THE MOVIES 

     My annual trip to the isles of the Spanish Mediterranean has, by now, become a chronological checkpoint in this series of essays. I once again write from the civilized confines of the Roman Sea, such change of scenery having immediately provided more intellectual ammunition for the firing of my philosophical guns.

     One of the more universally accepted forms of diversion is to "go to the movies". For most people, especially the contemporary yuppie types that inhabit our cities and play anonymous roles in the intricate gear works of the "global economy", it has almost become more a bodily function than a diversionary predilection. As witnessed by what I've written previously in this work (see essay "A Newtered America"), I used to be part of this vast herd feeding gluttonously at the trough of cinema production.

     But times have changed.

     I'm not quite sure when I began to wean myself from the movie going habit, but there are hazy memories as to the embryonic beginnings of my defection. One such milestone occurred years ago while watching what was to become that year's "blockbuster", eventually sweeping every award the motion picture industry so ostentatiously gives itself. (This is something like Stalin awarding Communism the Best Economic System of the Year award.) The movie was called "The Sting", and somewhere around the middle of its presentation I began to realize I was fed up with being fooled by its Byzantine plot and didn't give a dose of herpes for how it turned out.

     A similar milestone in the rehabilitation of my cinema addiction occurred during my scrutiny of another "blockbuster" (ball buster?), the pompously titled "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". I was OK for about an hour when the film began to drag for me, eventually falling into my "daddy-are-we-there-yet?" category. As my night at the movies advanced towards the next millennium, a familiar feeling of mental critical mass began to slowly overcome me. I once again decided I couldn't give a flying wad of spit for how it ended. Let me out of here!

     This embryonic doubt as to the necessity of the motion picture industry in my life eventually turned into a full-blown rebellion. The last time I actually went to see a first run movie was at least 8 years ago, and I remember it well if only because it played a minor role in the failure of my latest attempt at legal monogamy. My ex-wife had won some kind of raffle or prize that turned out to be two tickets to see the blockbuster film (that's right, another "blockbuster") "Crocodile Dundee". Things being what they are in today's vicious commercial climate, one does not ignore anything given for free, even if it's a chance to fight Mike Tyson in a darkened alley. So off we went, knowing full well this was not to be a very enlightening experience. But the movie surprised me; it was worse than I had expected. Although the theater was filled with physically mature adults, the film seemed suited for people between the ages of teething to puberty. (I rate this film "T-P"). Quite predictably, this meant everyone was loving it. This put me in such an ornery mood that my grumpiness began to radiate out, at least reaching the rows most proximate to our seats. The woman then sharing our legally sinless state of cohabitation was not sharing my visible state of alienation. I may have even been embarrassing her. I think she began not to love me that night.

     How ironic is it that "Crocodile Dundee" turned out to be a transcendent film in my life?

     This essay is being written because the only time I ever get to see a first run movie these days is during the long trans-Atlantic flights that carry me to Spain. I shall now give the reader a run down, in chronological order, of my last three years of aeronautic cinema (mercifully, that's all I can remember): three years ago a movie version of an old TV sit-com, "The Brady Bunch", was the film "de jour". My interest in this was so microscopic that I never bothered to put on the headphones. Judging from the unavoidable images seen flickering before me in the cabin, the film's central premise seemed to be the glorification of blond people. Two years ago it was a gangster type movie, whose title escapes me, having to do with how Las Vegas was founded. It came to us complete with the usual line up of wise guys, flashy dames, shoulder holsters and dangling cigarettes. It starred Warren Beatty. Its primary purpose was to have us gaze upon Beatty's remarkable good looks as much as possible. Forty-five minutes into its presentation, I took off the headphones, thus opting for the colossal boredom of an interminable flight over the minimal effort in following the film. This year's offering was another gangster type movie called "Get Shorty", starring John Travolta. With the minor substitution of Travolta's good looks for Beatty's, the two works were so similar that I shall simply say "ditto".

     The motion picture industry so thoroughly permeates our culture that one does not have to be an adept to be familiar with it. In my case, my earlier years of cinema addiction, coupled with the dribs and drabs seen on TV, the movie reviews, the publicity, the talk shows, the awards and nominations --- in short, the whole nine yards --- have given me enough information to form the following opinions:

     The mainstream film making industry, which is responsible for almost all the films that almost all the people see, does little more than find the world's most attractive people and put them in a varying array of visual vehicles so that the rest of us, who are the weeds growing amongst the orchids, can gaze upon them. The usual vehicle is not meant to enlighten, nor is it meant to idiotize, but when one devotes substantial amounts of time to something lacking an enlightening purpose, "idiotization" is a possible result. At times, perhaps by design, or simply by accident, a visual Ferrari might be buried in the bowels of a huge freighter full of Chevrolets. One searches for such a gem with the same desperation found in the frontier gold fields of the Amazon basin. I repeat, what today's filmmakers market most successfully are physically beautiful people. At the core of the Hollywood mentality is a form of watered down pornography with too much clothing and not enough intellect. It fails both erotically and intellectually.

     Certainly, cinema in its purest, least commercially pressured form is meant to enlighten. When we have been made a bit more aware of whom we are, of where we came from and where we might be going; when this awareness helps us to see things more clearly so as to make our lives more understandable, we have been enlightened. When films are systematically made that don't make this aspect of cinema a part of the formula, the filmmakers are simply providing Day Care for childish minds in adult bodies.

     In addition to the current rating system which now exists in Hollywood --- "G"- which is the movie you take your kids to on Saturday afternoon; "PG"- which is the adolescent film discussed above with no bare tit; "R"- which is the adolescent film discussed above with a little bare tit; "X"- which, due to its almost non-existent financial possibilities, has almost lost all of its habitat and is now an endangered species generally reserved for degenerate foreign films with sub-titles --- I would add one more: "NRA"- Not Recommended for Adults (Anyone over 21 must be accompanied by a minor).

Relevant Material - A wise old lady enters a restaurant where they are filming a movie. Upon noticing the army of people and machines necessary to shoot the scene, she says, "My God, all this to do so little!" From the fable-like novel "Caperucita en Manhattan" (Little Red Riding Hood in Manhattan), by the Spanish woman, Carmen Martin Gaite.