Are You Ready for 3-D Everything?

Thrilled as I always am for a new Tyler Perry movie, Mr. Post-Post-Racial chose the wrong weekend to try and uncork another No. 1 opening at the box office. If only he'd expanded Why Did I Get Married Too? into the third dimension — that juggernaut we haven't been able to get enough of over the last month, and which on Friday thrusts Clash of the Titans in our faces. This time with more dragon!

Thing is, 3-D Tyler Perry isn't that far off. Hell, if Harold and Kumar now make the cut, 3-D everything isn't that far off. I wouldn't be entirely² shocked — surprised maybe, but definitely not shocked — to hear that MTV was negotiating a Jersey³ Shore adaptation wherein a free pair of Oakleys sent you spiraling into some sort of bronzed Na'vi frontier. Nor to find ladies and geeks alike succumbing⁴ to aneurysms when someone gets the bright idea to convert Julia Roberts's Eat Pray Love to 3-D, adding a pseudo-sumptuous layer of texture⁵ to the story of a woman globe-trotting her way to middle age. Film snobs⁶ might shrug⁷ it all off ... until word comes that Werner Herzog has planned his next fringe-y drama in 3-D, because, well, why not?

Indeed, many of 3-D's critics and/or latecomers will attribute its surge to some Hollywood alchemy of novelty and greed. And they would be half-right. A more honest read would acknowledge the ways that 3-D reflects the increasingly complex sophistication of its audience. It's not just higher ticket prices that will have given us, by this Sunday, the unprecedented⁸ blockbuster trifecta of Alice in Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon, and Titans. Instead, the slow march of culture is leaving behind 2-D the same way it did silent films, black-and-white, and Cinemascope: hungry for a visual ambition — or any ambition, for that matter — that overrides⁹ the outmoded past and counteracts¹⁰ the economic wasteland around us. Much as we did during the Great Depression, we have, perhaps without even knowing it, colluded with Hollywood to redefine what we talk about when we talk about movies.

If that's indeed the case, then we're well overdue¹¹ to move that conversation out into the open. After all, Hollywood will still be Hollywood; I don't exactly want to be caught off-guard when New Line Cinema approves the besunglassed re-release of Valentine's Day in 2011. Don't snicker — at these prices (3-D ticket surcharges experienced a hike of up to 26 percent last weekend), it can and likely will happen to all genres¹² at some point. Horror is the obvious move (the next installment¹³ of the Saw franchise¹⁴ will go 3-D in October), but what would keep romantic comedies from getting the same treatment? Even if it costs a studio $100,000 per minute to convert something like this summer's Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz pairing Knight¹⁵ & Day, the likely turnout would more than compensate¹⁶ over the first couple weekends. Not just because of the curiosity factor, either, but because it reinforces the comfort of knowing no one is above our new way of watching.

See, what's great about 3-D is that it reminds us how useless rules can be in a scenario¹⁷ where experimentation¹⁸ is the coin of the realm. And how flat-out irrelevant¹⁹ they become when progress comes whether we like it or not. But I think, under the circumstances — in which we feel alienated²⁰ from our leaders, our bosses, our spouses²¹, even our drilling — we do want them. We need new rules, in fact, just as badly as we needed the iPod, Facebook, or, come the next few years, a Blu-ray player and a flat-screen that's not as flat as it used to be. Our trips to see visually affected²² belching²³ dragons are symptomatic of knowing that when you have no choice, you might as well hope for the best. But in the cultural subconscious²⁴, we also have a recent habit of rewarding Hollywood for its most adventurous²⁵ behavior, be it Quentin Tarantino revising history in Inglourious Basterds or the apartheid action-allegory District 9. And the embrace of 3-D — whether by specific artistic²⁶ choice (Avatar), obvious cash-grab (Titans), or both (Alice) — is about as adventurous as it gets. It's as though even the most cynical²⁷ generation in American history can now identify with what it must have been like to experience the first talkie, or the F/X revolution of 2001: A Space Odyssey²⁸. Maybe it should come as no surprise that the more conservative blockbuster kingpin Michael Bay isn't going to compromise his forthcoming masterwork Transformers 3 for any homogenized "fake 3-D." (Probably because he'll be too busy planning fake Rosemary's Baby.)

Nevertheless, even Bay's defiance²⁹ says something about the 3-D future belonging to the artists. Even if studios were to insist (as Warner Brothers recently did) that all their major releases be produced in 3-D, the format³⁰ entitles filmmakers to a certain freedom that they might not have had without it. Avatar aside, there really is no road map or rulebook for what can or can't, should or shouldn't be attempted in the medium. This manifests itself in various ways, from explorations of the physics of falling food in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to Steven Soderbergh planning a 3-D musical version of Cleopatra (seriously). It cracks open a kind of challenge: Hey, Marty Scorsese, can you get better again with this stuff? Hey, P.T. Anderson and Coen kids, the screen still too small for you? We've already established that Tyler Perry's films routinely open to huge crowds, but if he was really savvy³¹ about the moment we're in, he'd get Madea Goes to 3-D underway one helluva lot faster than For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Not just for the money (though that, too), but because more than half his stories develop from hit plays anyway, and it would be kinda fascinating to see him adapt and preserve what he could of that format with the 3-D effect.

For now, though, Perry will be content as the spoiler at this week's 3-D party — a role you'll see diminish as more technology sweeps our multiplexes and 2-D goes the way of 8-millimeter home movies. It could take years, but not if Hollywood has anything to do with it: Based on how well the Titans conversion³² performs, expect studios to seriously consider bolstering³³ this year's 3-D crop (already including Tron Legacy³⁴, Shrek Forever After, Toy Story 3D, Harry³⁵ Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Piranha 3D and, of course, Jackass 3D) with closer looks at converting cash magnets like The Twilight³⁶ Saga³⁷: Eclipse, The Sorcerer's Apprentice³⁸, or even the camp-classic-to-be Burlesque³⁹ — assuming, of course, that audiences can handle both Christina Aguilera and Cher in 3-D all in one place. But, hey, there's only one way to find out.

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