I bought a big-ass plasma screen television. There, I said it, and it’s on the internet so I can’t take it back.

It’s really, really nice, easily the nicest luxury item I’ve ever bought for myself. Either the picture is absolutely perfect, or I’m too ignorant of home theater specifications to be able to know the difference — either way works for me. I actually enjoy watching DVDs at home again, and supposedly I don’t even have that great a DVD player. And the image from the Xbox and PS2 are so clear I can finally appreciate how dated they are. Even regular TV looks great to me — I’d been told that everyone who gets an HDTV has to switch to HD signals ASAP since regular TV just looks too bad afterwards, but I don’t have any problem with it. I guess it helps that I mostly just watch Cartoon Network.

I wish I could figure out exactly why I’m so unsettled by the thing, though. There’s the general anxiety about screen burn-in that the websites have me all paranoid about, but that’s not it. I’m happy with the picture and I believe I got the best model available for a decent price, so it’s not buyer’s remorse. And it’s not sticker shock, since I haven’t gotten a credit card bill yet and frankly could pay the whole thing off now if I wanted. (Plus, they gave me a $400 gift card when I bought the thing, which considering how much I go to Best Buy anyway, is like giving me grocery money).

No, it’s just plain old-fashioned guilt. I just can’t explain why. I’m fine with capitalism, and I give to charity whenever I can, so it’s not a redistribution of luxury items thing. And I worked really hard — okay, not “hard,” but I worked really long hours for a really long time to get the money I do have. And I’m lined up for more steady work by the end of the month, so it’s not as if I’m not dipping into savings. Still, spending that much money on a television has the “EVIL” alarm ringing in my head every time I look at the thing. You’d think I’d grown up during The Depression or something. But I grew up in an environment of luxury and privilege and “fake” wars that just killed lots of people but didn’t adversely affect the economy!

And I’m still a man. I have needs. And the Y chromosome has the gene that makes your extremities tingle whenever you come within range of a television with a screen size larger than 30 inches. This is incontrovertible science.

I guess I’ll just have to keep watching the Minas Morgul scene from Return of the King until the guilt stops. Because that scene is just so wicked awesome, and it’s even more awesome seeing it on a big-ass TV with surround sound. And invite friends over to “share” the thing, right? (To any friends who might happen to be reading: That’ll have to act as an invitation, since I worked at EA so long I’ve forgotten how to be genuinely social.)

I found a copy of Jurassic Park for ten bucks today, so I picked it up, thinking what a great deal I’d gotten. What I’d forgotten, though, was: 1) the movie’s 12 years old at this point (it was released in 1993!), so it’s been relegated to “classics” pricing, and 2) it’s really not very good.

Maybe that’s not fair. I mean, there’s the fact that it was written by the evil Michael Crichton, and then there’s the blatant anti-dinosaur bias. And based on how much he delights in watching them suffer, it’s clear that Spielberg hates children almost much as he hates Dennis Weaver. But overall, it’s fine for what it is: a Steven Spielberg movie.

That’s not supposed to be as condescending as it sounds (as if Mr. Spielberg were all that upset about my opinion anyway) — dude made Raiders of the Lost Ark, after all. It just means that it has all the stuff he’s great at: pacing, tension, clear and understandable plots, incorporating effects without making them seem soulless, and memorable action sequences that are excellently choreographed.

It also means that it has all the stuff that he thinks he’s good at, but really just comes across as cloying and smarmy: interminably long and overdone reaction shots, obnoxiously swelling soundtracks, and plenty of scenes clearly intended to be clever, such as the T. Rex and the “When Dinosaurs Ruled the World” banner.

I’d forgotten about Spielberg ever since he tried to reinvent himself as a Serious Director with Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan (I have to admt I haven’t seen either), but there’s still something about the guy that bugs me. The scene with the T. Rex attacking the jeeps at night is just unqualified brilliance. Even if the whole rest of the movie consisted of nothing more than grandparents and kids giving warm, knowing glances at each other while using the magic of love and a child’s imagination to bring a dying dinosaur back to life to a heartwarming John Williams soundtrack, the T. Rex scene would be awesome. As I remember, even The Lost World, a much, much worse movie, had a pretty bad-ass scene with a Winnebago falling off a cliff or some such. So the man’s capable of stuff which is just flat-out great.

So how does one explain the rest of it? Or in other words: from whence Short Round? Does the man really and truly believe that wacky and heartwarming ethnic sidekicks, or racially diverse little girls doing gymnastics to fight off velociraptors, are what’s required to give an action movie “heart?” When he’s got the little girl contorting her face in ways that just aren’t natural, and he keeps directing her “More! Really really big dinosaur! It’s going to bite you in half! And your parents will abandon you because you’re ugly! You’re more scared!” does he sincerely believe that this is what’s necessary to convey genuine emotion on the screen? Or is he the most pandering and money-minded son of a bitch on the planet, hobbling his talent to make something that he knows will sell to Middle America and gross 200 million instead of just 50?

And that, my friends, is why the internets is a great thing — blogs make it possible to bring you the freshest of movie reviews to the comfort of your home. Y’all may be saying to yourself, “Steven Spielberg movies can be cloying and pandering; yeah, thanks for the newsflash, Chuck.” But don’t think that the threat is over. War of the Worlds is coming out soon, and it’s got not only Tom Cruise but Dakota Fanning. Dakota Fanning, an up-and-coming child star who by all accounts can actually act. (And she’s from my hometown, by the way). And Jurassic Park IV is in the works!

Well, I suppose I could talk about Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but there’s not a whole lot to say. Angelina Jolie is incredibly hot, smart, funny, and just plain appealing, and I usually don’t like her. Brad Pitt is competent but basically a cipher. The movie is a lot smarter than it looks like from the ads, and it was a lot of fun to watch.