commercial free?
October 1, 2012
So, recently we’ve been having sort of a cinematic education/indoctrination series at the house. That is, I’ve been forcing the kids to watch movie series that are important to me. We watched all the Rocky movies (1-4–the rest never happened). Watched all the Star Wars movies. The Bourne Movies. The Lord of the Rings movies. And the Terminator movies. I have others still on the list. The Godfathers. The Screams. Back to the Futures. The Bonds.
But that’s not really the point. The point is, yesterday, we were flipping around between football games, and came across Terminator Salvation. So we settled in.
And two or three commercial cycles passed before we realized, um, so, we actually OWN this movie. Why are we watching a non HD, commercially interrupted version of a movie that is about visuals and sound and should not be interrupted?
What’s amazing is there was argument about whether we should do this. Keep watching this stupid TV version, or, if we were actually wanting to watch it, take the 20 seconds and slap the DVD into the player, and find the current scene.
Why this weird indecision? Is it because we didn’t plan to watch it, so we can’t take it seriously? I would get that if it were, say, Weekend at Bernies. But for Terminator Salvation?
We went ahead and put in the DVD. But now I kind of need to make two lists of movies–those you leave on the TV and those you stop and put in the DVD.
I’ll put that in my “projects” file.
dug 
October 1, 2012 at 3:23 pm
You mean Godfathers 1&2, right? Because 3 never happened.
October 1, 2012 at 4:10 pm
So. I have Godfather 1 and 2 sitting on the shelf waiting to go.
And I am torn on 3.
On the one hand, 3 is nowhere near the caliber of 1 and 2. On the other hand, it’s also not the unmitigated disaster we all labeled it when it came out. It’s watchable. It’s okay. It’s just not really viewable in the same way 1 and 2 are.
I think what I’ll do is watch 1 and 2 with the kids, then wait as long to watch 3 as it took Coppola to make it.
October 1, 2012 at 9:02 pm
I’ve never been able to forgive that film. As near as I can remember its the only time I’ve walked out of the theatre halfway through a movie. To this day I’ve not seen the rest of it.
You only have one shelf?
October 1, 2012 at 9:34 pm
There was one?
October 1, 2012 at 4:07 pm
That’s happened at our house too. It’s weird, once you start watching something on TV it has inertia that takes significant force to stop.
Somewhat related, watching a DVRed program and skipping commercials gives me an I’m-in-control power rush.
Also maybe related, we’re new-ish to Blu-ray and I must say buying The Avengers in HD was money well spent.
October 2, 2012 at 5:30 pm
I can’t believe “Waiting for Guffman”, “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind” are not on this list
October 3, 2012 at 3:40 pm
mary, good point. i do love those movies. i don’t think my kids are there yet. did you see the list i was using? not the subtlest titles in the library.
October 5, 2012 at 8:41 am
Holy crap! (sorry, visual thinkers) We’ve been watching all those same movies and series with James, too! Movie junkies, UNITE!
October 17, 2012 at 3:56 pm
Never seen The Godfather. None of them. No particular reason just never did. No Screams, no Futures. Meh. That doesn’t make me a bad person, does it?