Sorry, but this is a bit of a rant

I went to the movies last night. I used to go to the movies a lot, even went to several film festivals, but we got out of the habit when the kids were little and haven't gotten back in the groove. It's important when you're at my stage of life, that being later middle age when the kids are kind of on their way out, to make sure that you don't just keep doing what became normal when you had greater responsibility for your childrens' moment-to-moment well being. Because ultimately you end up depriving yourself for no good reason.

The particular result of not going to the movies much is that I don't see many movies. I know, I know, but I don't particularly like watching them on TV, so I really never see them. I'm not sure how big a loss this is, but I know I used to enjoy it.

In any event, we went to a movie called The Artist. It was in black and white and I liked it except I couldn't hear a damn thing anybody was saying. But it's nominated for a bunch of Academy Awards, so we went.

Seriously, it was a good movie and it was nice to see someone playing with the classic silent genre. But it got gimmicky at times and although it's unique I didn't see it as quite being worth all the fuss, except that so many major movies are just so downright dull that it looks like a masterpiece by comparison.

My perspective is clearly different now than when I was younger, but it seems to me that movies may be following a similar path as music. With music, you can clearly see that the mainstream is congealing into a soulless mush- stuff called R&B that has neither, whiny-boy rock that sounds no different from any other, Nickelback. Need I say more? At the same time, as it's become easier to produce and distribute music independently, interesting things are happening around the edges. But the general effect is that of a slow slide into mediocrity. Maybe the same thing is happening in movies.

It's easy to make the case that both rock music and movies are just plain tired. Rock has a fairly uncomplicated format and for the most part its output is limited to a bunch of 3-4 minute pieces. Maybe there's only so much one can do with an electric guitar, keyboard, bass and drums. And how many interesting ideas for movies could there possibly be? Are there an unlimited number?

What's interesting for me is that while the technology of delivering visual entertainment and music and any sort of popular art has advanced and dissolved and re-formed in sometimes revolutionary ways, the types of expression has changed very little. Yeah, 3-D movies, mashups, more realistic shooter games. But so what? There is clearly nothing revolutionary about that. It may not even be evolutionary.

 And yet the underlying themes are just as powerful as ever. I always thought movies were abut storytelling. And so is a good song. So are we out of stories or are we just being stupid about it? Or maybe lazy is a better word. I'm afraid the advanced technology is mostly being used to make it easier to make crap, rather than to expand horizons.