If I had to rank all the things I love doing, going to the to the movies would be up there with debating politics and alcohol infused Trivial Pursuit. Even though I have a Netflix account and am surrounded by all sorts of entertainment, I’d still choose to wade through the masses to watch a good flick. Lately however, I find myself drifting outside of the ’Boro to get my fix. This begs the question, where did the great movies go?
MTSU has the largest undergraduate class in the state. You would think Murfreesboro would be swelling with entertainment appealing to aspiring intellectuals, but the town appears to be short on movie snobs. Of last year’s Academy Awards best picture nominees, only two played here, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire. If The Reader, Frost/Nixon or Milk played in the ’Boro then I must have missed that one Sunday afternoon they were showing.
These movies should be able to easily coexist with more poplar movies like The Hangover and even really bad movies like Transformers. The Regal Cinema in Green Hills does it well. When you go there you actually have a choice between something made for the family or something less mainstream that’s made for movie geeks not always looking for an escapist flick. That’s where I saw No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. A movie I was recently itching to see was Moon. It’s a simple story of a guy stranded on the moon. It stars Sam Rockwell and the voice of Kevin Spacey as a robot. Unfortunately, the robot didn’t transform into a big gun and try to destroy the earth, so it will probably not be making its way to Murfreesboro. It’s too bad; I saw it at the Belcourt in Nashville and it was really good.
Maybe we’re regressing out of the need for intellectual entertainment altogether. Maybe the permanent way forward for the novel will always be the next James Patterson serial, and the next great movie will always be the summer blockbuster. It’s very possible that in today’s land of big business, larger profit margins will forever dictate what’s palatable for society. That’s the paranoid and pessimistic view, but I?d almost rather believe that then believe that there are so few people in town who have a granule of cinematic taste that a theater doesn’t bother to accommodate them.
And really, the Carmike can’t get Moon but will show I Love You Beth Cooper? Since when did the theater become Chuck E Cheese? The Premier 6 is more laid back and actually feels like a place adults should be. I prefer it over the circus that chain theaters usually are, but I’m still totally envious of the Belcourt. They have a bar in the theater. So as an adult you can grab a beer and watch movies that not only appeal to the ears but appeal to that muscle inside the thick skull that we hate using so much. Plus, they’re showing Teen Wolf at midnight; how ridiculous is that?
