Jeremy wrote:
] For moviegoers, dark films raise a basic question: Why
] subject yourself to death, devastation and anguish when you
] can see "Elf" instead?
]
] The essential problem may be as simple -- and as complicated
] -- as the economic structure of the movie business itself.
]
]
]
] I'll try the straightforward approach: forget "Elf" and go see
] "21 Grams."

Basically, this is a situation where art imitates life. To answer their question, yes, I would rather see Elf for much the same reason in normal society. Perhaps if I ran in an artsy circle, I would care about my movie-watching affecting my social capital. Instead, I view it as the same way as real life: If I walk into a conversation where people are joking around, discussing happy changes in life, etc, I don't roll up and say, "Hey, did you hear about that child-molesting serial killer guy? He really killed some kids." People don't want that to ruin their conversation/day. That's how I feel about the movie selection. I'll see Elf, because I am looking for ENTERTAINMENT. If I want reality, I will continue reading the 238947 news sources I consult.

To summarize: escapism. Who wants to spend their free time depressed?

Jeremy wrote:
] I'll try the straightforward approach: forget "Elf" and go see
] "21 Grams."

I certainly plan on forgetting Elf baring some sort of phenominal peer recommendation, but the question is, are movies about what you think or how you feel. For most people the answer is the latter. People don't shove money at the film industry because it expands their understanding. They don't want their understanding expanded. They want to forget about their troubles for 2 hours... Increasingly, we have so much media available to us that it almost becomes like selecting a drug... Want to feel sad? Happy? Excited? Horny? Scared? Silly? Angry? (Angry... Not enough film makers do Angry...) Want to go on an adventure? Want to fall in love? Its like all the little pockets on the inside of the trench coat are filled, offering anything you want. Take a hit...

This is really where video games can fit right in if they had the guts. I don't have the attention span to play something that takes a month, and I don't like silly puzzles... We're still in the "book" stage of video game media maturity, where attention spans are long and its all about the artistry. The graphics.... We obviously want two hours of escapism, and we want to do it with friends... Can't you tell a compeling story that we can work together to move through that completes in an couple hours? I think someone can... Its all about what the experience makes the audience feel... The advantage of an interactive version is that it may have more staying power over time because its not always the same. Different versions become a topic of discussion, which is a marketing vehicle... How can the new technology assist you in desgining a better drug?

Decius wrote:
] Jeremy wrote:
] ] I'll try the straightforward approach: forget "Elf" and go
] see
] ] "21 Grams."

yeah, this movie sounds really really good...

] This is really where video games can fit right in if they had
] the guts. I don't have the attention span to play something
] that takes a month, and I don't like silly puzzles... We're
] still in the "book" stage of video game media maturity, where
] attention spans are long and its all about the artistry. The
] graphics.... We obviously want two hours of escapism, and we
] want to do it with friends... Can't you tell a compeling story
] that we can work together to move through that completes in an
] couple hours? I think someone can... Its all about what the
] experience makes the audience feel...

i've certainly been on the record as anxious, at least, of too much distillation and concentration of experience, especially the experience of art. That being said, i certainly believe that entertainment, and even artistic expression, can come in many sizes. There was a VW commercial some years ago called Big Day (may have mentioned it here before) which proves that you can fit a great deal into a 30 second story with hardly a spoken word.
video games can get there -- Neverwinter Nights, the most accurate DnD style game ever made, has multiplayer modes which operate in much the same way as the pen-and-paper game does. The DM creates a world and a story and then leads their party through it piece by piece. These pieces can be small or large depending on the wishes of the group, and i've done some that took only an hour or so to play through, in the virtual company of two or three friends. These can be one shot stories or chapters in a larger epic... This may not be your specific cup of tea, but it's proof of concept at least.
Also, things like XBOX Live will tend to lower the barriers to cooperative play, and games will evolve to take an amount of time which is most favored. So far, a lot of multiplayer games are short, or repetitive (quake, wolfenstein, SOCOM) and get boring fast. I think this is a holdover from days when memory space for textures and map detail was much more limited -- technology will overcome this eventually. Some games seem to be evolving towards more complex "levels" or "missions" which take an hour or something. If this trend continues, and things like random weather, random enemy/entity/object placement, adaptive AI, partial persistence (i.e. permenant effects on the virtual world construct), etc. get put into the games, i think we'll see games that are broadly competitive with movies for immersion and emotive strength.

Decius wrote:
] People don't shove money at the film industry because
] it expands their understanding.

I don't think the money (the cash, that is) has much of anything to do with it. It still would be hard to get people to see "21 Grams" and other films, even if they were giving away the tickets, handing out the DVDs, and posting it online.

] They don't want their understanding expanded.

Precisely.

] ... We obviously want two hours of escapism ...

I have two questions.

1) What's so wrong with the real world that makes everyone want to get away from it?

2) If everyone is so eager to "escape", who will ever fix the problems?

Halfway through the first film, the Matrix trilogy could have been in the mind-expanding category, but it turned out to be just another escapist blur.

Jeremy wrote:
] I don't think the money (the cash, that is) has much of
] anything to do with it. It still would be hard to get people
] to see "21 Grams" and other films, even if they were giving
] away the tickets, handing out the DVDs, and posting it online.

Merely a spin of phrase...

] 1) What's so wrong with the real world that makes everyone
] want to get away from it?

Freedom is the ability to spend your time for your own purposes rather then those of others. We have too little.

You see, rather then doing the work that I want do to, or that I see as being in my interest, I have to do the work that other people need done... That is in the interests of others. And I have to expend most of my energy on it. And when I'm not doing that, I have the complexities of family. I take care of people that I love, but I also have to endure their imperfections. What time is left over I probably have to spend cleaning or running errands. If you are so at peace with your life that you need to escape you can consider yourself rather lucky, I think.

] 2) If everyone is so eager to "escape", who will ever fix the
] problems?

No one knows how. Most think that they can't figure out how. I know how. How is to export jobs to Asia, and to educate more people, until the available capacity for work vastly exceeds demand, and the work week is scaled back to 30 hours. As personally fearsome as the coming economic cataclysm is, I think it holds within it our greatest hope for real freedom.

] Halfway through the first film, the Matrix trilogy
] could have been in the mind-expanding category, but it
] turned out to be just another escapist blur.

They certainly could wake up and join the revolution, but that would require the revolutionaries to have a better idea about how to run things.

Decius wrote:
] Freedom is the ability to spend your time for your own
] purposes rather then those of others. We have too little.

I wonder what John F. Kennedy would have to say about this definition of freedom.

Every thread eventually turns into a debate about selfishness and altruism. Here we are.

Are you saying we have too little time, or too little ability?

I think the biologists are working on the time part, but I'm not sure the "solution" qualifies as an improvement.

I am concerned about the increasing effectiveness of the technologies of escapism. In the days when all we had were books, even simple escapism could be mind expanding, because you had to do work to make the story truly come to life. Nowadays, the escape experience seems almost real, and yet you're just sitting there.

At some point, no one will be inclined to struggle for improvement in the real world we must share, because everyone will just escape into their own private, perfect, virtual world.

Is that progress?

] How is [when] ... the work week is scaled back to 30 hours.

Less is more. Be careful what you wish for.

If you haven't seen "Born Rich", it's worth the hour. You may even be convinced that the life of leisure is not necessarily the most fulfilling possibility. Would you like to ride horses around an obstacle course all day, every day? How about collecting historical documents?

Jeremy wrote:
] Every thread eventually turns into a debate about selfishness
] and altruism. Here we are.

heh... And yet this time I've somehow managed to find myself on the other side of the coin...

] Are you saying we have too little time, or too little ability?

They are the same thing. If more of us had more ability, then each of us would need to do less, and therefore we would have more time.

] At some point, no one will be inclined to struggle for
] improvement in the real world we must share, because everyone
] will just escape into their own private, perfect, virtual
] world.

I can't say I can explain that away with sophistry. I don't know why people would prefer to live in the real world if a virtual one was accessible, but there are deep questions here about what we incent people to do. Why do smart people become wealthy by spamming?

] If you haven't seen "Born Rich", it's worth the hour. You may
] even be convinced that the life of leisure is not necessarily
] the most fulfilling possibility.

I would very much like to see it. We constantly hear stories about the lives of the wealthy in the past... People on the titanic... What about the lives of the weathy today... Is "cruel intentions" a reasonable perspective? Does this video offer a healthy cross section?

At the same time, I imagine that Paris Hilton is hardly considered a role model by her peers. My high school had its Paris Hiltons. While the community was wealthy, it wasn't "the kids will never have to work" wealthy. Some people became consumed by material things and have probably found life in adulthood a little hard. Others took advantage of their position to push themselves as far as they could. The community hasn't produced any famous people that I know of, but neither did it produce a bunch of mindless hedonists. It produced mostly productive people.

Its a matter of perspective and drive. People choose to be strong even if they don't really have to. I'd wager that weathy communities produce more productive people on average then poor ones, simply because the "leisure" that such a life offers is an opportunity to better yourself. People DO take that opportunity. The hardships of poverty eliminate opportunities. I don't think we should wish that on people. I think we should seek to eliminate that as much as possible. If scarcity is no longer a concern and everyone can live a life of leisure, we can cut over to competing on reputation instead of cash. The ones that really contribute will still win. In fact, maybe we'll incent people to do less spamming, and more teaching. I think that would be positive.

] How about collecting historical documents?

My living grandfather and two of my cousins have spent years doing this. I don't think their pursuit has been meaningless. They've given everyone who has roots in the small town my parents are from a very deep understanding of their heritige. They could have easily pissed that time away in front of the television instead.

Decius wrote:
] I don't know why people would prefer to live in the real
] world if a virtual one was accessible ... People choose
] to be strong even if they don't really have to.

If a virtual world ever starts to seem "easy," I don't think it can be taken seriously in a sustainable way. Regardless of where you start, it is the struggle (and the opportunity) to improve that makes it worthwhile.

]] If you haven't seen "Born Rich", it's worth the hour.
]
] I would very much like to see it.
] Does this video offer a healthy cross section?

In "Born Rich", Johnson tells a story about the people around him. In a geographical sense, you don't get much of a cross section; the film has a distinct New York/New Jersey perspective. At least one person in the film has some connection to LA, mainly because the family fortune is in real estate. But in a personal sense, you see a range of responses to growing up around great wealth. A few of his friends are very well grounded, while others are completely out of touch with reality.

]] How about collecting historical documents?
]
] My living grandfather and two of my cousins have spent years
] doing this. I don't think their pursuit has been meaningless.

If you haven't seen "Born Rich" then my comment is likely to be taken out of context. It sounds like you're talking about genealogy, and I agree with your entirely on that point.

In the film, Jamie's father suggests that he might like to roam the world, buying up centuries-old nautical maps, original copies of famous documents from Old Europe, ancient Sumerian tablets, and the like. Not necessarily to study them, mind you, but simply to own them, as a collection. One is taking on the role of a curator, except that instead of a musuem gallery, it's just your living room.