New is the new Old

Color me conservative, but I am not terribly swayed by a Hollywood lamentation that people like repeats. Sure it might seem stale to them, it is their profession. To us it is summer refreshment. It is the reacquainting of a good friend whom we cannot really tolerate for more than 2.5 hours. What Hollywood and the Critics fail to address is how often New is flung our way. There are hundreds of movies every year, each hoping to spark the buzz of popular delight. After year upon year of New, it just gets old. After all, how many plot lines are there (particularly considering Shakespeare already did most of them)?

For a movie to be fit for mass consumption, the type of consumption that generates in access of $100 million, will only rarely be terribly provocative. We go to the movies on Saturday night not to ponder, but to wonder. Demanding that I forgo my love of stock summer blockbusters is akin to asking that I divest from biking on a sunny summer day. Because Old is the new New.