We finally took the plunge. It wasn't that there was any specific metric that finally added up, or that we had made a spreadsheet tallying pros and cons, or that we wanted to make a statement to ourselves and the world. It was far more pedestrian than that. We had a quiet weekend, the weather looked iffy and it seemed no one was around to join us for dinner. We played the usual game of "What do you want to do?" "No, What do YOU want to do?" And then because it seemed like the best of the options and the path of least resistance, we decided to finally go to a movie.
Whether you were a regular theater-goer or just the occasional action or superhero blockbuster fangirl or boy, your attendance has been basically shut down these last two years. Like so many things that involved crowds of people, be it restaurants or sporting events or concerts, for a period of time you couldn't have gone even if you wanted to. Then as things started to stabilize, if not improve, the boldest stuck their toe in the waters, and dealt with proof of vaccination and masks as required by an ever-shifting set of regulations that varied from locale to locale. And now the continuum has shifted to where it seems most of the country has gone from saying "Pandemic! There's a pandemic going on!" to "Pandemic? There's a pandemic going on?"
As with almost everything, when it all started patterns and habits shifted at lightning pace for the simple reason that they had to. For sure, in before times, there were takeout meals and online shopping and Netflix subscriptions. In their lane each was just one possibility among others. Then very quickly it all went from being one option to the only option. And now the teeter totter has started to tip back towards the center.
Sort of.
It would have been hard to believe before, but we've all gotten used to our adapted and adopted ways. We've gone back to restaurants, but still love Uber Eats. Stores are open, but it's so much more convenient to just click and have it delivered to your house in the next few days. Going to the office? You might miss having lunch with your colleagues, but weighted against a 2 hour or more commute, Zoom is just fine. And our entertainment options are no different.
After all, there are so many reasons to just curl up on the couch and stream "The Batman" versus going to a theater. You can start and stop it whenever you want. A snack of any kind is steps away. Especially if there are multiple people watching, the cost is a fraction of multiple tickets. You can check your email at the slow spots. No parking, no lines, no tall person in front of you blocking the screen.
Speaking for ourselves, we appreciate all that, and revel in it as well. But some of those home-grown net-positives have a downside. Watching at home means you can easily give up on a film that takes time to build. Yes, you can stop and start with impunity, but that foregoes any sense of pacing. And being forced to sit in a dark room with no other distractions and giving yourself over to the story is what movies do best, and what the medium and magic is all about.
And so off we went. We parked easily enough, got tickets with no trouble, and found seats we liked in a mostly empty auditorium. The film was "Everywhere Everything All At Once," and as one of the many gushing reviews put it "An astonishing achievement that tells the simplest of stories in the most elaborate of ways. Outlandishly absurd yet deceptively powerful, it's truly unlike anything you've ever seen." Even if you discount that by half, it was perfect for a theater: complex, original, visual, strange.
We went out for a bite after, and talked it through, admiring some parts, dismissing others. Whether you wind up seeing it and liking it or not, it deserved a big screen and a quiet room. And perhaps most importantly of all it answered the question of why we go to the movies in the first place. And yes, we will go again.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford likes things that are original. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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