Face it, it’s a lot more pleasurable to watch flicks in the movie theatre than it is to watch them at home. Certainly, the movie house might have a little bit better sound system than what you own at home, but you’re not overly concerned about the sound system. It’s the giant screen that makes theaters better for viewing flicks. Watching King Kong rip apart New York City or the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park tear around in the jungle is a lot more thrilling when they’re fifteen or twenty feet tall; it’s simply not the same when they’re five or six inches tall on your little screen at home. Just like seeing a Jd Webb concert at home is not the same as being there in person.
Possibly what you could do with is a very big Television. Now, by and large I’m not a giant fan of TV. In fact, I feel nearly all TV shows are poor, mind-numbing affairs, though rarely a high-quality program will crop up every now and then. I’m a movie fan however; I love the stories, the adventure, the cinematography. I feel like flicks have the time and effort put in them that TV shows need, and I feel it shows. Still, to truly get the full effect of a picture I typically like to view it in letterboxed format, since that’s how it’s presented in the theatres. You might see that if you find a picture on TV they’ll tell you the film was customized for watching on your TV. Filmmakers adjust their movies for TV by hacking off part of the frame to make the shot narrower, which can sometimes have detrimental effects on the cinematography. It’s similar to how to get rid of skin tags – it has to be done by someone who knows what they’re doing. Nevertheless, unless you view letterboxed flicks on a big Television or on a widescreen Television, the added black strips on the top and bottom of the screen make the screens considerably smaller, which makes people pretty little on a fourteen inch or sixteen inch television.
I never thought I wanted a large Television, especially since I didn’t view Television very often. I could get by with a little one, even if it meant that the Jurassic Park dinosaurs weren’t quite as ferocious as they were in the movie theatre. Plus, I spend most of my time on niche marketing, so not a whole lot is open for Television viewing anyway. Then, one Christmas my aunt bought my uncle a large entertainment center and had it installed for him, complete with a large Television and surround sound. He invited a few of us into the den and popped in a copy of Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. It was marvelous. The D-Day invasion was bigger and more ominous than I recalled, and when the shooting began it sounded like bullets were flying around the living room. He had managed to duplicate the movie house experience in his own house, and I was hooked.
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