Chrisonomicon

Friday, December 29, 2000

Increasingly popular trend: the holidays are a time to spend with the family, inside a large dark room, ignoring each other for hours on end. That's why, this year, our family spent a couple of evenings screening Castaway and What Women Want. Not my idea of quality family time, but whatev.

Both movies are relatively entertaining and offer quick getaways from reality, posing interesting scenarios. On the other hand, the corporatization of the movie industry has definitely shown itself in the guise of plots, the first movie being basically a two-hour FedEx commercial and the second, based on an advertising agency whose top clients include Nike, Leggs, and Tampax. That's why seeing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon last week was such a relief. No brand names, slogans or logos to be seen. A breath of fresh air. Not to mention the movie, in and of itself, kicked ass. Literally.

So much of our popular media leads me to believe that our society demands homoginization and pre-processed-plastic-wrapped entertainment. The commercial invasion of movie theaters is somewhat disheartening because I always used to consider movie-going an upgrade from watching commercial-laden television. Now it seems every movie has become some sort of stage for corporate propaganda.

As long as the masses continue to file into the theaters, this trend will continue to grow. Hopefully the backing for independent and foreign films will also continue to grow. Someday we will see a welcoming of new talent that isn't backed by the newest dot-com. And perhaps that day, big companies will realize that big money may buy our time on television but will never buy our hearts, minds, or desire for originality and creativity.