We are obsessed with recreating reality. Everything must be recreated. Every moment must be recreated. Even things that aren’t reality must be made to look as real as possible.

The first 3-D movie I remember seeing was Creature From The Black Lagoon. You went to 7-11, bought a Slurpee and they gave you a set of paper 3-D glasses with the blue and red cellophane lenses.  I remember going home with my dad, who was all excited to relive his childhood with his kid, but it was going to be even more awesome because it was going to be 3-D! All I remember doing was taking the glasses off eventually because the red-blue gave me a headache and when I did the image on the screen looked like this :

Fast forward to the year 2010…

We have technology that we couldn’t have possibly dreamed of back in the 1980s. We have phone that we carry in our pocket that can make video calls, map our location, take photos, play music, and do virtually anything a computer can do. Our TVs can connect to the internet, pause and rewind live broadcast, and are thinner and larger than ever. We have video game consoles that you don’t even need a controller to play with, you just move your body around and it can SENSE you. Even our cars can do almost anything except fly. Yet, we are still stuck on recreating depth and reality in movies with 3-D.

Just yesterday I plunked down 20 dollars to see Tron, a sort of continuation of a movie that even in 80s I felt looked dated. Now here we are in the year 2010 and somehow we’re pretending to care about Tron because it was shot in 3-D and Daft Punk did the soundtrack.

First off, it’s a chore for me to go to the movies to begin with. The last things I want to do once I’m there is a) pay 20 fucking dollars to see an anachronistic techno-battle starring The Dude on top of the 20 dollars for snacks b) put on glasses OVER my glasses.  Yes, it’s been 30 years since those paper red-blue cellophane lenses that came with the Slurpee that was way more memorable than the movie. Yet we still haven’t figured out a better technology than “put these glasses on and shit will look kind of cool I guess”.

What does 3-D REALLY do other than force the makers of the movie to shoot a bunch of scenes where things pop out of the screen at you? Beyond that happening a few times, the only other thing you get out of it is some headache inducing, unnatural looking depth. For 34 years I have been watching movies and never had a problem implying depth by, ya know, looking at the screen. But, I guess Hollywood doesn’t trust that I can watch a movie and ascertain that the characters are not flat in real life and they need to show me how deep Jeff Bridges’ weird space/grid apartment is.

Basically all 3-D does is make something into a 3-D movie. Forget plot, forget the characters. Throw some 3-D on top of it and that’s all it becomes… a movie in 3-D. Never mind the fact that you already live in a three-dimensional world and can experience such by opening your eyes. Hollywood wants to recreate that and paste it on top of anything they can from cartoon movies, to remakes, to Avatar (to paraphrase 7-UP : never saw it, never will), to anything they can get their hands on.

It’s like adding bacon to every meal. Bet you didn’t see that one coming!

Bacon is the 3-D of the food world. Everyone you will ever meet LOVES bacon. LOVES IT. Even vegetarians and vegans will tell you they still like the smell of bacon or miss the taste of it. Seriously… go to a hippie commune and ask one.

Bacon, or as I like to call it, “hipster meat”, has in the last few years enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. Maybe it’s due to the whole farm to table, nose to tail approach to eating, or how everyone suddenly is a self described “foodie”, a term which need to disappear from English forever, but bacon is everywhere. Bacon wrapped scallops, bacon wrapped asparagus, bacon wrapped meatloaf, bacon cupcakes, bacon flavored salt, bacon fat popcorn, bacon wrapped bacon, bacon wrapped WHOLE turkey… no seriously, look…

When does this food stuff, which I used to refer to as “meat candy” jump the shark? Yes, we all get it, bacon is goddamn delicious. In all it’s greasy, fatty, crispy, pork belly goodness. Why over do it though?

You’re turning bacon into 3-D. You put bacon on stuff just because you can and you’re making the whole meal taste like bacon. Just because your meatloaf has no substance or taste doesn’t mean you can wrap some bacon around it, call it a day and it’s suddenly amazing. It’s the same old meatloaf you made back in the 80s with some new trendy flash to it and The Dude does NOT abide. The Dude will not stand for this food aggression, man. Just like Tron, the actual story got buried under a lot of flash and 3-D action sequences. In this case, your meatloaf is just a vehicle for delivering bacon to your mouth.

I just want to get back to the good old days when movies were flat and looked like movies and bacon was served with eggs and toast in the morning. I want to be able to watch a movie wearing just ONE pair of glasses. I want my delicious bacon back.

I also never, EVER, want to spend 20 dollars on a movie that kind of sucked EVER again.