Let's (not) go to the movies

So for the next little while, my friends list is going to be full of screaming about the Oscars (through metaquotes if nothing else). I am amused that there was an apparent theme of "DVDs are Evil, Keep Big-Screen Entertainment Alive!" at the Oscars this year, though. Part of the reason for this? I haven't seen a single one of the films that were up for nomination. Those I intend to see, I am waiting for the DVD. Because, hey, while I'm interested, I'm not that interested. In fact, even minus the migraines, I'm not really all that interested in the cinema at all.

Look at it this way: when I used to live in Letchworth, the Broadway cinema was my port of call if I wanted to go watch a film. It was, at that time, an old, single-screen cinema that had never been refurbished so it had this fading but still extant glamour to it. The seats were large and comfy, the snacks were not overpriced (no popcorn, but just as well, due to all the crunching and the fact that this country can't do decent buttery popcorn anyway), they switched films once every couple of weeks as an incentive to keep people coming in, and there was a balcony. All was good. Then Odeon bought it. Suddenly, it was like every other multiplex in the world. Overpriced tickets to pay for the new screens and seats, despite the fact that they put in the extra screens and seats to get more customers and thus more money. Tiny seats that, I'm sorry, discriminate wildly against fat people in their attempt to get more seats, and hence more bums in seats, into the cinema. The concession stand that sells bad hot dogs, dry popcorn and nachos covered in orange protoplasm at wildly inflated prices. Three relatively tiny screens with more Dolby Surround Sound than you technically need in an insulated concrete box. And thus it was that I lost interest in the Broadway.

I think you see where I'm going with this. Leaving aside the whole thing about crying children, rude bastards talking through the whole film (either amongst themselves or on their cellphone, which incidentally winds up ringing at the worst possible time) and people trying to record it for download, going to the cinema is no longer the event it used to be. It's a little more like going to Starbucks; paying against the odds for the privilege of being uncomfortable while enjoying something that you could enjoy more comfortably at home.

This wouldn't bother me as much if there were more worthwhile films to watch. From what I can tell, though, mainstream cinema is the same every year, with a few exceptions. There's at least one book-to-film adaptation that gets more kudos than it actually deserves by standing on the shoulders of a really good author, a few "cause celebre" flicks (Brokeback Mountain fit both those categories this year), the inevitable foreign breakaway 'hit' (read: someone in the US has heard of it), an action film trying to be deeper than it really is ... and then the wave of 'date movies' (and all the gods that walk the earth and crawl beneath save us from the upcoming Date Movie), 'guy' movies full of fart jokes and crude sexual humour, and sci-fi "spectaculars" that are judged almost entirely by how much blows up and how many people get semi-nude. Oh, and something by Disney. Or that looks close enough to Disney to make no odds. Now, really, does this line-up sound worth anywhere from £6.50 to £12.00 (depending on where you're seeing it)?

There are films that I can't wait to see. Silent Hill, for example, looks worth the price of the ticket. I had to see what they did with Serenity due to how much I enjoyed Firefly, and wanted to see Saw II right away because of how taken I was with the original. I want to see The Proposition when it comes out because it sounds like a fascinating concept. I've waited long enough to see V for Vendetta, thank you (don't see why they couldn't have released it on 5 November like they were supposed to; does that lend it too much weight?). But they're few and far between, because I get migraines when I go to the cinema and so I'm not only paying above the odds for minor discomfort but actually paying money for the 60% chance of excruciating pain. So it has to be worth it for me to go. I'm betting other people feel the same way, for one reason or another.

So a message to Hollywood. Instead of pimping the cinematic experience at the Oscars, why not try making it worth our while to go? Try producing something other than tat once in awhile, and we might come back. Actually, same goes for the music industry. WAKE UP, PEOPLE! We can only be stooges to the consumer instinct for so long...

Parliamentary Problems

Has anyone seen this?

I found out about it via draxar, who is surprised that there is no rioting in the streets over a Bill that essentially cuts Parliament out of the process of lawmaking. Under this Bill, ministers can take decisions made by Parliament and change them, provided that they don't raise taxes or create new crimes punishable by more than two years in jail. Anything under two years, though, is okay. And, as is pointed out by the guest contributor to the Times, this applies to the Bill itself, so that these two limitations could easily be changed with no Parliamentary debate or recourse. So the question is, if this thing is put into effect, what the fuck is the point of having a Parliament? Others are asking this too, calling it the Abolition of Parliament Bill. Of course, it's really called the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, but AoPB is more to the point.

The depressing thing is how little press it seems to have got. This made news in late February and I hadn't heard of it. Two weeks later and it's only just now getting an airing by the more politically minded of my LJ friends. The government is preparing to throw its democratic process entirely into the bin, and no one seems to care. Look, people go out and they vote for a Member of Parliament that they trust to speak for them on the issues that matter. That MP and the others debate matters and stand a chance of representing the majority view at least. So if this passes, people's political voices are essentially reduced to meaningless white noise as government does whatever the hell it wants. And nobody cares that this destroys the people's voice in government. This may well be because people do not believe that they have a voice in government. They've been trained out of it, more than ever in the last few years. Tony Blair stands up in Brighton and says, "I know the people have spoken, but really, you don't understand so I'll do what I want anyway", and people accept it.

For the love of all that's holy, people, think of what this could mean. Human Rights Bills don't apply to this thing. Do you want to see people going to jail for two years for peaceful political protest? Do you want to be saddled with whatever ID card technology they want to throw at you, however buggy and unreliable, and be forced to pay for it? Do you want things like the boy in Kent being fined £80 for saying the word 'fuck' in private conversation to be a regular occurrence, possibly with worse consequences? How much censorship do you want to risk?

Yeah, Parliament is a weird thing. Parliament seems, from the outside, to be a lot of grown men and women screaming and jeering at each other across a big room. Yes, I agree that it needs some work and some streamlining (maybe lose the screaming and jeering?). However, what it does not need is abolition, because it's all the voice the rest of us have in government. We need them as a sort of a buffer zone between us and a government that has proven not to give a good goddamn about our needs and desires, or indeed the benefit of the country as a whole. It's about time we start making our cogs in the government machine work for us and for themselves, or they're going to be reduced to meaningless cyphers and we're just going to be living in Orwell's nightmare.

The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill is going through Parliament right now. Those of you who live in England, write to your MP. Remind them of what this Bill could mean -- for them, for us, for everybody. Speak out; tell the world, or at least that part of it in which you live, that you do not want this, as loudly and eloquently as you can. Keep a lookout for news spots and anything else you can find on the subject, and keep talking about it. Don't let this stupid Bill be yet another horror that makes a sidebar on page 2 of the Metro and then disappears to be flagged up only as a fait accompli a few months later. It's about time we stood up and forced people to remember that a democratic government is by the people, for the people and as the people giveth, so can the people taketh away. We are not just numbers and Parliament is not just a bunch of grown men and women acting like small children and making our decisions for us. Nor are we stupid peons with the attention spans of goldfish -- or at least, we don't have to be.

If this keeps up, we're democracy's last hope. Let's short-circuit the destruction of the democratic ideal before it's too late.