People are always writing to ask me my opinion of the latest blockbuster movie release. I'll save you the trouble: I probably haven't seen it and might not for some time. Sometimes, that's because nothing I know about the film attracts me to it. Sometimes, I'm just busy and going to see a movie is one of the few things I can postpone for a long time and then experience.
This wasn't true when I was much younger. A film made the rounds and then it disappeared. It might later turn up on TV, trimmed and censored and interrupted by commercials and reduced to the small screens we had in those days. That was bad enough…but it might also become highly unavailable. I remember when my friend Rob Solomon and I went to see the original version of The Producers with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. We loved it so much that we sat through it twice because we were afraid it would go away and we'd never be able to see it again. Today, I have a copy of it on DVD and somewhere in my storage space, I think I have it on Beta, on VHS and on Laserdisc.
In 1967, that simply did not seem possible. But in 2019, I'm not sure I can think of one movie I ever liked that I could not be watching in the time it would take me to find the DVD and jam it into one of my players. Most of them, I could also locate and begin playing via some "on demand" service without even budging from the chair I'm in right now. That will certainly always be true of any current movies. No, I haven't seen Joker yet. But one of these days when I have time, I will. And it will be the exact same movie I could go today and see at the Cineplex.
That is not true of a play I might want to see that's playing now or a concert or a lecture or a stand-up comedy act. It's not even true of a lot of TV shows. The ones I record automatically on my DVR are mostly like those of Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Bill Maher…shows that are timely and disposable. I might not be able to see those particular episodes six months from now and/or they might not have the same meaning to me then. But I'll bet you I'll always be able to watch the latest episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the experience will be the same as if I watched it tonight.
My life changed a lot when I got my first VCR in late 1976. From that point on, I controlled television, it did not control me. I didn't have to be home and in front of my TV set at 11:30 to watch Johnny Carson. I could start watching it at ten minutes past midnight or the next day or weeks later. Once I got my first TiVo in 1999, it was easier. Today, it's even easier because we have shows On Demand or shows that rerun several times during the week. That's great. I'd like to see The Irishman but I'll do that when I'm good 'n' ready.
I have friends who don't think that way. They want to see the new movie everyone's talking about so they can talk about it and feel they're very "today." That's fine. I just wish they'd stop doing what someone did to me yesterday and it prompted me to write this. I ran into a buddy the other day and…
BUDDY: I want to get your take on Gemini Man. I didn't think it was as bad as some people are saying. What did you think?
ME: I think I didn't see it. What made you think I had?
BUDDY: Well, it's been open for like three weeks now. I guess you're waiting for it to hit Netflix, huh?
ME: I'm waiting until I feel like seeing it and have time to see it. It might be years until I get around to it if I get around to it. It might be a period piece set in the past by then. Don't you ever watch a movie that came out a year or three ago?
BUDDY: No…because then they're old movies.