It's the pictures that got small

A.C. Douglas links to some things, decrying the loss of the whole movie experience on an iPhone or something like it. (David Lynch's brilliant parody, for one).

Ordinarily, especially when it comes to cinema, I'd agree. Let's take Mr. Lynch's advice, though, and "get real." The people likely to put a movie on their telephone are not the people likely to be putting the Criterion Collection version of Godard's À Bout de Souffle on there, or - for that matter - Altman's Secret Honor or anything by Welles.

They're putting movies on their iPhone, most likely, of the most execrable popcorn-matinée variety. All the schmaltzy, sappy stuff that Hollywood churns out like so much sorghum does not need to be treated specially, since it doesn't really need the experience to work. Melodramas, shoot-'em-up action flicks, and cheap comedies can be preserved on an iPhone, since there's nothing to preserve.

Great movies deserve to be viewed as intended when possible; good movies deserve to be viewed and appreciated as art; bad movies deserve the iPhone. If they're lucky. It's like the difference between ripping a good recording of Das Rheingold at 320 kbps and the latest Killers record at 128 kbps. You might be losing data at 128 kbps, but you're not losing anything.