Double, Triple, Quadruple Feature

Double, Triple, Quadruple Feature

Nobody can argue that he/she does not enjoy watching movies. Every person has his/her own taste. But after seeing a movie, why must one watch it again? Repeatedly—almost until the viewer can recite every line before the actor says it. I simply do not understand. After knowing the ending of the storyline, how can one watch, knowing what events and what plot twists will happen? The suspense is taken away. The humor is taken away. It is like a road sign up ahead saying, “Joke coming in 10 miles!” But I will admit that I have seen several movies more than once. I can see the other side to this argument. Maybe it’s your favorite movie.  Maybe it’s your favorite actor. It makes sense that you want to relive those moments and enjoy them all over again. But is there a price on that entertainment?

                Life is expensive. College, food, clothes—they all cost more than we want them to cost. But what about entertainment? Prices for going to a movie theater seem to be continuously growing. An adult ticket price at 7:00pm at Wehrenberg Theaters is $10.50. Why would you want to spend that much money twice?  It is as if you bought a new house and decided to buy another house because you loved the first one so much.  Although I can imagine a few reasons for paying a high ticket fee twice, they don’t seem quite significant enough. Picture this—two of your friends ask you to go see the same movie, but they can only go at two different times. Would you go twice to help your friends out? Or would you pick one friend over the other? This situation now becomes a decision of what one really wants to pay for. Some people pay for the experience— the crowd, the friends, the popcorn—rather than the actual movie. So in the end, what does the viewer really want to spend their cash on?

An alternative for the high ticket price at the theaters is watching movies on the TV channels. The films range from classic motion pictures to movies that came out a few months ago. However, I personally have noticed that out of all the six-hundred movie channels, my mother has picked about three. My mother tends to watch movies repeatedly, to the point where I can’t stand to be in the room to hear the same lines said once again on screen. She has seen Twilight, Something Borrowed, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding at least eleven times each, with none of them being her favorite movie. A situation happened when I wanted to watch a new movie that none of the family members had seen before, but the channel did not change. It stayed on the film that the family had all seen more than we would have liked. I annoyingly whined, “You’re hogging the TV. You’ve seen this before!” But I was simply hit with the reply, “So what?”  If there are over 800 channels with hundreds of shows and movies that a person has never viewed before, why do some people choose to watch something he/she has seen multiple times?

Someone who has never seen a movie more than once, a well-known film critic, Pauline Kael, had an interview discussing her critic days. She explained how she is surprised at the popular critics of today who see movies over eight times in order to write good reviews. Kael plainly doesn’t understand how the critics don’t hate the movies after watching them so many times. I completely agree with Kael’s statement. I cannot comprehend how one can view a film knowing what will happen next.  It is like the movie is your favorite song on the radio, but the stations play it so much that every time you hear it the song begins to irritate you a little more. Kael is recognized as one of the most opinionated and influential film critics of all time, without ever watching a movie twice in her eighty-two year long life. 

          Therefore it’s true—you can form decent opinions, take in details, and absorb the plot line with just one viewing of a film. However, I will not stop someone if he/she wants to watch a movie again, but I will not be present when doing so. I will probably forever be annoyed by this topic, but I can understand how individuals enjoy watching cinemas more than once.  Movies are meant for entertainment, so as long as they entertain someone, they are filing their role.