TC, Phone Home
While recently watching Rain Man, something really stood out. Hot-shot businessman Charlie Babbit (Tom Cruise) is traveling cross-country by car, back to Los Angeles. He's got to keep tabs on his affairs back home, so every chance he gets--at restaurants, gas stations, motels--he finds a phone and calls in to deal with his financial situation.
Anyone born since the film was released 20 years ago must look at it and wonder why doesn't he just use his cell phone?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:39 AM
8 Comments:
He also smokes in restaurants.
In the first season of Buffy, which ran in the spring of 1997, there's an episode where she and Xander drive all over Sunnydale looking for a pay phone in order to warn Giles about something.
Rain Man was released in 1988 and cell phones were largely unknown. Even in 1997, they weren't as inexpensive or widely available as they are now. Can you imagine what the next 20 years will bring?
The classic cell phone image from films of that vintage is still Gordon Gecko holding something that looks like an army field radio.
I used to have one of those army field telephones for work- one thing it kept you from driving an talking much.
Recall the portable phones from 1960s-70s which were in a brief case like contraption which I remember from from some filmm I can't remember but the point was to show the expense and sophistication of the user (maybe it was James Bond?)
Of course the shoe phone of Don Adams always seemed handy (if stinky)- how wll the new film handle that
And the whole point of the Gordon Gekko character was to be so ridiculously rich that you never had to wait for anything and always had the best no matter what. Now ten-year-olds regularly walk around with a better phone than he had. Thank you capitalism.
It's really interesting to watch Seinfeld and realize how many of the storylines are built on phone-related dilemmas that are now nonexistent because of caller ID.
My line is blocked. Years ago the phone company called me and asked if I want it blocked or unblocked, and I figured since it was free might as well be the former. So now when I call friends, they figure it's gonna be a business call.
Seinfeld had a whole episode based on speed dial.
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