A few hours ago, I posted a rerun of an old article from this site, then just realized I'd re-posted that one not along ago. So I took it down and here's one I haven't repeated. It's from 2/25/09, which should be long enough ago for some of you to forget it. Heck, most of you have probably forgotten what I posted yesterday.
A number of folks have written to thank me for my advice re: the fine new movie, Coraline. That advice was to rush to see it and, better still, avoid reading notices or watching previews of it. This does not just apply to Coraline. Frankly, the relentless promotion of some movies these days has damaged the whole film-watching experience for me. Time and again, I find myself in this situation: Some new movie I might like to see is about to come out…and by the time I could see it, I've seen it.
So many clips on talk shows. So many plot summaries and dialogue quotations in reviews. I try to avoid those ubiquitous "first look" and "The Making of…" featurettes on cable TV but that ain't easy. A few years ago at a party, I found myself in the midst of a discussion about the first Spider-Man movie, which I have never watched in a theater or on a DVD or on cable. But I'd seen enough of it in promos that I held my own in the chat with what I thought were folks who'd all seen the film. At the end, when I mentioned I hadn't, several others admitted as much. Twelve people had all discussed the strengths and weaknesses of a movie, only eight of us had sat through it and no one thought that was odd. Moviegoing has become that kind of experience. Actually going to the movie is only a part of it.
One of the joys of Coraline for me was sitting there, not knowing where it was going, being surprised at many a turn. More often watching a movie, I find myself sitting there thinking, "Oh, I see…we're leading towards that scene that the star showed two night ago on Leno." This is not so much a matter of Spoilers as it is of experiencing a film out of sequence.
I remember some wonderful moviegoing adventures where it really helped that I didn't know what was coming. I saw Blazing Saddles the night it opened. If I'd waited two weeks, I would have seen 70% of it via Mel Brooks talk show appearances but that evening at the Avco Embassy, every joke came as a total surprise, including the part where the characters run right out of the movie. (It also helped that night that Mr. Brooks was in the house. Before Blazing Saddles started, they were running a commercial for the L.A. Times and you heard this familar voice yell out from the back of the theater, "Get this shit off and show my movie!")
I saw Network at the Writers Guild Theater a good six weeks before it hit regular cinemas. The place was packed and no one knew one thing about it other than it was Paddy Chayefsky taking a shot at television. By the day it opened, half of America was screaming "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," having seen it in the promos and clips. It was a lot more effective to not know what was coming. (I was sitting next to Ray Bradbury when I saw it. When the film ended, he looked around the hall and said, "There isn't a person in this theater who isn't wishing he'd written that.")
This matters more with some movies that others. I kinda knew how Frost/Nixon ended before I saw it so seeing clips beforehand didn't particularly diminish the experience. But there have been a number of movies lately I didn't bother to see…because I'd already sorta seen them.