Living in the Past: I am amazed by how much my movie watching habits have changed over the years. Like every young adult, I used to get geared up to see the new releases. I'd follow what was coming out and when and often go to theatre to see it first run. Goodbye to all that.

First, I have very little use for new movies. There are so many fine films from years past that I could likely go the rest of my life fully entertained if the entire industry collapsed.

Second, like any artistic endeavor, 95% of all films suck. OK, maybe only 10% suck profoundly, but the overwhelming majority is just complete waste of time. And there is virtually no way to get a valid advanced read on them. You certainly can't get it from the trailers, which are perfectly honed to create the desired impression. You can't really even get it from criticism since, like the films themselves, most criticism is bad: some criticism is bought, and the remainder? Well, we know what opinions are like, don't we? (Actually criticism becomes much more valid after you have seen the movie, when it becomes a conversation about the film rather than a desperate evaluation of whether it is worth your time.) Theatrical film releases are dying because nobody wants to spend $10 for a 95% chance at wasting two or three hours of their lives, except maybe teenagers.

Perfect example: Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong. It got a ton of hype, had a killer trailer, and garnered generally good reviews. Here's the thing: it's lousy. It's three hours long, the entire first hour and fifteen minutes or so are character establishment, and the characters aren't all that interesting. Then it turns into a big budget action flick with amazing computer-generated effects, but the action is really no better than any of the ten other big budget action flicks with amazing computer-generated effects that come out any given season.

It came on HBO last Saturday and I was feeling a bit burnt out and lethargic so I decided to watch it instead of be productive. It certainly functioned as something that required no productive effort. Not even thought. I completely validated my policy of not watching new movies, though.

In contrast, one of the gazillion channels on Comcast Digital recently re-ran the old '70s classic Midnight Cowboy. It is showing it’s age, but it is still a remarkable film (not for the kids -- I believe it actually got an "X" rating back in the day; it’s a nasty "R" these days). It is still a very affecting human story, not just based on the eventual sentimentality the viewer feels for the characters, but for the way it captured the humanity of the lowlifes at the center. It's extremely unlikely that anyone involved with the production was ever a dirtbag, penny-ante con man, or a cowboy gigolo wannabe, yet both characters seem genuine and fully formed. That's talent. Even though I had seen this movie before (but not for many years), it is an aspect of it I had not considered.

Anyway, the point is not that Midnight Cowboy is better than King Kong. It's that newness means nothing to me. I don't care that Midnight Cowboy is from a bygone era and I really don't care that much that I have seen it a couple of times in the past; it was the better way to spend time. Are there new films that are as good as Midnight Cowboy? Probably, but it's not worth the effort it would take to sort through all the crap to find them. Better to let time sort that out. I suspect that is going to be the general circumstance for me, forever. I am sure I will stumble on new films to enjoy once they've aged a bit and show up on-demand, but I don't need any more new movies. They are plenty I haven’t seen yet, and plenty to revisit and find newness in.

This is another way of saying I'm getting old and I don't cotton with all this new-fangled noise. Actually, the problem is that there is very little new. Facts are rearranged, but little is different. When you're young everything is new and all the humanistic insights of the arts are fresh. When you're old(er), something really and truly new only comes along once in a while. Meanwhile, you understand that pretty much all the insights have been out there for all the ages. So living in the past is just as good, only cheaper and less annoying.