2nd 6 Weeks- Response to Class Lecture on Movies

One of our class lectures was on movies. It was very interesting learning the history of movies and how they were very popular around the same time radios reached their peak. One thing I did not know before the lecture was that movies did not have flexible film until 1891. Before that, the film was solid, so you could not bend it at all.

We talked about how movie theaters reached a peak of 90 million tickets per week in 1946. Now, theaters sell about 23 million tickets per week. I thought that was amazing because when I'm at the movies,  they are always crowded, but its less than one third of the amount of people that used to go.

We learned why movie theaters are still popular even though we have things like Netflix and cable. Movies theaters have what is called an immersive experience, which is the large screen, dark environment, no commercials, and the sophisticated sound system. I knew all of these things made going to the theater a unique experience, but now I know the actual name for it.

One thing that I could really connect to was the social aspects that keep theaters in business. I go to the movies with my friends, because its a lot more fun that just watching a movie at home with them. I learned in this lecture that this is one of the things that has kept theaters in business after the internet and television were invented. Also, being able to go to premiers of movies at the theaters has kept theaters popular because people want to be the first to see certain movies. I could also relate to that, because I know the feeling of disappointment when your mom won't let you go to the premier and all of your friends saw The Hunger Games before you.

The most interesting thing about this lecture that I wished we had talked more about were the trends set by certain movies. Mr. Miller talked some about how a guy in a popular movie wore a white t-shirt and everybody began to wear white t-shirts. I thought it was really interesting to learn about how old popular movies that we've never even heard of have affected the way we dress today. I wish we could have spent more time talking about that, but overall it was a very interesting lecture.