So, January 2012: Disney is rereleasing their 1991 animated masterpiece, Beauty and the Beast into theaters, and in 3D format, and I'm able to coerce a friend into seeing it with me.
This was a big deal because, as with most of the Disney movies we'd call "classic," Beauty and the Beast had its day in theaters before my time, and this was an opportunity to experience the movie in its proper element, and maybe imagine what it would have been when the legendary tunes by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken graced the public for the first time.
My larger circle was none-too-impressed with my choice. Didn't I know that the movie was already on DVD? That I could just watch it anytime in the comfort of my own home without having to pay for another ticket? How could I be so careless with my finances? (Incidentally, many of these same friends would pay top-dollar to see the Beauty and the Beast remake five years later on opening weekend ...)
About a year later, Jurassic Park was getting a similar treatment, and I was eager to be able to imagine what my ancestors felt as they welcomed arguably the first real summer blockbuster. Unfortunately, my parents weren't so agreeable this time. I was denied the chance to see the film on the big screen. They saw an opportunity, however, to teach me about making smart economic decisions. And so, they chose to acquire a DVD copy of the film and told me that it would be just as good as seeing it on the big screen.
I have never forgiven them for this.
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| Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) |
For my 200th post for this blog, I wanted to do something special, something other than just some variation of "my 200 favorite movies." And in light of many of the current events in movie news, my thoughts kept returning to "movie theaters," a topic I haven't really explored specifically in any of my writing yet.
Now, movie theaters have been sort of waiting in the ER waiting room for at least as long as I have been actively writing about movies. We have been sort of taking their vitals for a long time now.
But there have also been some very specific challenges facing the industry very, very recently. So recently, that even something as catastrophic as the whole program being shut down for a year during a global shutdown is starting to feel like a book chapter that we have definitively turned the page on. The industry never really figured out how to return from that, but their burden has since been added onto with the escalation of the streaming wars as well as the consolidation of film studios--and other such efforts to just make the theatrical experience irrelevant.
Variety noted at the end of this last year, "During COVID, studios abbreviated the gap between a film’s theatrical release and its home entertainment debut, only to discover that customers got accustomed to waiting to watch movies until they hit streaming or on-demand platforms. If windows keep shrinking, theaters may lose their competitive advantage."
Eduardo Acuna, CEO of Regal Entertainment, is quoted in another Variety article saying, “It has been widely proven that shorter windows would result in lower revenue generation potential for movies. These lower revenues would inevitably result in theater closures, which would limit consumers’ ability to see movies in the format that filmmakers originally intended. Furthermore, it would result in job losses and economic harm to surrounding businesses to those theater closings. Ultimately, consumers would be worse off.”
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| Sullivan's Travels (1941) |
Obviously, the theater is not the only space where a person can have a meaningful experience with a movie. But a part of moviegoing as a source of shared mythology within American culture is protected while the movie theater continues to be a regular part of American life. If rising generations do not ever get that experience, they will never know just how good movie watching can be.
And so I want to take a minute and reflect on just a few of the moments in life where the magic of the cinema really came to life for me, such that I don't think movie theaters should just go gentle into that good night. This piece isn't so much about the movies so much as the spaces where they found me; not necessarily the stories that were happening up on the screen so much as the stories that were unfolding in my heart at the time.
_________
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The transition between seeing the world through a child's eyes into seeing through an adult's eyes can be slight, perceivable only in hindsight. But there are tracks when you can pinpoint the exact moment of graduation. And that was my experience seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the first time the summer it premiered.
At that age, you don't necessarily know exactly how you're relating to pieces of media like this, even universally agree-upon good media. Loving Harry Potter was just a way to give yourself common talking points with friends.
But watching this movie, and especially Harry's visceral reaction to Sirius falling through the veil, broke something in me. Seeing the rapid cut of Harry's trauma playing out in his head while the voice of Voldemort taunted him, that became perhaps my earliest context for despair. And Harry's subsequent resurrection, when the sight of his friends gives him the strength to expel The Dark Lord from out of him, I was learning something as well. Very few moments in my life have been impressed on me as deeply as hearing for the first time, "You're the weak one. Because you'll never know love or friendship. And I feel sorry for you."
I felt in real time as the Harry Potter mythology morphed from the world's greatest playground to something spiritual. Here I was being instructed on the deepest human emotions. Suddenly I knew what movies could really do.
Bridge of Spies
I saw this one on a weeknight with a roommate during my sophomore year of college. This was at one of those "dollar theaters" that have since gone the way of the phone booth as streaming services and 90-day digital releases started leaking into the ecosystem. I saw this movie some months after its initial day in the sun had receded--but still before Mark Rylance would win his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
This was probably my favorite set of roommates during college, though only one of them (knowing I was kind of a budding cinephile who wasn't yet sure if he had what it took to even apply to the university's film program) would take me out on this trip.
I thought it was very kind of this roommate to take me into consideration like this, and we both very much enjoyed the movie as well. It would be later this semester that I would apply to my university's film program. This set of roommates would be the crowd that got to see me finally land somewhere.
This theater would close less than a year after this.
BELLE
Seeing the latest work from a favorite auteur, and an overseas one at that, on the big screen gave me an opportunity to feel really active in my participation with this film game. It wasn't until only earlier this year, four whole years after the release of this film, that Mamoru Hosoda would release his next film. In the time since, the market has only shrunk even further for people like Hosoda. I would have to drive nearly twice as far in order to find a screening of that film.
I had figured based on Hosoda's track record that I would like this film, but I wasn't necessarily anticipating that this would enter the pantheon of favorite films. A year after that premiere viewing, the movie found itself as the subject of its own essay, and I also included it in my top 25 movies of the 21st century.
There's a scene midway through where Suzu has warmed the heart of The Beast, and the two of them start to float into the heavens together, and cliche as it may sound, I very much felt like they were carrying me up with them. Watching this take place before me helped me realize that even on the other end of a film major, movies could still make me feel like a child--that I could watch movies and still feel the same things that I had when I watched Enchanted nearly fifteen years earlier.
Captain Marvel
I remember in my later college years, my class and work schedule was such that the easiest times for me to hit the theater were actually weekday matinees, times when the theater was typically very, very empty. And at the time, I thought this was some neat hack that I had discovered. It felt kinda cool being the only person in the auditorium while this giant screen played just for me.
And, at the time, it kind of was.
I had already checked this one off the list, during one of those abandoned matinee showings where it seemed bizarre to me that enough people were seeing this to get this one on track for a billion, when my cousin had invited me to go see it with her and some of her friends. This was a second viewing for me, but it was the first in a long while that really reminded me of why it is we go to theaters in the first place--why we all gather together in the dark to see a story unfold on a giant screen in full surround sound. Even though this was my second go of a very conventional movie, I had something of a viewer's high watching the movie as it was really intended. This was the most fun I'd had at a theater all year.
In the wake of the COVID shutdown, most of my theater outings tend to resemble the scene of those later college years. Part of this is, again, me defaulting to less crowded showings. Part of that is me becoming more proactive in the movies I watch and seeking out movies that have less promotion. A lot of that is also the theatrical scene just changing so radically. There are fewer priority films these days, and so I am often left reminiscing about how it felt to see a major motion picture under the optimal conditions.
Your Name
This was also my second time watching this movie--and in this specific venue. My university's humanities program hosted an international cinema roster each semester displaying films from all across the globe all week, all semester. I caught Makoto Shinkai's sensation, "Your Name," when it was first screened here, and before this movie had really had the chance to find its fanbase in America.
But the program also started each semester with an encore weekend where the two most popular films from the last semester got another screening. I had caught the movie during that first run and chose to come back for seconds--this time bringing my cousin with me. (Yes, the "Captain Marvel" cousin.)
The design of this whole program was to curate a roster of elevated films for those who might fancy themselves intellectual. But this movie made a crowd of weepers out of this bunch of scholars. I distinctly remember the collective gasp that went through the auditorium in that pivotal scene where the pen cluttered to the ground.
The climate immediately after the ending was just as gratifying to me. The audience was abuzz. Everyone was talking over one another all throughout the auditorium, so I couldn't glean any specific conversations, but I could tell by the looks on their faces, by their energy, that no one could believe what they had just seen.
ONWARD
My anticipation for this movie was singular even among Disney and Pixar films. This was one of those fleeting non-franchise films from the studio that we definitely took for granted during Pixar's premiere golden age (and which many outlets continue to take for granted today).
I've gone on the record several times now asserting that, yes, this is one Pixar's absolute best movies, and narratives to the contrary have revealed more about the state of post-Tik Tok film criticism than the capabilities of Pixar. (See: my 3-part summary of Pixar and film critics, or else my essays on Finding Nemo or Elemental.)
I saw it once opening weekend with some friends and family. This viewing was fairly full, and the movie itself was deeply rewarding. I saw it again about a week later after COVID-19 had been declared an epidemic, and the showing was predictably bare by comparison. And it's a good thing that I had already caught the movie once, because it would have been very difficult for me to internalize the experience had it not already been planted in me. This second viewing was sharing custody with a long goodbye to the halls of cinema. I didn't know how long it would be before I ever returned to this space, or what it would look like when I returned.
Wicked
Me being a younger millennial, most of the present mediascape is dedicated solely to capitalizing on my nostalgic appetites. The film adaptations for Wicked were not unique in this regard. But even among similar attempts that landed well with me, these movies were unique for just how comprehensively they swept me away. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So, naturally, between the two "Wicked" movies, I made eight separate trips to the theater.
But I guess I'll focus on my first viewing of the first film. Opening night, which saw me driving to the theater immediately after getting off my evening shift so I could catch the 10:30 showing. Even though this was a long movie at a very late showing, the auditorium was very full, and I knew what it was to be in a place full of people who were as excited as I was for what was about to happen.
I remember right after the credits started to roll, after we all had our first encounter with the formidable interpretation of "Defying Gravity," I inadvertently let out a louder-than-normal exhale, and the guy next to me just looked right at me and said, "I know, right?"
The Greatest Showman
I'm pretty certain I was actually the original fan of The Greatest Showman. I'll confess I don't recall exactly when I got on the board. I don't remember whether it was before or after the premiere of La La Land. But it was around that time that I was made aware that the songwriters were due for another musical only a year out, and that it was basically a passion project for Hugh Jackman.
Those roommates I had talked about earlier with Bridge of Spies? I actually remember telling one of them, about a year after we had switched dorms and were no longer rooming together, about how Hugh Jackman was headlining an original musical about PT Barnum due that Christmas. This was very much the kind of movie that I wanted to see from Hollywood, and I've dropped at least one essay tracking what Hollywood has done with the success of those two musicals from Pasek & Paul. And when this movie found tremendous embrace among audiences during the winter of 2017-18, the validation was overwhelming.
So this movie wound up being something of a culmination for me, as Frozen had four years earlier and as Wicked would seven years later. But it also ended up being a capstone as well. I saw this movie with my family that Christmas season, the last before my dad would pass away the following spring, and this would end up being our last experience in the theater altogether.
A Quiet Place: Part 2
My first experience in a theater post-COVID was seeing Raya and the Last Dragon--which I had already seen twice on Disney+ and had just wanted to experience in its proper element, the way I would have if the world hadn't been rocked by a global shutdown. And it was still a deeply moving experience being back in the theater.
That inaugural viewing, however, wasn't quite like the old times. There were maybe three other small parties in that auditorium with me. It wasn't until my first viewing of A Quiet Place: Part 2 on Memorial Day that I finally got another proper "theater experience," complete with packed crowds.
And it's for this reason that in my review of this film, I couldn't help but view the whole movie from the specific context of emerging out of the global shutdown. Watching the film's prologue, for example, and watching the community helplessly, ignorantly witnessing their whole world falling apart, not knowing as they gather for the baseball game that this is going to be the last time the community came together for something like this ... it hit in a very specific way. As did the film's larger narrative of this family trying to climb out of the hole and repair the world in the only way they knew how.
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| Leon: The Professional (1994) |
Anytime I have campaigned for this kind of thing, on this platform or as a civilian, I always run into individuals who will return with "Well, not everyone has access to a local theater, you know."
And I will say upfront that I can believe this is sometimes true. I can believe that owing to such factors as finances or distance, there is a swath of people for whom consistent theatrical attendance is just not feasible at this time, and I have no interest in shaming this crowd.
At the same time, I also feel like it's not unprecedented for a person to lean on these excuses to cover a lack of incentive. The barriers to theater attendance are often used to cover why more crowds don't go to specialty or even non-franchise titles, but people tend to find ways to make it to the cinema when the market is serving very specific appetites. Hence, YouTube will gripe about why Pixar doesn't make more original movies, only to leave ELIO in the cold so they can watch the "How to Train Your Dragon" remake. Ergo, enough people will find reasons to parachute into the cinema when they feel like it.
During the Netflix/Paramount bidding war over Warner Bros., Joe George wrote for Den of Geek,
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| Gremlins (1984) |
I also find Ryan Gosling's recent claim--that if movie theaters are dying, it's because filmmakers have the job to just make better movies--to be cute, but not entirely connected to reality. I've had experiences in which people will ask me if I have seen Ryan Gosling's own The Fall Guy after finding that they loved it when they caught it on streaming. I did, in fact. I was one of the few people who saw that movie in the theater. Audiences are finding movies that they like just fine. They're just not prioritizing the theater as their favored method of first exposure. Adam Fogelson, Chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, noted,
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| Amelie (2001) |
Certain parties may have different opportunities to lift, but collectively there is room for us all to lift. I'm not interested in personally sorting through these myself. You know who you are. You know if you have to step up.
But while we're waiting for that gap to close, theaters stand to lose quite a bit as studios are looking for other ways to stay afloat. Hence, the company behind DC, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones is being sold. Cinema United, the trade organization that represents the exhibitors, warned that,
“A combination of Paramount and Warner Bros. would consolidate as much as 40% of each year’s domestic box office in the hands of single dominant studio. The impact will not only be felt by theatre owners, but by movie fans and surrounding businesses in communities of all sizes.”
We know what's at stake here, we know what we have to lose, and we know what needs to be done.
--The Professor
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| Belfast (2021) |
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