The theatre is losing it's luster

I am getting close to a year without darkening a movie theater. Shocking for a guy that is a movie geek like I am. Part of it is that I have a baby, and well, babies don't work well in theaters. Second, movies are just not what they used to be.

4 years ago, if you said that in ONE summer, an Ocean's Twelve sequel, a Fantastic Four sequel, Spidey 3, Shrek 3, a Transformers movie, and a Pixar movie were coming out, I would have been at opening night for 4 of those at least. I would have seen them and been pretty satisfied. But I don't know if I will see any of them in the theater. I didn't even mention Pirates 3.

Why? Several reasons:

1. Sequels are getting worse. Bottom line: it's nearly impossible to catch lightning in a bottle twice and thrice, but studios keep trying. Spidey 3 is so awful that even die hard fans I know told me to avoid it. The others I just don't care enough to drop $15 for me ans the wifey to see.

2. Visual effects don't matter as much as they used to. I'll take story over visuals any day now.

3. Netfix: watch 30 movies in a month for the price of 2 tickets. This is where quantity wins out. Plus, no one gets mad at home if the baby starts crying. I have almost 100 DVD's in my queue right now-- in other words, more to watch than I could in a year. Don't forget TV shows and online viewing.

4. Television is getting better. Battlestar Galactica. Heroes. Lost. Not to mention CSI, Scrubs, Monk, 24. I haven't even mentioned Rome. Heck, I left out alot of good TV.

The bottom line? I may be moving into a phase of life where movies just don't matter much to me anymore...and it's kind of comforting. Am I still a geek?