Like many people, when I saw the trailer for Gravity, I knew it would make my short list of movies I'd like to see in the theater. When reactions and reviews started rolling in, I started frothing at the mouth. I saw Gravity in IMAX 3D last week and my reaction was something unexpected. Upon leaving the theater, I realized I had a completely fulfilling movie theater experience for the first time in a decade.
The visual beauty of Gravity is apparent for most viewers. For me, the beauty of Gravity was the fact that nothing important was lost on me. Any dialogue I missed was not vital. Character development and backstories were at best nonexistent, and at worst unimportant. Gravity consisted of a humble 90 minutes of non-gratuitous action. It stripped away all the extra peripheral elements that had made past theater experiences so disappointing for me. I actually was able to sit through an entire movie and not feel as though I had missed the punchline. It was incredible.
So what's the deal toots? Are you some kind of vapid airhead?
Not to belittle the virtues of a simple, straight-forward film, my real problem is that I have a very real hearing loss. My hearing loss is mild enough that I can function without hearing aids in most situations, but severe enough that hearing aids don't fully correct my deficiency, causing me to miss bits of everyday conversation. While these missed words can result in some hilarious word mangling, it also makes me miss out on little bits of life. An evening in a bar or loud restaurant, or a normal night out at the movies fit squarely in the latter category.
I watch TV and movies with captions at home. Since I haven't had this option in movie theaters, I miss out on a large part of the typical movie going experience, ie character development and nuance via excision of huge chunks of dialogue. Due in equal parts to my hearing loss and skyrocketing ticket prices, I've become increasingly picky over the kinds of movies I see in movie theaters. I generally limit myself to movies in which I know dialogue will not be as important, such as big blockbuster action flicks or films with stunning visuals, meaning movies that are meant to be watched huge and loud.
It's not exactly high art, but even still, when watching something like "The Avengers," I inevitably miss some important little parts. I miss a lot of jokes, witty comebacks, and pivotal plot points. The whole audience will laugh, and I often find myself staring blankly at the screen thinking, "Crap, I missed something funny again." I always flesh this stuff out many months later, in the comfort of my home, but of course by this time the initial thrill has passed, "Oh THAT was the funny part? Pish."
Possibly the worst instance of "what the hell is going on" at the movies was gifted to me via a super confusing movie called The Dark Knight Rises. I know that a lot of people with fully functioning ears had trouble with this one, so you can imagine how difficult it would be for me, queen "huh?" What with all the grunting, gravel voices and face masks, I had some issues keeping everything straight. I'm very pleased that I figured out who the guy with the skeleton fist over his mouth was, even if I couldn't figure out a damn word he was saying. While it was a good movie (I think?), the virtues of the movie (outside of Joseph Gordon-Levitt) were largely lost on me. Until I Netflix you, gravel movie. Kiss kiss.
Speaking of Netflix, did you know there was a time that Netflix DID NOT have captions? While it's not the case anymore, it flabbergasts me that modern media institution ever thought it was kosher to exclude a large group of people with disabilities. About five years ago, I rented "The Miracle Worker" on DVD, but was enraged when I saw the movie didn't have captions. A movie about Helen Keller, a freaking deaf icon, that a deaf person would not be able to watch. Really.
I'm happy to report that we've come a long way in recent years. I learned that over the summer, Regal Cinemas rolled out closed captioning glasses in 400 of their theaters nationwide. These glasses, which look similar to 3-D glasses, project captions onto their lenses, like a hologram. Early reviews state that the glasses are heavy, and (unlike normal closed captions) the words are hard to read while watching the movie since they are on a different plain than the movie itself.
Regardless, I plan on giving these sweet future glasses a shot for my next froth at the mouth movie du jour. Perhaps I'll figure out a way to wear 3D glasses OVER the closed captioning glasses OVER my normal glasses. I'm lucky my nose is big.
--
P.S. If you ever have a problem with Netflix, caption related or not, contact them via their customer service twitter account (@Netflixhelps). When my beloved X-Files inexplicably dropped captioning, they brought it back right quick (swoon).
Image via NASA (public domain), Graphics by Shay Lorseyedi (All rights reserved = Please don't steal me!)
No comments
Post a Comment