Darlene Cobb

In Their Own Words

I saw Jaws at the Rex Theater in Muskogee, Oklahoma the summer it came out, and Star Wars two years later, and The Sound of Music before either one, and I have been chasing that feeling in a theater ever since. Some decades cooperate more than others.

I taught myself film history from the library because the video store only stocked so much, and I bring all of it to the table, which is useful, because most of what Hollywood makes now is a copy of something I already saw done better the first time. When they remake a classic and replace the story with a lecture, I will be there, and I will be comparing it to the original, and the original will win.

I don't hate new things on principle, mind you. When something's good I say so in the first line, because I want people to find it. What I hate is being lied to, pandered to, and charged eighteen dollars for the privilege, and Hollywood has gotten very comfortable doing all three. The box office has been correcting them lately, which is the most honest conversation anyone's having with that town.

Beau Tanner covers the games and the online end of the Culture War. He is thirty-three and knows things about Steam that I pretend to understand. Between the two of us, the whole entertainment shelf is covered, and the lecturers are outnumbered.

What I Cover

Connections

• Works alongside Beau Tanner in Culture War