I don't want to go on a rant here, but America's foreign policy makes about as much sense ... sorry, wrong rant. What I meant to say is why is it so difficult to see a decent movie in this town?

I was paging through the paper with a friend this weekend in an attempt to find one of the aforementioned. We came across the latest Pixar fodder: Robots, but I saw that one in seventh grade when it was called Toy Story. Next was the sequel to Miss Congeniality: the cleverly titled Miss Congeniality 2. Now, I know I've felt a void in my life from a lack of undercover agent/beauty pageant contestant-themed films since the first one was released in 2000, but I guess I was just in a less-than-congenial mood.

The rest of the selections more or less fell under these two categories: movies I wouldn't recommend for my dog to watch, and movies that were most likely used somehow in the Abu Graib prison scandal.

Truth is, I already knew the movie I wanted to see before even opening the paper: The Best of Youth. It's a film plotting the course of two Italian brothers' lives over a four-decade period during recent tumultuous and exciting periods in Italian history. The highs and lows, triumphs and idealism, romances and changes of youth are all portrayed. Its an epic novel for the silver screen. Or at least that's what the reviewers (whom I trust) say.

However, its also six hours long and subtitled. For these reasons, its not being "widely distributed," but instead relegated to "art house" status. The fact that we have to designate places where interesting, engaging films are shown as "art" houses is some kind of commentary, although I'm not sure on whom. I suppose the rationale is that consumers want to see neatly repackaged two-hour action films and chick flicks where happiness is only a Mr. Right away.

But do we really? Who chooses the movies we see? Do we guide the movie industry through years of box-office trends, or do they dictate to us what we'll watch? I think its more of the latter.

Last time I checked, though, we are in the digital age. The Burger King "have it your way" age. Why can't movie studios just send the finished product out to theaters over that new "Internet" thing? The distribution costs, its seems, would be negligible, and I'm no economist, but I assume that somehow this should trickle-down to cheaper ticket prices.

This way, theaters could have more variety. Sure, not everyone may want to see The Best of Youth, so show it once a week. Or perhaps have sign-ups online, and when the requests hit a certain threshold that makes the screening profitable, e-mail those people with a date and time. I suppose Hollywood is afraid of becoming the next music industry because by going digital, it would make it much easier to obtain and share pirated copies over P2P networks. However, the situation here is different than that of the music industry. A theater offers distinct advantages over a computer: Firstly and most prominently, the visual force of a big screen, but perhaps more importantly, the feeling of a shared experience. Plus its just something to do; a place to go for a date on a weekend. Even though Pee-Wee and Alanis Morissette may appreciate the privacy, its safe to say that dinner and a movie will still be the standard for the rest of us.

I'm not suggesting that the industry will be infringement-free, though. I'm sure that movie goers will skip going to the theater for token films, instead opting to download them. But then this is just new incentive for Hollywood to make new, interesting films. Or stop making crappy ones. Did we really need a Rocky V? A good product always sells. The movie industry can't exist as the 800-pound gorilla that it used to be. It has to adapt and use technology to its advantage. However, if current trends continue with ticket prices increasing and selections decreasing, the benefits offered by theaters will not be enough to deter downloading. Then, film studios are assuredly going to go the way of their music industry brethren: the way of the animals in Jurassic Park.