Where Have All the Good Films Gone? Gone to Scottsdale Every One!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

A couple of weekends ago I was driving through Goodyear or Avondale one evening when a young man (high school young) passed me in a small red car. Printed across his back window in six-inch tall Old English Script was this bit of personal vitriol: "Fuck Scottsdale." It wasn't overly eloquent, but Shakespeare probably wasn't either when he was this lad's age. I assumed the boy had probably lost his lady love to some yuppie spawn in the East Valley who was born with a silver spoon up his nose.

The longer I live in the Valley of Hell, the more I come to realize how things here really work. The proletariat lives in central Phoenix and in the West Valley, while those who are not so frantic to make a living (including university students), gather in the coffee bars, art galleries, and outdoor cafes that border their comfortable neighborhoods in the East Valley. Later this month they will also have the Valley's first Light Rail which should help to lessen the horrendous bicycle traffic and save on valuable Birkenstock leather! (The West Valley, where the workers live - and necessarily drive - has been told that they can expect their own Light Rail in twenty years.)

But, I digress. My purpose today is to talk about movies. Recently there have been a spate of advertisements on television for what appear to be some really great films. The problem is that when I pull up the movie guide for a twenty-five mile radius of where I live, all of the films that are available in the local theatres are crap. The really good shows are beyond the twenty-five mile limit - in Scottsdale! If I want to drive twenty-nine miles (forty minutes) to Scottsdale this afternoon, I can see: Doubt, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, I've Loved You So Long, or The Boy in the Striped Pajama's - none of which are playing any closer. The film distributors seem to believe that the intellect of the East Valley hasn't seeped beyond Central Avenue. People in the West Valley should be content with movies that they are capable of understanding: Christmas comedies, cartoons, and violent action flicks.

The more that I think about it, the more I agree with the philosophy of the kid in the little red car!