DVDs are for losers

Good movies are like good sex -- and resale-happy Hollywood has long since gone frigid.

Published August 29, 2003 12:15AM (EDT)

New rule: DVDs are for losers. Hey, why pay $9 to watch garbage in a crowded theater when you can pay 24 bucks and actually own that garbage? After all, "Kangaroo Jack" is the kind of film you need to see 10 or 12 times before you really "get it." Be honest, you're not a cinephile, you're a dateless 30-year-old watching "Die Another Day" in your basement.

DVDs, you see, are evil because they now account for over half the money Hollywood makes, and they're all bought by the young, dumb, car-crash-loving male demographic, the same one that's given us MAXIM magazine, attention deficit disorder and George Bush. Also, since the little teenage darlings who control all media are not old enough to see R-rated movies, our entire culture is now PG-13 -- the kind of blanded-down mush designed to be as inoffensive as possible to the widest group possible, the same theory that made airline food what it is today. And that's what movies are now: airline food.

I know it's the summer, but still: I went to see "Bad Boys II" and the THX "Quiet, the audience is listening" trailer had a more believable plot. Movies used to come from novels; now they come from video games. But it didn't used to be like this.

When I was 12 years old, Hollywood didn't give a damn about me -- and that was good! Good for the movies and good for me because I was challenged to stretch -- to smarten up instead of dumb down. Besides ruining movies, we've ruined our kids by making everything about them, and now if I want to see a movie I had better like loud noises, things blowing up and Colin Farrell.

Movies suck because Hollywood figured out that Mom and Dad don't spend their money on movies anymore, they give their money to their kids and they spend it on movies -- to break up their shopping spree at the mall. It's like American parents are on one long date with their kids -- no, it's even worse, it's like Robert DeNiro in "Casino," helplessly trying to buy the love of a shopaholic hooker with no heart, played of course by Sharon Stone.

Before I die, could someone please make one more movie I want to go out and see? I'm not asking for the moon here, and I'm not some film snob with a ponytail who only likes subtitled Albanian documentaries. But to middle-aged people like myself, a good movie is like good sex --- you don't have to put one out every day -- but when whole seasons go by, you do get a little horny for entertainment.


By Bill Maher

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."

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