Consider the following. First, Andrew O’Hehir, from the most recent installment of his Beyond the Multiplex column published yesterday on Salon (you’ll have to watch an ad to get past the firewall):
If there’s a specter that’s haunting Indiewood and Hollywood alike, it’s the shambling figure of some semi-shaved, post-collegiate 22-year-old watching movies on his cellphone. Now, I don’t know anybody who has actually watched a feature film on a telephone, and I’m not even sure it’s feasible. (The iPhone’s ads show people watching film trailers and YouTube videos, not entire movies.) But three different people in the film industry have mentioned the idea to me within the last week, and the question of its present-tense plausibility is clearly not relevant. What people are really saying is that a big, weird change is coming. They don’t quite understand it and they can’t do anything to stop it, but they’re worried that the whole business of selling $10 tickets to go sit in a dark room with some strangers and a movie projector is suddenly going to seem like Thomas Edison’s windup gramophone and its wax cylinders.
And then, a segment from this editorial by Cinematical EIC Ryan Stewart, sparked by that Transformers on Comcast rumor that didn’t come true:
I don’t think there’s anything in the world that beats a really good experience at the movies, but I’ve also noticed that over the past few years, the onus has been more and more on me to make that experience happen…Theaters have mentally checked out of the business of making sure you have a comfortable viewing experience, and in doing so, they’re contributing to their own demise…At the same time, I also have no interest in watching a movie on a Dick Tracy watch or any other device that can fit in my pocket — that’s the other extreme, that’s also unwelcome. But a quality home entertainment center with a great screen and great sound? That’s where it’s increasingly at, I think.
I don’t know O’Hehir very well (we had a very nice chat at Sundance this year, but I had not previously met him before nor have I seen or spoke with him since), but I would guess that he, like the indie moguls he references, is in his 40s. On the other hand, I do know Stewart very well: in the interest of full disclosure, he was the second person I hired when I was editing Cinematical. At the very least, I know him well enough to know that although he may be in his 20s, and he may have soured on going to the movies, he’s not going to watch a movie on his phone anytime soon. In fact, about five minutes before I came across O’Hehir’s Salon piece, Ryan sent me an instant message complaining about how he can barely use his cellphone to make and receive phone calls.
To be fair, O’Hehir isn’t trying pump tired box office slump dialectics–he freely notes that, multiplex ennui be damned, a lot of indie movies are doing very well this summer–and he doesn’t seem to be entirely disdainful of emerging technology. His column is ostensibly meant to draw attention to small and smallish films, so it makes sense that once in a while he’d feel the need to offer a “State of the Indiestry” before getting on with the business of reviewing. But I do think it’s pretty glib (and my use of that word is not meant to evoke thoughts of Tom Cruise AT ALL) to raise the spectre of theatrical doom, only to brush it away with a “But hey! These five Sundance flicks are making money, so everything’s alright!”
The truth is, it’s quite probable that “the whole business of selling $10 tickets to go sit in a dark room with some strangers and a movie projector” is on its way out, but Stewart’s post (and the many supportive comments it garnered) is some kind of evidence that it’s not happening entirely because us kids are enamoured with new-fangled gadgetry. Take it from a 20-something who has great affection for her cellphone, but who has no intention of ever using it to watch a feature film: if the traditional exhibition experience had not so drastically declined, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It might seem like a step backwards for someone like Eamonn Bowles, who is actively in the business of closing the distribution window, but if the titans of Indiewood really *want* to do something to keep the theatrical experience alive, putting pressure on exhibitors would be a place to start. But the idea that we’re all going to abandon the multiplex for the super-mobile is nothing more than one generation’s fantasy of another. It’s sexy on a “let’s wallow in our phobias” level, but it’s also pretty reductive.
On last week’s episode of FilmCouch, I admitted that I can’t really defend myself against the criticisms that I tend to be friendlier to smaller films than blockbusters; as I pointed out, as of the recording of that episode, the highest grossing film that had a real chance of making my Top 10 of 2008 list had so far been out-grossed by 39 other films. Today, I took another look at Box Office Mojo’s 2008 box office chart, and noticed two things. 1) the film in question, Burn After Reading, has dropped to #41 for the year, likely due to the assent of Twilight into the Top 20; and of the 40 films that outgrossed the Coen Brothers film (which, for them, was a big hit), I’ve only even seen two: Iron Man (#2) which I did like, and 27 Dresses (#31) which … uh… all I can say is that I have insomnia and it was on HBO really, really late.
Two big movies arrive in theaters this week, 
The New York Observer’s Culture blog
The first trailer––really, the first bit of “official” marketing of any kind, because that sploogey Vanity Fair cover apparently doesn’t count––for 
