Nothing's Better than the Real Thing
Cinema, in glorious three dimensions, is back! And there's not a pair of those frail, cardboard, green-and-red specs in sight! Now you get a natty pair of special polarising specs that would give Ray-Ban a run for their money. Forget the horror that was (for all the wrong reasons) Jaws 3-D; the latest technology is guaranteed to have you gasping in disbelief as images leap to life before your eyes. See for yourself (if you missed Beowulf before Christmas) when U2's imaginatively titled concert film U23D comes to a cinema screen alarmingly near you next month.
The new 3-D revolution has come not a moment too soon. Hollywood is anxious, not only about those nasty pirates who copy its films but also about the threat of domestic multiplexes. Every Tom, Dick and Harriet, it seems, now has a 50-foot plasma screen in their living room, with a sound system so loud it'd have the neighbours shouting 'Asbo!' if they hadn't got their own TVs cranked up to 11. Why pay ridiculous sums for popcorn when you can stay at home and pop your own? Clearly, cinema needs the helping hand of technology to enhance its allure and ensure that its huddled masses remain masses.
But where and when will these advances in entertainment end? After all, as far as technology is concerned, things will only get better in the world of cinema, TV and video games. The capacity of the IT age to tempt us seems as limitless as our appetite for diversion. In this context, we need to ask whether contemporary culture actually offers us little more than 'all means to attract and distract'? And, faced with ever more enticing forms of amusement, we need to find the balance between Luddite and hedonist.
If we relentlessly pursue the latest in light-entertainment gadgets, will we inevitably end up embracing the trivial at the expense of the truth? Then we'd find ourselves at odds with the psalmist who wrote:
Turn my eyes away from worthless things; renew my life according to your word. (Psalm 119:37)
Obviously, he never had to contend with the January sales at PC World, but his words are not simply about damning that which is pointless; they are also about embracing that which is priceless. Perhaps if we learn to direct our gaze in the right direction, we, too, will begin to recognise the difference.
Jason Gardner
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