The year 2009 has already proved to be a year in entertainment defined by our economic hardships. Movie theaters have begun to offer deals to entice moviegoers to show up, and escapist fare like ""Paul Blart: Mall Cop"" has done better in theaters than more serious films. Television has felt the ripple effect of the economy as well, with stations planning recession-themed television for their fall lineups, such as ABC's ""Canned,"" a show about four friends who all get fired on the same day.
Despite this seemingly barren time in entertainment, new technology is being introduced to enhance moviegoers' enjoyment of films. There has been much hullabaloo about the new 3-D technology being introduced into theaters this year, with films such as ""Coraline,"" ""My Bloody Valentine"" and of course ""Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience,"" which gave preteen girls a chance to see the gyrating pelvises of Nick, Kevin and Joe seemingly thrust right at them.
Now, movie techies are coming up with even more gadgets. This week marks the debut of vibrating movie chairs, coinciding with the release of ""Fast and Furious,"" a film strangely similar to ""The Fast and the Furious"" but with a decided lack of definite articles in its title. The company that produces the chairs, D-Box Technologies, says the product is ""perfectly synchronized with all onscreen action, creating an unmatched realistic, immersive experience."" Although the technology is only being tested in two theaters, if it seems to test well, you can bet the seats will begin hitting high-end theaters soon.
Finally, the mother of all movie enhancement technologies was announced by the electric company Phillips. They have produced a jacket that lets you feel movies, courtesy of 64 actuators located inside it. The jacket will apparently heighten excitement by ""causing a shiver to go up the viewer's spine and creating the feeling of tension in the limbs."" This, along with other tricks such as creating a pulsing beat that simulates your own pounding heartbeat, will supposedly finally bring truth to all the adjective-challenged movie critics who call films ""thrill rides"" or ""roller coasters of emotion.""
All of this advancement leads to three fundamental questions: Are these advancements feasible in an economy like this one? Will these inventions take away from the actual viewing of a movie? And are any of these inventions actually good ideas? After all, vibrating seats have been around for years and have been used sparingly in so-called ""motion-picture odysseys."" Sure, they're fun, but because they are akin to rides, not films. Installing brand-new seats would up the price of movies further, a price apparently already too high for the Pirate Bay generation. Furthermore, a jolt from a seat to indicate Vin Diesel has kicked his car up a notch or a shiver from a jacket whenever Michelle ""The Walking DUI"" Rodriguez gets behind the wheel seems more like overkill than enhancement.
I would be remiss to say films should never take advantage of new technology. If that were the case, we'd still be sitting in nickelodeons watching 35mm black and white prints of ""The Jazz Singer."" Yet things like the sensory jacket feel more like ""Smell-O-Vision,"" the brief invention in 1960 that pumped smells through a theater when the soundtrack cued it. The idea seems ludicrous, but then again, so does wearing a jacket that sends shivers down your spine. When it comes to these new technological advances, I smell something fishy. And I don't need Smell-O-Vision to do it.
Think Kevin is being too uptight about technological innovations in the field of film? Think they should bring back Smell-O-Vision and make cooking documentaries? Enjoy the Jonas Brothers thrusting their pelvises at you? E-mail him at kevslane@gmail.com, and tell him all about it.
