Hello Darkness My Old Friend

One week ago I made my first trip back (since December) into a movie theater, a place that was already (sadly) feeling quaint before this year's pandemic.  I've explained why numerous times.  Life is busy.  Movies can now be accessed with ridiculous ease.  Getting out to the theater is increasingly difficult.  But that is how films are meant to be seen.  Or at least, were.  Many contemporary pics seem designed to be watched on smartphones.  People rail on social media about how they prefer the safety of their own homes.  Some feel their set ups rival that of the theater.  Sorry, no.

It's not just the screen dimensions. Or that spouse alienating subwoofer.  Watching movies at home is fraught with distraction and interruption.  When you go to the theater, you're there to be enveloped.  Engaged.  There's a magic about it.  While many also cite the positive experience of being with an audience, that has rarely been a selling point for me.   I have to agree with the homebodies that movie goers are getting more obnoxious.  It used to just be the popcorn munchers, talkers, and laser pointers.  Now it's the texters, among others.  Sometimes you do get an audience that responds appropriately to a film, and that's golden, amigo.

As you may have read, TENET was my welcome back to the cinema, and what a welcome it was.  Oh, I was disappointed with the movie overall, but its visual and aural expanses are what the experience is all about.  Stunning. I almost felt like a teenager again.  But I have to remember that even a quiet indie film as projected on the big screen can achieve that sort of magic.

Safety concerns? I wore my mask the entire time, except to sip some ginger ale.  There were only about thirty in my auditorium with a capacity of a few hundred. I never saw such a place looks so immaculate.  There was the smell of cleaner, not unpleasant.  As the closest person was at least ten chairs away, I almost felt like I was in my own screening room.  Great for me, but probably disastrous for the theater and movie studio.

But it's hopefully a small step back to What Was.  Who knows? Preserving the movie theater experience is certainly far down the priority list in the Age of Covid, when students and their parents soldier through the challenges of online learning and many of all ages are touched by illness and death.  But if it can be saved, take (at least some of) my money.