Why Do People Go To The Movies?

There I was, sitting in the movie theater with a couple friends watching 21 JUMP STREET, when I came to the horrific realization that the spawns of Satan were seated right in front of me. There were four of them, two boys and two girls, and they couldn't have been older than 14, so if we're going to abide by the restrictions of the MPAA, they really shouldn't have even been there in the first place. Regardless, I was forced to suffer through an hour and a half of texting, giggling, whispering, grabbing, slapping, and all sorts of other obnoxious shenanigans. It was a disheartening and unpleasant experience, to say the least, and I can't help but lament the sad death of theater etiquette, though that is a topic deserving of a post all its own. What this nightmare scenario made me wonder is... "Why do people go to the movies?" I mean, for these kids, it was clear that they had confused the theater for a playground and were trying to cause as much human suffering as possible, but what about people who aren't on the payroll of Lucifer himself?

This past February, I released a list of the Top 10 Movies of 2011, based on my own opinions and preferences, and atop that list sat DRIVE, a film about a stunt car driver (Ryan Gosling) who falls in love with the girl next door (Carey Mulligan) and attempts to protect her when nefarious characters threaten their lives, forcing him to expose an inner dark side that is both powerful and frightening. I loved it, but I've noticed that there are three schools of thought in terms of how other people felt about DRIVE. In Group 1, we have the people who loved it, like myself, and recognized it as a beautifully tragic tale of a quiet sociopath who wants so badly to be the hero of the story but can't overcome the monster that lurks within him. In Group 2, we have those who appreciated it as a throwback to the slow-burn action films of old, complete with a no-frills plot and vivid re-creations of classic stock characters. And in Group 3, we have those who hated it for a number of different reasons, some of them being a slow and boring pace, a lack of dialogue, too few action sequences, gratuitous blood and violence, and an ending that felt pointless and anti-climactic. None of these groups are right or wrong in their ways of thinking, but these are the opinions that seemed to be most popular in my conversations with the other people who have seen DRIVE.

What does this have to do with why people go to the movies, you ask? Allow me to explain. I think we can all agree that most people go to the movie theater to watch a movie, although I have seen a few who seem to use it as a nice place for a nap, so the real question becomes... "What do people want from a movie?" For me, the answer to this question has changed over time, as I've come to appreciate all that you can accomplish through a single film. When I was a kid, I would go to movies like X-MEN and PLANET OF THE APES (Yes, I saw the remake in theaters... And I liked it, for the most part. Please don't yell at me.) because those movies brought my imagination to life and took me to these extraordinary places that didn't exist in the real world. There was something about going to the movie theater that was so awesome and exhilarating, I would always take a couple minutes to check out the posters of coming attractions and then look them up on IMDb.com when I got home to decide which ones I wanted to see. These days, I'm happy to say that my enthusiasm for moviegoing hasn't changed a bit and sometimes I'll even mark down a movie's release date over a year in advance, but my tastes in movies have matured somewhat. When I go see a movie, I want to watch a story unfold. I want to see actors lose themselves in their characters, clever dialogue that feels both real and meaningful, and a story that I'll be thinking about on the drive home from the theater. I want it to be worth the ridiculously inflated price of admission, not something I'll forget about as soon as I leave the parking lot. I don't go to the movie theater to escape, but rather to see a compelling story and all of the hard work that went into telling it.

But I'm one simple moviegoer and I know I don't speak for the rest of the world. Some people go to the movie theater to be challenged, to be entertained, to laugh, to cry, or sometimes even to sleep, as my dad would often do when I was a kid. But that's his prerogative, and I can't fault him for it. It's your experience and it is up to you to decide what you take from it, unless of course your enjoyment means disrupting and irritating those around you, in which case you should perhaps re-consider going to the movie theater and maybe stick with your own home theater.

So... Why do you go to the movies? Please, don't be shy! All comments are welcome.