I’m Tired of Pretending Physical Media Isn’t Still Better Than Streaming Digital
As cinemas face a tumultuous future, and ticket prices continue to rise, movies and television at home are becoming the main option for family entertainment. But even as someone who considers themselves a cinephile—I watch movies for a living—I didn’t quite understand how dire the situation was with options at home… until I had my baby earlier this year, and couldn’t get to a movie theater nearly as often as I once had.
And it’s all thanks to that little circle of buffering doom. Even Beyonce poked fun at it when she indirectly told Netflix they better not play with her NFL Christmas Halftime Show. We stan our disco space western songtress here, and agree: the biggest flaw with streaming is the inconsistency of connection, and the very inopportune moments that the suspension of disbelief in storytelling can be marked by glitches on any platform.
At the start of the year, when I was early in my pregnancy, I was assigned to watch Furiosa at LA’s glorious IMAX Headquarters. In order to prep, I thought I’d just turn on Max and re-watch Mad Max: Fury Road. And to my surprise and quick consternation, what was discovered within a few minutes of watching the film is that something was off with the score’s audio. My husband and I have long been appointment movie theater goers—we’re there at the first or second opening-day showtime—and we remember how Mad Max: Fury Road sounded. This was not it. Figuring that something must have gone wrong with Max’s streaming service compression of the audio files, we switched over to our digital copy. And still it didn’t sound quite right. So we dug out our Blu-ray and popped it in, and there it was: the pristine sounds of Junkie XL’s warring drums and guitars coming out of our soundbar.
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