Sandler’s ‘Click’: A control freak’s paradise?

Change accelerates
Videotape started to turn up in the mid-1960s, when I first held a reel of the stuff in a college journalism class. My professor, who moonlighted at an advertising agency, brought in the tape to demonstrate how expensive it was ($65 for a five-minute reel), how dodgy it would be to manufacture on a large scale, and how it would never, ever catch on with the public for home use. Besides, who would want to own a movie?

A decade later, the Betamax arrived, and with it the first sophisticated remote controls. My professor was right about one thing: the tape was awfully expensive at first, so frequently I used it to record only parts of movies — highlights like the ones Universal and Disney pioneered on 8mm film. It was heaven if you liked to compile “greatest hits,” and frustrating if you wanted a copy of the whole movie.

A few years later, the early laserdiscs introduced stereo soundtracks and letterboxed images, which then started turning up on tapes — and DVDs. Manipulation of image and sound reached new heights with interactive DVDs and discs that offer different angles on a single scene. “Director’s Cuts” sometimes offer a radically altered version of a movie you thought you knew.

Also changing the way we watch are TiVo and HBO On Demand, which vanquish the idea of “appointment television” altogether. Whenever you want to watch “The Sopranos,” there it is. 

Of course, we lose something in this exchange. Even 20 years ago, families felt a communal sense of anticipation around television showings of “The Wizard of Oz” and theatrical reissues of  Disney’s “Fantasia” or “Snow White” — especially when Disney insisted the latter would never be released on video in any form. And for awhile any theatrical showing seemed superior to home-theater quality.

It’s hard to make that argument now that some theaters use digital projection, while entire living-room walls are covered with flat-screen televisions hooked up to sophisticated stereo systems. Aside from IMAX and Cinerama, there often isn’t a great difference between living rooms and theaters.

“Click,” of course, goes to comic extremes with the idea of the ultimate control freak manipulating the sounds and images of real life. It’s doubtful that anyone will be able to duplicate Adam Sandler’s relationship with his remote in the near future. Still, what seems magical now...

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