Weird how quickly movies disappear from the theaters these days. This is not new. Probably, if you pay attention, you’ve noticed this has been the case for 10 years or more.
You see an ad. You decide you want to go with your partner. You talk about it. Somehow you agree that you both want to see the flick. This process takes three weeks. You go online to check times for the coming weekend, and what the heck, it’s gone. Poof. Disappeared.
It’s called the disappearing movie syndrome (DMS). DMS affects most, but not all, movies. Identified blockbusters (who chooses to apply that mantle to a show is anybody’s guess, but it’s not you and me) stick around longer. Sometimes three or four weeks.
Though I exaggerate that point about how long a great (or high attendance) movie stays in theater, I’m not exaggerating by much. If you even think you want to go see a movie in the past decade, you pretty much need to decide that first week or two and then GO. If not, DMS takes over and it’s gone. You forget about it. And, you’ll likely never take the time to look it up on a streaming service and give it a viewing. There are far too many other entertainments options and our small brains don’t have the capacity to care or catalogue the flicks you want to watch enough to make that effort.
A couple of months back, during some daydreaming time, I looked up the current movie suite in our local theater. “Whoa, I’d like to see this. Man, this one sounds good, I should check it out. That’s a unique sounding plot; I should go.”
I selected several that charged my batteries. I wrote them down (and, of course, still have that list, hence this incredible column). They included: “Novocaine”; “Black Bag”; “The Monkey”; “Riff Raff”; “Queen of the Ring”; “A Working Man”; “Mickey 17.”
How many did I see? I’ll give you a moment to realistically consider this. Think about what else you do in your life, what grabs your attention, what stops you from even going out to the theater, other things that clutter your life. Now, out of those seven movies, how many did I watch?
You probably guessed right: two. “Mickey 17” and “Riff Raff” were the two I went to. What did this depend on? Was it convenience in terms of time and theater location? Did I rank them and go to the best first?
Quite frankly, for me, time and location became an initial deciding variable. Then, it became apparent that the others weren’t going to be around and other things in life took over, and poof, there they went to the ether. “Queen of the Ring” gone the day after I first looked. “Novocaine” gone in one week. “Black Bag” gone in two weeks. “The Monkey” disappearing in three weeks.
My life is not a failure because of this. But it makes for interesting observations about popular culture and why we don’t have as much of a shared culture as we did 30-40 years ago. Because of the fracturing and hyper intensity of the movie market, they come and go astoundingly fast. Blink and you miss one.
When I graduated from college, the movie “Grease” was in our theater in Ottawa, IL. I AM NOT KIDDING YOU, but that movie stayed in town the entire two years I lived there. Yeah, great movie, but there must not have been a lot of other flicks hitting the market.
A few years earlier, I remember “Jaws” hanging around our Kankakee, IL downtown theater for months and months and months. It was a great movie, no question about it. But in today’s world, it would get a month run, maybe.
We can’t keep up. The speed of entertainment options exceeds our capacity to observe, absorb and handle (make a decision to go or not to go). We’re all slammed by this. Most of us turn personal filters on. Or we completely ignore numerous movies and other entertainment sectors promoted towards us. It’s the only way to survive. Walls up. Block them out. Forget they exist. Move on, pick up a book.
You see an ad. You decide you want to go with your partner. You talk about it. Somehow you agree that you both want to see the flick. This process takes three weeks. You go online to check times for the coming weekend, and what the heck, it’s gone. Poof. Disappeared.
It’s called the disappearing movie syndrome (DMS). DMS affects most, but not all, movies. Identified blockbusters (who chooses to apply that mantle to a show is anybody’s guess, but it’s not you and me) stick around longer. Sometimes three or four weeks.
Though I exaggerate that point about how long a great (or high attendance) movie stays in theater, I’m not exaggerating by much. If you even think you want to go see a movie in the past decade, you pretty much need to decide that first week or two and then GO. If not, DMS takes over and it’s gone. You forget about it. And, you’ll likely never take the time to look it up on a streaming service and give it a viewing. There are far too many other entertainments options and our small brains don’t have the capacity to care or catalogue the flicks you want to watch enough to make that effort.
A couple of months back, during some daydreaming time, I looked up the current movie suite in our local theater. “Whoa, I’d like to see this. Man, this one sounds good, I should check it out. That’s a unique sounding plot; I should go.”
I selected several that charged my batteries. I wrote them down (and, of course, still have that list, hence this incredible column). They included: “Novocaine”; “Black Bag”; “The Monkey”; “Riff Raff”; “Queen of the Ring”; “A Working Man”; “Mickey 17.”
How many did I see? I’ll give you a moment to realistically consider this. Think about what else you do in your life, what grabs your attention, what stops you from even going out to the theater, other things that clutter your life. Now, out of those seven movies, how many did I watch?
You probably guessed right: two. “Mickey 17” and “Riff Raff” were the two I went to. What did this depend on? Was it convenience in terms of time and theater location? Did I rank them and go to the best first?
Quite frankly, for me, time and location became an initial deciding variable. Then, it became apparent that the others weren’t going to be around and other things in life took over, and poof, there they went to the ether. “Queen of the Ring” gone the day after I first looked. “Novocaine” gone in one week. “Black Bag” gone in two weeks. “The Monkey” disappearing in three weeks.
My life is not a failure because of this. But it makes for interesting observations about popular culture and why we don’t have as much of a shared culture as we did 30-40 years ago. Because of the fracturing and hyper intensity of the movie market, they come and go astoundingly fast. Blink and you miss one.
When I graduated from college, the movie “Grease” was in our theater in Ottawa, IL. I AM NOT KIDDING YOU, but that movie stayed in town the entire two years I lived there. Yeah, great movie, but there must not have been a lot of other flicks hitting the market.
A few years earlier, I remember “Jaws” hanging around our Kankakee, IL downtown theater for months and months and months. It was a great movie, no question about it. But in today’s world, it would get a month run, maybe.
We can’t keep up. The speed of entertainment options exceeds our capacity to observe, absorb and handle (make a decision to go or not to go). We’re all slammed by this. Most of us turn personal filters on. Or we completely ignore numerous movies and other entertainment sectors promoted towards us. It’s the only way to survive. Walls up. Block them out. Forget they exist. Move on, pick up a book.