Gabe Durham
Staff Writer
This wouldn’t be a very good Arts & Entertainment column if it didn’t report on the most artistic and entertaining thing of all: celebrity divorces and separations.
I’m talking, of course, about Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. I hate to be the first one to tell you, but it is better that you hear it from me first so you can compose yourself when Brad calls you to apologize. For more on this particular subject, you’d better turn on your television and select a channel at random. I guarantee they’ll be providing ample coverage of such a momentous event.
On the other hand, maybe you should just pop in that “Seinfeld” season two DVD you got for Christmas. After all, DVD re-releases may be the best thing television shows have going on right now.
It’s clearly a waste of time to just turn on the TV and hope for the best. If you manage to get away from celebrity gossip masquerading as news, you’ll be met by a rapper fixing a car, a plastic surgeon fixing someone’s face, designers fixing a family’s house or a dozen women fixing a man’s life by trying to marry him.
Who knew so many problems in the world could be solved with a big television studio budget? Still, with all these fantastic real-life situations, these shows are becoming more and more similar (read: boring).
And DVD is the solution to monotonous programming. Even though I lost touch with U.S. pop culture after spending a year overseas, all it took was a friend with a DVD box set to help introduce me to the funniest new show on TV. Is it worth it to shell out $30 for the first season of “Arrested Development” just so I don’t have to flip through all the shallow garbage consistently being aired on standard cable? Absolutely.
DVD offers the power to view any episode with ease. Additionally, viewers can actually resurrect shows from the dead. For instance, after Fox canned “The Family Guy,” millions of viewers were saddened by the loss. Consumers everywhere purchased the DVD box sets. As a result, Fox will be airing a whole season of new episodes. This is the capitalistic principle of supply and demand operating at its best.
DVD movie rentals are also a last refuge for the lonely Pepperdine student who missed the theater release of “Napoleon Dynamite” and doesn’t understand why people are calling him Napoleon and asking for his tater tots.
And for those who can’t possibly fit rental movies or DVD purchases into their monthly budget, there is still hope. Checking out lots of classic movies has never been easier, or cheaper (actually, it’s free).
Perhaps it’s time to head to the Payson Library DVD collection. New releases are slow in making their way to the library racks. But I’ve found it has been very helpful in catching up on the films I’ve been meaning to see.
But, now back to Brad and Jennifer. Surely, if very attractive celebrities fail at love so often, we, the very average, are in a spot of trouble. Can we all just agree that the institution of marriage is now officially dead? Good. Maybe this will take some pressure off the Pepperdine dating scene.
01-20-2005
