Bored on the Corner in 2-D!

A while back, I saw the remake of "My Bloody Valentine" in its 3-D glory. These sort of movies aren't usually my thing, but I'd never seen this new RealD system in action before, so I figured... what the hell, I've got nothing else to do on Thursdays. Now, I'll give the inventors of this thing credit for making the glasses look a lot less ridiculous than they used to, but for the most part I still think it's just an overpriced and overrated gimmick.

The first reason this thing bothered me, is a very big one: unless you're sitting in just the right part of the theatre, everything will distort, and you end up with eye strain. If only a half dozen people in an average movie theatre will be able to enjoy the wonders of RealD, then it needs to go back to the drawing board. Actually, I can even give the creators a specific tip: talk to the guys who made the Terminator 2: 3D attraction, for the Universal theme parks. That show uses much cleaner 3D effects, that will work ANYWHERE in a much larger theatre, and it's technology that's at least 13 years old. Anyone else feel like someone went two steps backward?

The second beef I have, is related more to the moviemaking, so naturally it's my hope that some director or photographer is watching this and taking notes. If you're going to put something in the shot, between the audience and whatever you want them to focus on, put the damn things in focus will you please? I don't know about anyone else, but when I see something popping off the screen, my natural reaction is to look at whatever's closest to me. The problem is that if it's so blurred that you can't even tell what it is, you will once again strain your eyes. I'm not even sure if masochists find a splitting headache to be their idea of a good time. The simplest alternative to that is to probably not have anything in front of the subject in the first place.

Finally, one last comment, related to the 3-D style. It's a simple request: please cut out these gags where you pretend to hurl things right at the camera, to make the audience jump. It got pretty old, the first time 3-D was trendy, and fifty years later it's still annoying. If this thing is supposed to be the future of moviegoing, then stop treating it like a sideshow stunt and just let the audience be transported, alright?

So there you have it. 3-D may seem like a neat idea at first, but so many people need to get their acts together, from the inventors all the way to the filmmakers. To be honest, at $16 a pop, I expect a lot better than parlour tricks that make me feels like an icepick is jammed in my temples. That's it for me.