Death of the movies

In the last couple of months, I have taken two long aeroplane flights. During those I watched many movies on the in-flight entertainment, more than six. OK, I confess I didn't watch any of these movies all the way through, I fast forwarded through the boring bits, of which there were many. In my opinion, all these movies were unimaginative, written to a formula, and it was always a relief to me when any of the dreary characters in the movies was blown to bits. The movies were either "action" movies, which means the plots are exactly the same, with different costumes. (Handsome hero, cute girlfriend, powerful villain who almost, but not quite kills hero, big battle 15 minutes before the end of the movie, happy ending with enough loose ends to allow a sequel if the box office permits.)

Alternatively, the movies were sentimental romantic comedies with awkward hero, stupid behaviour and happy ending etc.

I kept congratulating myself on not having wasted my money paying to watch this nonsense in the movie theatres.

Then I saw that there was an oldies channel showing Bogart and Bergmann in Casablanca.

Bliss.

A movie with interesting ideas, characters you care about, imaginative dialogue and a story which connected to the real lives of the audience.

Then this morning I heard an interview on the radio with the director of the American television series "House of Cards". In his opinion, the real entertainment these days is on television, not in the movies. I can see his point, television has more opportunity to try new things, a series can allow development of the characters, and content can be delivered in many ways, over the internet, on DVD's and is available whenever you want it.

Are movies dying?

Near me, cinemas are closing, and the one successful theatre spends half its time showing live recordings of concerts, operas and plays, and reruns of old classic movies.

Back when TV started, people predicted that it would kill the movie theatres, but it didn't then, but maybe it is finally happening. The only thing the movies provides is a cheap night out of the house, but is that enough to keep the movies alive?

Meanwhile, we will be seeing more and more "blockbuster" movies based on comic books.

Seriously? 

These comics weren't much good when I read them as a child, I refuse to pay to watch them now. Has Gone With The Wind really morphed into Superman?

Or are the movies dying?