06 January, 2007

Upgrading to cinema 1.5

In recent years there's some talk about alternative endings in movies, which is a nice way to enhance viewers' experience, but requires extra work to shoot the additional ("alternative") scenes. Besides increasing costs, this method does not work in movie theaters. Although it was proposed to equip theaters with some sort of voting devices so that the patrons could choose the ending, it does not seem to catch up.

I have an easier way to upgrade, if not to cinema 2.0, but to cinema 1.5 at least. The upgrade is cheap, does not require any extra scenes and will work in movie theaters. It does not even need any support from the movie makers, you can do it yourself and it's perfectly legal!

What one needs to do is to skip the first 5-15-30 minutes of the film. Skip a little, if you want cinema 1.1, just a little less obvious than a regular movie. Skip some more if you're really into solving puzzles. And if you want a reality-like experience, start watching from the middle: strangers would shoot strangers for unknown reasons, just like in real life.

By going the latter route, you'll also be fighting elitism: after all, why praise someone for making a film that nobody (including, most likely, the director!) can really understand, while any regular crappy movie is a potential chef-d'oeuvre! All it takes is just one trivial edit ;)

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