DEATH OF THE MOVIES (REPRISE)

Times headline today: "WITH POPCORN, DVD's AND TIVO, MOVIEGOERS ARE STAYING HOME"

My God, what chance does the theatre have now, you ask?

The bottom line comes from a UCLA senior: "I want to do things that conform to my time frame, not someone else's."

Maybe it's time again for traveling players, Hamlet-style, to tour the country and stop at places like this boy's castle and ask if he'll have a play today out of their repertory.... Or I suppose they call those things Escort Services today.

Yes, once again, the movies are over--at least in theatres. But nowhere does this article remind us this exact same panic spread 25 years ago when VCR's hit. Not to mention 60(!) years ago when suddenly everyone had a television. And yet somehow, we still shell out ten bucks to watch "Fandango" commercials and listen to people's ringtones, followed by two hours of Monster-in-Law.

Bold (or simply wishful) prediction: if the moviegoing experience continues like this, theatre attendance will outpace it by 2050.