A FOURTH OF JULY DECLARATION OF MOVIEGOER INDEPENDENCE!

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one segment of the population to dissolve the heretofore-harmonious relationship it once had with the entertainment industry, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to this decision.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that aside from the early buzz on The Dark Knight, a significant portion of cinematic offerings in the last, oh, ten years or so have sucked. The continuing insistence of Will Ferrell to make the same movie many times over, the failure of producers to take a chance on anything that isn’t based on a best-selling series of books, an old TV show or a line of custom children’s dolls and the fact that the only place to find a story that holds together is in animation, all of these factors and more (Mike Myers, and the gradual desecration of the once-proud National Lampoon brand from Animal House to Van Wilder to name but two) require we, the audience, to declare that while our Life and Liberty are basically okay, our Pursuit of Happiness is getting shafted.

Thus, whenever a form of entertainment becomes destructive in its ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new forms of entertainment.  We hereby declare that we would rather watch a two-minute YouTube video of a cat playing the piano than pay to see Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz in a movie together.  We would rather spend several hours watching The Shield on our iPods than deal with Adam Sandler or M. Night Shyamalan.  And it is definitely more fun to surf Facebook and MySpace than shell out for The Other Boleyn Girl.  Oh, and one of our signers, who asks to be known only as “Frosty,” would like us to add that Collider.com rules.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United Moviegoers of America, solemnly and symbolically dope slap the film industry, and declare that we are this close to absolving our allegiance to the old delivery systems, and that we are well on our way to becoming free and independent consumers who now have a crap load of other options. (Dude, we haven’t even mentioned Grand Theft Auto IV and Guitar Hero.)

We do hereby declare the above to be our true feelings, and humbly ask that you get your act together.  Should it matter, may we close by admitting that we have a soft spot for Hellboy. 

Yours faithfully,

Da Viewers

James Napoli is an author and humorist who has also written and directed the award winning dramatic shorts “The Priests” and “Nobody Gets Hurt.”   He is a graduate of the London Film School. 

For more “I’ve Been Thinking,” check the sidebar menu on the left, or go to the Vortex Archives page.