I recently saw Watchmen (a little late, I know, but hell, it was only 75 cents) and I have got to say I was bored out of my mind for nearly the entire movie. I made some observations about not just Watchmen, but the the entire movies, television and video industry in general. When I was younger, I used to cling onto every minute of a movie and feel disappointed when the end credits started rolling. Yet lately, I find myself constantly wondering "How much longer is this going to take?". In fact, there aren't many movies I have seen in the past year that I didn't think could have been trimmed down a little. I would wonder is this just something that comes with age, but my parents don't seem share the same feelings. What seperates my recent lack of attention span from their own?It's not just movies. I constantly find myself sitting through television shows wishing Tivo had the ability to speed it up, maybe just 20 percent faster, or god forbid, the crew cut out some unnecessary parts and just fill in the rest of the time slot with commercials or something. Nothing annoys me more than a lingering pace, much like the one I saw in the nearly 3 hour Watchmen - much of which could have been pushed into a montage or the opening credits (much like Wolverine's opening credits - Perfect!). Even YouTube videos that exceed about a 7 minutes mark tend to have me moving on to the Related Videos or More from this User panel.
Not until I started going to bed last did I find a possible answer as to what has triggered this Video-A.D.D. I've acquired as I started watching [adultswim]. A large majority of this station's programming is fulfilled with a collection of scenes no longer than two minutes each. In fact, some of their shows are barely over 10 minutes total running time such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Frisky Dingo to name some of my favorites. Even the flagship of the station, Family Guy cuts up its scenes and kicks the pacing into 5th gear by splicing flash backs and reference videos about every other minutes or so. And Robot Chicken, well, that's the pot of gold for people like me. Was that sketch funny? Doesn't matter, it was only 5 seconds long. On to the next one!
[adult swim] is not alone in fueling this condition. YouTube plays probably just as big of a role in my developing habit. With the information super highway at my fingertip, I'm not shooting through videos like fruit at the grocery store. If it doesn't grab my attention within the first 10 seconds, I skip to the middle. If nothing interesting is happening at the random point I drop my mouse, so much for that video and on to the next.
And how about that Smart Phone? It doesn't matter if you have an iPhone or a BlackBerry, not matter what you cannot stand in a line alone anymore without playing with it. Facebook, Twitter, Chat, Email, the World Wide Web available anywhere in the world. I don't even need a newspaper anymore, I can get everything I need from this little 4 oz computer that I carry with me at all times, not to mention, most of the headlines have to grab my attention in 140 characters or less.
If you haven't lost interest in reading this blog yet, then chances are you've got a longer attention span than myself. Let me know what your thoughts on it.
