The New York Times reports that, in these economically troubled times, business at movie box offices is rallying. Better than that, really: "with ticket sales this year up 17.5 percent, to $1.7 billion," the industry is enjoying "a box-office surge that has little precedent in the modern era." And with attendance up "by nearly 16 percent", if the trend continues, "it would amount to the biggest box-office surge in at least two decades." If this is surprising news, it's partly because it means that there might have been something to the immediate, kneejerk reaction to the recession, a reaction that smart people have been debunking in recent weeks. When the economy first went off a cliff, two thirds one heard a lot was that people went to the movies a lot during the 1930s Depression, and also that, if the '30s early talkies and the American movies of the 1970s are any indication, great movie eras are often born of what the old "Chinese curse" calls "interesting times." According to the Times, though, actual statistics pointing to a history of rises in moviegoing during bad economic times tend to be thin on the ground. And besides, J. Hoberman argued in a Village Voice piece a few weeks ago, even if it had been the case in the past, it wouldn't be now: "A reorganized and self-regulated Hollywood bounced back in 1935, but times were different then. Movies were America's universal culture. Now, they're not even close. Like then, the technology is changing—but in a far different way. Movies are expendable. Folks will give up $12 tickets, cancel Netflix, and cut cable to save their high-speed Internet connection."

Talking to people at the multiplex, one finds that there is indeed a connection between the current rise in moviegoing and the current dip in everything else, but people may be using a different calculus than Hoberman envisioned. The Times talked to one harried mom who dropped, not $12, but $15 a head to get her four daughters in to see the 3D Jonas Brothers concert movie. As she explained her logic to the Times, “Spending hundreds of dollars to take them to Disneyland is ridiculous right now. For $60 and some candy money I can still be a good mom and give them a little fun.” This notion that dropping sixty bucks "and some candy money"--at the theaters I go to, that might mean another sixty bucks--is a bargain compared to what it would cost to storm the Magic Kingdom may be a sign that the mindset of the last few decades is going to die hard. (So is that TV commercial I saw the other day that seems to tout, as a money-saving gesture, spending upwards of $70 on a Wii music player as an alternative to a night out clubbing.) It could be that, after a period when more and more people became devoted to expensively cocooning, the chill in the air makes people want to once again be entertained in the company of other people, giving them a taste for shared enjoyment that might be a socially healthy development. And what about the second half of that prediction, that bad economic times produce better movies? Of course, the first movies to go into production post-crash haven't appeared yet, but in the meantime, people seem eager to line up for the Jonas Brothers in 3D, Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail, Taken, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Baby steps, baby steps.