.

After Queen Latifah (who can freaking sing, by the way) did a five-minute montage to all the dead people, they finally got to the actual awards. But by then they were more than 30 minutes behind schedule, and they have to rush through everything. So the stuff you have been waiting hours to see is compressed and hurried, all because the guy who won for best costume design hogged the mic for fifteen minutes.

Even the length of the show pales in comparison to how impressed all of the Hollywood people are with each other. I mean, I am sure there are some actors and movie-types who do a lot of good, but for the most part these are pretty people living in a fantasy world. I vascillate between laughing my ass off and screaming my head off when one of these people starts talking about the "gifts" that they bring to our world, and how "transcendant" their art can be. Shut up. Let's keep our eye on the ball here, ok folks? Teachers, nurses and guys who work three jobs to keep their kids in a good school are worthy of a bit more praise than Anne Fucking Hathaway.

And I am not even going to bring up the fact that they all spent kajillions of dollars on dresses, and jewelry and parties and limos, etc., all while we are in the midst of a depression (yep, that's right). I do think there should have been a more candid acknowledgment of the financial crisis, and the canyon of difference between the haves and have-nots in our country, but I am not one of these people who thinks that you have to just cancel every public event because of the economy. So I will not talk about the fact there were probably tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars spent last night in connection with the Academy Awards. Money that no doubt could have been put to better use. Nope, not bringing it up.

I guess I should have learned my lesson by now, but I can't get over it. Because they should have learned their lesson by now, too. The Oscars should start at 9 and end at 11. Ten-minute intro by the host (the musical number that Hugh Jackman did was kind of funny), 30 minutes of miscellaneous stupid awards and other bs (with commercials, that gets you to the halfway point). And then spend an hour on the shit people care about. And then be done with it.

I can't be the only one who feels this way.

I Don't Need To See The Other Movies

It's simply not possible that any of these other Oscar nominated movies could be better than Slumdog Millionaire. I'll keep it breave (and bouvee), this movie was awe-dash-some. Period.

Things That Are Overrated: The Breakfast Club

I saw this movie again about two days ago, which is what spurred this post.

The Breakfast Club is regarded as the quintessential '80s movie by the quintessential '80s director, but it's not that great. John Hughes was onto something when he wrote and directed this movie. It's a great idea, and I really like movies that run as if they were plays. This one is enterttaining because you can imagine yourself sitting in an auditorium watching this story that takes place in basically one room. (side note: another movie that runs like a play is "Two Girls And A Guy" with Robert Downey, Jr. and Heather Graham and someone else I forget who plays the second girl. I enjoyed that film, too.)

The basic idea is that he gets together 5 kids who have nothing in common on the surface, but come to realize that they actually have more in common than they would have thought. I think this is an really deep idea that should be mined for as much as it's worth. There's a lot of material here to mine out. The probalem I have with this movie is that it's just really disjointed and it's not executed as well as it should be. It's good, but it could be much better. So the reason it's underrated is that the potential for a classic movie is really there, but instead it's sortof a pedestrian affair.

The main problem I have with the movie is that the kids just go back and forth between liking and hating each other without any real reason. Judd Nelson is very good in the role, but his character just jumps between having sympathy for the others and then outright hating them within seconds. And then in the end, he's basically just like "I was just kidding, Molly Ringwald, I liked you all along." And then Emilio Estevez is like, "Gee, Ally Sheedy, you're pretty cute, lets make out for a minute or two." And Ally Sheedy is like, "Well, I've developed this image as an outsider and even though I'm pretty I'm gonna wear black eye makeup and not wash my hair so that I have copious amounts of dandruff, but since Molly Ringwald wants to put eye liner on me, I guess I'll abandon everything I've got going here and make out with Emilio Estevez for a minute or two."

Basically, the ending is kindof hollow for me because we really didn't get deep enough into the characters. Also there isn't really a moment when any of these relationships really form. Again, the groundwork is there. And the idea of the things they have in common slowly coming out through the course of the day is interesting. The little speech that each of them makes about how they really view themselves is pretty good. I can buy that all of them are friendly afterward, and the best part of the movie is when Molly Ringwald says that she probably wouldn't be friends with any of them on Monday. There just isn't enough there for these relationships to have formed at the end. Also the indecision through the course of in terms of liking and hating each other really bothers me.

The iMDB page for the movie says that the original cut was about 150 minutes and was trimmed down to an '80s style 97 minutes for theatrical release. So I'm guessing...I'm hoping, that the original cut wasn't quite so abrupt in dealing with these kids feelings, but the existing fils leaves me just a little bit hollow.

For the record, I do enjoy the movie and there are certain parts that are really powerful, but I felt like the whole thing could have been that powerful, rather than just a certain few minutes.

I'll Go Out To The Movies, And Buy Myself A Snack

Ok, this post is for those of you with social skills. I am not among those blessed members of society with social skills, so maybe I just don't understand.

One of the things I like to do best is go to the movies. And if I happen to have a few hours to myself, then I'll often go to the movies alone. And then when I talk to people and tell them I went to a movie they'll invariably ask me, "who did you go with?". And when I say, "no one. I went by myself," they say, "Really?!?", as if I just told them I fellated Dave in Times Square.

How can it be that people don't go to the movies alone? I mean, it's probably the least social thing I can think of to do. You sit and watch. You're not supposed to talk or really interact or do anything other than watch. That's not to say that I don't got o the movies with other people, but it's certainly not a requirement for me to go see a film. Why do others feel the need to make movie watching a social activity?