Fuck Dolby.

Fuck Dolby.
A lot.

I like to sit in the front rows of movies. I like feeling the screen loom above me. I like not having nodding heads between me and the fourth wall. I also like to stretch my legs way out. Now, I can't do that. In even the palest, blandest, beige and blonde romantic comedy or faux-brit hist-lite costume drama, the seats shake and the walls vibrate. Each preview, even, is louder than the last. Directors must bribe screenwriters to include scenes of thundering hooves, anything that can be set to wild drumbeats, screaching tires, rumbling crowds, violent weather ...

"Can we have this scene take place during a tornado?"

"Sir, this movie takes place in Washington, DC."

"A hurricane, then?"

"It's an educational picture, sir"

"Haven't you ever heard of dramatic license?"

"It's about how a bill becomes a law. And it's a documentary"

Maybe not exactly like that, but close. I just saw "Kingdom of Heaven"*, though.
By the time the previews were over, I was tired of hearing. I was tired of the assaultative quality of their attempted sonic persuasion. I wanted to go home to the comfort of my television and remote control. Away from the constant pounding of the pre-show shilling. These weren't war movies, or action, or horror.

One was about golf. Apparently, the story of a young man struggling to overcome class constraints to someday play professional golf can best be conveyed at a decibel level familar to me from my favorite hot-dog stand in the flight path of an international airport.

I remember seeing, probably ten years ago, what I thought was the loudest movie, ever. Independance Day left me shaken, invigorated, and with lingering heart palpitations from the bass. It was amazing. For the first time, the experience of seeing a movie in the theater was, for me, distinct from the quality of the plot and actors. I enjoyed it. I never thought about whether it was a good movie or a bad movie- I enjoyed the hell out of it. I was also twelve. Maybe fourteen. But, still- id4 (as the in folks like to call it) blew my tits off.

Dolby works. It sells. It inflates and it smoothes rough edges. It's the pancake makeup on the acne-scarred face of hollywood (over dramatic? suck my metaphor, guy). Pits and plot-holes seem to dissapear, at least momentarily. With the wonderful picture quality of DVDs (and the fact that a DVD now costs about what it costs for two adults to go out to the movies) they've got to give you something for going to the theater. I'm not denying the pure enjoyment of getting lost in a summer blockbuster on a searing day. There's nothing quite like the combination of entertainment and air conditioning in the middle of july.

The problem with dolby is the problem with marijuana; it makes abject laziness completely tolerable. Instead of being suspenseful, movies are loud. Instead of being thought-provoking, movies are loud. Instead of being funny, movies are loud. Instead of being scary, movies are loud. It is possible to make a quiet, scary movie. "Night of the Living Dead" is a quiet movie. (slow zombies=hotness bytheway) I'm not going to claim that older is better; that's not always true. I'm no luddite. I love technology ("28 days later"- completely digital video- I love it). I just wish people could think AND use it at the same time, on a semi-consistent basis.

Why can't they make more movies like Die Hard? Die Hard, the heart, if not the soul of american action movies and the godfather of summer blockbusters, is a fairly quiet film. It begins on an airplane. The film follows a single hero, moving mostly alone through an office building. Helicopters, explosions, and gunfire are accents that enhance, not create, the dramatic tension of the film.

* 'Kingdom of Heaven' sucked, by the way. Don't bother. Actually, it was beautiful. The production designer, costume designer, cinematographer, foley guys...all did a flawless job. They deserve a lot of credit. It's only the screenwriter, director, and actors who should feel ashamed of themselves. It looks like a brilliant movie. However, it makes no sense. It's a movie about the crusades that does not feature a single character with any strong religious feelings either way. No one has any reason to do the things they do. To solve this problem of motivation, occasionally characters will engage in unneccessary exposition. There was a sublimely unmemorable exchange between Orlando Bloom and some woman with a lot of eyeshadow that basically amounted to "I had an affair with your father. And now I'm going to have an affair with you. " "Ok" followed, two scenes later with "I'm going to sleep with you, for some reason I'll explain with a clumsy, meaningless simile" "Ok". Just worthless. But as a person who has slaved in the technical theater, and a few student films, I need to say- the techies did wonderful jobs.



[Dolby]