The death of independent cinema.

[Frogacuda]

It's a silly stigma. I want someone with me when I'm going out as part of the whole experience, but I'm just as happy to see a movie alone and meet a friend afterwards than I am to walk into a theater with another person and not talk while we watch the movie and then go out. It's not like bowling by yourself where it's really sad and not fun.

Yeah, I guess it's nice to compare opinions on the movie, but it seems like a silly reason to miss out on something I want to see. You have no problem watching a movie by yourself at home, why should you have a problem doing it when you're out?

[Josh]

Eating alone in restaurants is awesome. Shit is all business.

[Frogacuda]

Yeah, I eat alone at restaurants every day. It's just called lunch. But then I work from home, so it's really an excuse to get outside for a bit each day.

[Toupee]

I go to the movies alone all the time. I really enjoy it. Recently it cost me a little bit of money though because I went to see Inglourious Basterds alone, then couldn't stop thinking about it, so I had to drag two more people with me again a week or so later so I had SOMEBODY to talk to about it.

I have ended up at shitty big budget films before, but only as part of a group, and usually only when it COULD be a decent film... Benjamin Button, American Gangster, 310 to Yuma. I know some people liked these movies. I didn't care for them.

Oh, and I've never seen Transformers 1 or 2.

[Fe 26]

I'm sure one of your friends has been "that guy" at some point. My point is that it only takes one in each group.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN BITING AND SORRY ATTEMPT AT HUMOR!

A. stop hanging out with stereotypical jews

B. stop hanging out with old white women

WHICH PATH WILL KNIGHT FROGaCUDA OF BIRMINGHAM CHOOSE!?!

[Josh]

The gay one.

[Mr-K]

I have never been to a movie by myself, but am seriously considering breaking my own stigma.

I already broke my never eat alone at a restaurant thing by getting breakfast after working overnight once, might as well go all out with this.

I had the rules of don't go to movies or concerts alone, and I've done both and it's not so bad, really. Movies especially. Concerts are fine once the bands are playing, but in between it's very much "well I'll just stand here"

[Finch]

Agreed. This specious mainstream-indie fad is getting old. Juno, Away We Go, 500 Days of Summer, etc etc. The 'indie divisions' of major studios shoveling out movies in love with their own ironic t-shirts, clichéd unrequited love and washed out visuals may be profitable, but it doesn't necessarily make a good film. I know a lot of people love Superbad but I think that's when it really started getting out of hand (even more so than after ND, which I liked) I mean, is something like that really any less a calculated, vapid, profit-driven exercise than Transformers 19? To me they're both movies I'd download but not pay to see unless friends dragged me.

It sucks that 'independent film' is a term that has been made synonymous with all these insipid, contrived hipster genre traits. When I think of independent film I picture filmmakers striving to do their own thing regardless of what's popular, like Whit Stillman in the 90s, for instance. Not this smug circle-jerk, indie-is-the-new-mainstream stuff.

Well fuck, don't see the hipster genre. Let it be a niche of a niche on its own. You can whine all you want how (500) Days of Summer isn't as earthy as Tuvalu and isn't as honest as Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Savages but you have to consider that all of these movies are created by people who really enjoy what they're doing. There's a difference between thinking Transformers 2 is a big shitty movie and thinking that everyone who likes popular movies must be an idiot and that your tastes are better than their's.
Don't be such a fucking snob. Appreciating film is a much more respectable road than thinking that the only movies worth watching are the ones that no one's heard about.

And Iron Man sucks.

[YellerDog]

Nonja.

[Finch]

Speed Racer is the best independent film of all time.