Research and Development

Since she is working a party with a "Frozen" theme today, Jeanine and I went to the movies last night to watch it, making it the first film I've seen at the theater this year. It would have been an appropriate choice if we lived anywhere besides California, since the rest of the country seems to be in a deep freeze at the moment. There are no currently playing films about the imminent threat of drought though, and even if there were, it would be a strange theme for a children's party.

As for the film, it was okay in that "seen variations of this theme a hundred times" sort of way. It would have been better if it hadn't been basically a musical. On the plus side, Jeanine can now make balloon versions of the movie characters and place them into the grasping hands of small children.

I miss the days when we had good local movie houses that showed a nice selection of foreign and cult films. Some of them are still there, but playing other types of films. For instance, The Towne is still open, but only plays Indian films. The Camera theaters are still there too, but seem to lean more toward mainstream fare these days. Camera 7 is where the old Pruneyard theater was, Camera 12 is a relatively new downtown complex showing mainstream fare, and Camera 3, the only enduring original Camera, seems to have tamed down its offerings a bit. Meanwhile, in the rest of the Bay Area, there is little left. I especially miss the University Theater in Berkeley.

In other cinema news, San Jose's iconic dome theaters are endangered. The old Century 25 dome (most recently the home of the Retro Dome, which mostly showed live musicals and family movies from the last few decades) was knocked down recently, no doubt to make way for some cookie cutter assemblage of bland crap. Century 24 is next on the list. The Retro Dome has retreated to Century 21, and Centuries 22 and 23 also remain open for the moment. Developers are eyeballing them though.

I fondly remember being a kid and waiting in long lines at the Century 22 to see movies like Star Wars. They say that the only real constant is change though. I just wish it was never change for the worse. Maybe if we get rid of all the developers, Edward Abbey style, to ensure that the wild places of our childhoods remain sacrosanct...

Not that I'm resistant to change or anything like that. I'm just resistant to stupid change. To some people, financial motivation is the only motivation. Where is the passion in that?