11/30/08

The first lesson I should pass along from last weekend is that the numbers of miles Mapquest gives you from one thing to another is pretty much total BS:  the shorter the distance, the BSer the estimate.  My sister and I took Palmyra's Old Forge Road to Route 322 and were told to expect to meet Route 72 in a single mile.  Driving through the farm country around 50 MPH, five minutes passed, then ten.  A farm full of sheep advised us to go "baaaaaaaaack" but still we pressed on.  After 15 minutes we were actively discussing where we might have missed the turn and how we should look for it once we turned back.  But we stuck with it, and around the 20 minute mark, had finally gone that one mile and were on 72, which led us to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and a relatively uneventful 60 mile drive.

At the end of those 60 miles came the torture of creep and crawl traffic, at least 45 minutes to travel just a short distance up the road because somewhere up the line about two car lengths worth of a single lane were cut off by a construction vehicle cutting tree limbs.  On a Saturday?  Come on, people!  But we got past it, and at that point Mapquest was clear.  Just stay on Route 30 into Philadelphia, take a left onto the Ben Franklin Bridge, then take a left onto Market Street...  So, where IS that left onto Market Street?  For that matter, isn't Philadelphia now in the rear view mirror while people to our left are paying the toll to come into Pennsylvania from New Jersey?

Ah, yes, New Jersey, where, having missed that left turn onto Market Street, we now found ourselves.  At least we were driving past a gas station where gas was just $1.75.  But when I pulled in, the pumps didn't work, and drivers exchanged ominous stories about how it must be full service, although no attendants seemed to be around.  Before we ended up caught in an A-Team hostage crisis, time to get back on the road!  

And so we did, taking the first exit where it seemed like we could get back onto the other side of the road and soon enough we were paying the $4.00 Lost Tax at the border and back home in PA.  Now, how to find Market Street?  Good thing my sister chose Temple years before and had a vague recollection of the city's layout, most importantly that the streets going in one direction are numbered.  Once we get to Market, we need to turn onto 4th, so we did it backwards and found the numbered streets first.  City Hall is the highest building in town, so we used it as a marker and drove there.  It left us at 15th street, and of course, we were going in the wrong direction, and hit 16th, 17th and 18th streets before we turned around.  Finally, we found Market Street and needed to tolerate only one more inaccurate Mapquest instruction (taking us to the exit of the parking garage we sought rather than the entrance, which was down a different street) before we could put our feet on the ground once again.

Why on Earth, you might ask, did I just tell you that story?  Simple:  that's what it took for us to see the much-discussed new movie JCVD, which appeared for 5 short days at the Ritz at the Bourse theater at the Bourse shopping center in Philadelphia and nowhere any closer to my Palmyra, PA home.  I remember a time about 10 years ago when the area from Lebanon to Harrisburg had a grand total of 32 movie screens.  Today, after a construction boom, there are 82.  And what's showing on those 82 screens?  Twilight, that's what.  Each of 7 multiplexes and sometimes the two art houses (both of which are showing Australia this week) dutifully book each week's new releases, often with multiple screens while clinging to the faded titles of two months ago hoping that each of a week's 28 showings still draws at least a single person while the national entertainment media is forever poking me with a stick about the dozens of titles the Better Half in New York, Chicago and LA gets to see.  And yes, many of these titles will pop up in Pennsylvania, at places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and, for some reason, Plymouth Meeting.  But if I've got 82 movie screens within a half-hour's drive (and the number is closer to 150 within an hour's drive, with no better selection on any of them), just why is it that I had to go all the way to New York City to see Appaloosa, a movie that wasn't playing anywhere around me when it was the #5 movie in the country?  This is the sticks, Hollywood, you've gotta at least give me a Western!!!

So, who do I blame?  I blame everybody, and I've got good reason for it:

THEATER OWNERS:  Granted, when I say “Theater Owners”, I'm generally talking about impersonal chains located somewhere in New York deciding that yokels like me can't read to start with, let alone read a subtitle.  It's quite suspicious that the only local chain that's at all adventurous in their booking is the Cinema Center chain that's PA-based and has less than a dozen total theaters.  Oh, sure, you might say, audiences don't turn out for anything that's not heavily promoted, but how come nobody makes that argument when it's time to put Sarah Landon & The Paranormal Hour at virtually every area theater?  We (and I'm sure 95% of the country) have been weighed, measured and found to be uncultured rubes.

STUDIOS:  But even the best intentions often can't get movies to this area, even when they've completed their runs in Better Cities.  I've heard the former proprietor of one of those local art houses (Harrisburg's Midtown Theater) telling horror stories of distributors declining to pay the cost of mailing prints to them and telling him that if he wants to run the movie, he's going to have to drive someplace where it's showing and pick it up.  Those endorsing a switchover to digital projection keep telling us their system (in which the movie is beamed to the theater via satellite rather than delivered in expensive, heavy cans of film) will change all that, but we've got an all-digital 14-plex at the Harrisburg Mall, and other than being the area's only outpost for 3D, the primary difference between their selection and those of other area megaplexes is that they've got even MORE screens of Twilight.

YOU:  Yeah, you heard me, I'm talking to you.  I know, I know, if all your friends aren't going to see it, you'll just wait for video.  And thank the powers that be for DVD, because that's generally the only place I ever get to see specialty titles I don't feel like driving 2 ½ hours for.  But if something interesting is playing in your area, you're cutting your own cinematic throat by turning a blind eye to it.  I'm only too aware of how many of the people around me in line at the movies have arrived not even knowing what they're there to see.  That's fine, I'm a casual fan of a lot of things others take seriously, and I don't expect everyone to be a discriminating moviegoer.  But since you're reading some guy's movie blog, I do expect it of you.  Do your research!  Support quality independent films!  Don't make me start typing in all caps!

OK, I spent 5 hours on the road to see a 96 minute movie, so I believe I earned that rant.  What have you done to support alternative movies lately?