Internet Ripoffs

The internet has reached a strange in-between place where, even though we increasingly do a lot, for some even a majority, of our shopping online (for tickets, gifts, books & music), we're still stuck with an incredible lack of options when it comes to what major services to choose from. In some cases there are alternatives (don't want to use Amazon for books? shop at Powell's!), but in other cases you're pretty much screwed.

The absolute worst situations are any sort of ticketing services, in particular Ticketmaster for concert tickets and Fandango for movie tickets. Everyone and their mother already knows that Ticketmaster is the King of the Rip-off, charging inexplicable surcharges and processing fees that have made them the bane of every concert goer's existence. Alas, they're the only game in town so what can you do except go to less shows or try to buy tix at the door or from the venue's own website? Thankfully, most of my favorite bands are refreshingly disliked/unpopular and I can thus usually walk right up to a concert hall and buy my tickets at the door.

My current gripe, however, is with Fandango, a movie-ticket purchasing site that has seemed to explode on the internet of late. Fandango is just as egregious a ripoff as Ticketmaster, but in a more subtle way. Recently, and presumably as a way to pay for all the advertising they do during movie previews (doesn't everyone, by the way, hate commercials during previews anyway?), Fandango has raised their processing fee to $1.50 per ticket!

This may not seem like much at first, but if you see as many movies as my friends and I do in New York, combined with the fact that everything sells out so fast here, you really have no choice but to go online and pay their absurd processing fee every time. That, combined with the times when you buy more than one ticket for your friends and significant others means that you spend 100-200 dollars a year just on movie surcharges! (way more, by the way, than almost anyone spends on Ticketmaster in a year). Even taking into account my well-deserved reputation for cheapness, that's pretty bad, right? Movies are already prohibitively expensive and popcorn and drinks are already absurdly priced-how can anyone justify spending 15-20 bucks a person to see a movie that is going to be a letdown almost half the time?

So, anyway, those are the two internet services that drove me crazy of late. What other ways does the internet rip us off? Inquiring minds (ok, an inquiring mind) wants to know!

Revolutionary Road

There's no getting around it anymore, in 2008 Revolutionary Road is coming to a theatre near you. It's going to star Leonardo Dicarpio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, and will be directed by Sam Mendes. Good cast, good director. Why, then, does this development have me so distressed?I guess I should start by saying that Richard Yates' novel Revolutionary Road is not only one of my absolute favorite novels, but also an extremely important factor in giving me the push I needed to get myself to New York. I read this novel during a cold January in Michigan ( a bleak time indeed, for those unaware) while I was in the midst of ruining my first post-collegiate year with the distraction and anxiety produced by knowing that I needed to get out of my college town as soon as possible. I was still unsure about grad school and undecided about what I was going to do with myself if I didn't go down the path I always assumed I would. So, anyway, that's a long way of saying that I needed something to get me going (wherever that might be).

Without getting really getting into the plot (although please go here to get that kind of info), I'll just say that Revolutionary Road is about the danger of making too many compromises and falling into a pattern of conformity. I know that sounds like really basic stuff, but Yates really puts you inside these characters and makes you seen how bitter and scarred they've become after years spent forever taking the easier, less risky choice. This bitterness is compounded by the fact that they are dreamers, the kind of people that will spend an entire night talking about their great plans and then never follow through. Needless to say, it isn't a comic novel.

So, imagine reading this by yourself in a smoky (but not in a good way) cafe in East Lansing and realizing that you have some particularly strong similarities to Frank Wheeler: the same level of dreaminess, the same kind of snobbery, the same misplaced vanity, the same issues with being too self-aware. It was a terrifying experience! Reading Revolutionary Road was a wake-up call for me; it made me realize that I was at a true crossroads in my life and that if I was ever going to take a big risk, now was the time to do it. Six months later, enboldened by the fear of not taking the chance, I arrived in New York with practically no money, no place to live, and no job. I honestly don't know if I would have done it had I not read Yates' novel.

Back to the movie: I'm sure it will be good, in fact, there's a decent change it will be quite good. I worry, though, (cliche though it might be) that after I've see the movie, the reality I've created in my head surrounding the book will be forever replaced by the reality created by the actors and the set. Isn't this always a let down? In addition, will every copy of the book now be plastered with Dicaprio and Winslet and the "NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" tag obscuring half of the image? Am I going to lose my special hold I feel on this classic (but not so famous) book? Oh well, I guess. In the end, if it gets more people to discover Richard Yates and his fantastic books, how can this movie possible be a negative?