It's a smart move. A great way to view a movie that can't be downloaded or duplicated in a home theater. Where is that girl gonna find goggles that fit her cell phone? She can't. What we haven't seen yet is how well these processes work with live action. I don't mind Zemeckis's fetish for those bizarre, soulless motion capture automatons, but if that's what we have to watch in order for movies to be in 3-D, there is no way in hell this is more than a novelty. However, there are new cameras designed for shooting live action in 3-D, so we'll see how that pans out.

Modern 3-D glasses (especially the IMAX ones) are heavier and darker than the old glasses, more oppressive. It's less natural for moviegoers to look away from the screen and at each other. This makes it less of a group experience and more a one-on-one between you and the movie. But I still think the next step is to use it for real audience participation type movies. 3-D movies are almost literally reaching out to the audience, so they should be designed as a crowd experience. When some object or character seems to fly out in front of or through the viewer, everybody shares a laugh or a gasp or turns to each other and says, "That was right in front of me!"

Friday the 13th 3-D was the perfect 3-D movie because those movies are all about showmanship anyway. Trying to get the audience to scream or jump, to laugh, to be surprised by an unusual approach to maiming. For part 3 they added to that the ability to have a snake jump out at the audience, to shoot a harpoon at them, to pass them a joint. The greatest 3-D moment of all time may have been Jason squeezing a guy's skull until one eyeball popped out like a jack-in-the-box.

That's the type of movie I want to see in 3-D. And I'm not sure how soon it's coming to the IMAX at the Science Center or the Aquarium. And that's why I think the comparison to color or sound is kind of silly. Do we really want to see all movies in 3-D, save for the occasional Raging Bull type artistic statement? Will we ever want to see a Woody Allen or Lars Von Trier movie in 3-D, or a normal drama? Would that be too distracting? "Whoah, that chandelier went right in front of my face!" I guess it could work. As long as it's not too much of a tearjerker; we don't want those glasses getting all salted up with tears.

I think the future of 3-D is somewhere in between the passing fad it was in the '50s and the revolutionary re-invention of the cinema that James Cameron thinks it is. I think it's just a cool way to see a movie. I'm glad it's back, and I hope it stays for a while. Bring on Elizabeth 3-D.

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