I really like movies. I really like books. I really like television. All three of these statements are true but all three of these statements have qualifiers. What is really interesting to me is that despite being very different mediums, they all have the same qualifiers. I like movies, books and television that compel me to think about them. I like some things that I am intellectually ashamed of but I have to confess to anyway. I love really funny movies. (And since its just you and me here, I will tell you that it isnt that hard for a good movie to make me cry.) Most of all what they all have in common is that in each medium there are huge chunks of work that I just cant stand on general principle. I have cable television with over 250 channels. When I first encountered that number of channels on sales brochures, I fantasized. I fantasized for years because I have spent the bulk of my life with fundamental 2 premises. You dont pay to watch television and there are 6 channels to choose from in the big city. I understand the, I dont own a television crowd. I get the idea that going outside and doing stuff is better for your body than planting it on a sofa and going into a television coma. One of things people like to say about television is that it is all (insert your preferred expletive)! Honestly, thats just snobbery. There is fantastic programming on television. It is as elusive as the yetti but it is there to be seen. There are these fabulous series offered on history, popular culture, all manner of science and the cooking shows, oh! the cooking shows (I have a huge crush on Ming Tsai, I love a man who cooks.) What is ridiculous is with over 230 channels; at any given time I can turn the television on and say to myself that there isnt a gall dern thing worth watching. How is this possible? If I just focus on movies and if we just focus on talkies, they have been making movies since the late 1920s. That means that they have been making movies for the past 85 years. (Warning: I am about to go nerd on you.) Lets assume that between Canada and the United States movie production averages 140 feature films per year and for easy arguments sake we assume that is a stable average for the past 85 years. That would mean that the feature film pool from the United States and Canada alone would be 11,900 films. I know that they make movies in other parts of the world. I have proof. I saw Siddartha and Un Chien Andalou with my very own eyes. There are only 8760 hours in a year. That means, if the average movie is 90 minutes long, one channel can only show about 5840 movies a year. If all this is true, explain to me how it is possible that at three oclock in the morning when I need a little something from my television, the same life-draining, mind numbing, stupid movies are always on? In short, (I know its a little late for that) since we are directly paying for television now, cant we all rise up as one and make them put something good on at 3am. I dont know what you pay for cable but for what I pay, my television should do dinner theatre on demand, offer me a nightcap, tuck me in and tell me a story about Ming Tsai. |
