Denizen of the Darknet reviews 2012

by Michael Dare

 

I've never snuck into a movie theater showing a big new blockbuster with the intension of surreptitiously making a copy of it with my digital camera and offering it immediately for free to everyone on the internet, but I HAVE snuck into a movie theater showing a big new blockbuster and thought to myself "I must make it my mission in life to prevent other people from having to go through the same hideous experience I was just subjected to." Giving it away for free might be one way to do it.

 

I'd like to point out that one nanosecond after the first public showing of 2012, there were several versions available in BitTorrent.

 

And I'd like to point out that more than a month after its release, there still isn't a copy of A Serious Man, the Coen Brother's new film, available in BitTorrent. (At least so far as I know. It could be available on some limited stream the public doesn't have access to.)

 

And I'd like to make a big deal over those two facts, which I believe turn the release of BitTorrent versions of movies into an actual political statement and not just the work of "pirates" out to make a buck. (How can it be piracy if no one makes a penny? Sounds like a Robin Hood metaphor might be more apt.)

 

I put it to you that the reason A Serious Man hasn't been ripped off is because the intelligent minds behind BitTorrent actually respect the Coen Brothers and so it hasn't even occurred to them to rip them off. They would never, ever, pass around a shoddy copy of a Coen Brothers movie. They would only wait for the official DVD release so they can point with pride to their vastly superior Blue-Ray rip where you can see every wisp of smoke in the distance. The visuals are everything, man. You want to pay attention, to stop whatever it is you're doing and actually WATCH a Coen Brothers movie, and if you're giving it all your focus, you don't want to hear audience noises and see people getting up to go the bathroom from a copy shot in a multiplex that doesn't include the end credits because that's when the lights go up and the ushers appear.

 

I put it to you that 2012 was available immediately because nobody in the the vastly intelligent world of BitTorrent gives a good flying fuck about Roland Emmerich and the Hollywood money stream he represents. They show their contempt by saving you money which you can now spend on something else. There's no sense in feeling guilty because you were prevented from wasting your money. You'll just waste it on something else. No matter what, Hollywood gets your money.

 

Despite the fact that hell has called and wants my eyes back, I am grateful to the knowledgeable and generous denizens of the Darknet for saving me the bother of dragging my bones to a movie theater.

 

Here's a nice game to play. Exactly how much random money would you have to have lying around before you were willing to fork over fifteen bucks to see 2012? For me, it's about a hundred. Yeah, that's right. You'd have to pay me a hundred smackeroos before I'd go see 2012 in a movie theater. Before that point, I've got something better to do with that money. I could have a bong hit and imagine my own end of the world, where everyone is nice to each other and it drives them crazy, with hot fudge lava from the Electric Brownie Mountains flowing free into the churning Sea of Cold Stoned Creamery French Vanilla with a Jerry on top, Colonna, not Lewis, and everything is free, including food, from Foodster, the BitTorrent program that replicates food, and Drugster, the BitTorrent program that replicates drugs. Don't get me started about Sexster. No character needs an arc and no species needs an ark because there's nothing to escape from but their own lunacy and the unlimited barrels of pure pleasure available for free. The world falls apart because people stop believing in fairies. Nothing makes any sense. Ducks bark, dogs quack, and everyone wears hemp underwear. They got it wrong. It's just a bunch of random things happening. Entropy. That's how the world ends.

 

MD

 

"There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality."
- Pablo Picasso -