When I started plotting alternative content to film reviews roughly 7 months ago in response to the Pandemic induced closure of movie theaters, I really didn't intend to pound on them across a straight summer.
Not only did I not anticipate exactly how long term and systemic the changes of this virus would be but for all the issues I have against exhibitors controlling what audiences want to see in the exclusive name of their own interest, I'll always have a love for the power and impact behind the theater experience.
When all of the circumstances appropriately line up, the power of leaving your own private environment to go to a safe but uncontrolled space to experience a story with others presumably sharing your interest in opening up to a new cinematic experience is an unparalleled experience. It's beautiful, moving, can shape or reinforce a sense of community and enhances almost every film experience formatted for it and no amount of bad experiences caused by bad management and financial corner cutting playing into the hands of an increasingly out of touch and less interested mainstream society changes that.
It's what inspired me to shift gears in my writing career after spending the first 2-3 years of my adulthood gearing towards writing for the video game industry, it's lifted my spirits when my previous jobs ethical duplicity ground its boot heels into my neck, and its security has been the North Star of my life and schedule for nearly a decade.
After my initial draft of this post, Regal Cinemas made the announcement that they'll be indefinitely closing locations until some sense of normalcy begins to rear its head proper within all levels of the film industry and while it does sting to see theaters 1 step closer to a very possible collapse as a mainstream release model, it sadly doesn't change the reality that just because it's possible to release movies again, doesn't mean the time is right to be open.
In getting my previous reviews of "Tenet" and "The New Mutants" posted, I found myself officially going beyond reviews for the content unfolding on screen in front of me and straight into evaluating the safety of theater operations under their new protocols regarding cleanliness and social distancing.
Compared to the lukewarm response I had to the films that I actually watched, I was somehow less impressed.
Credit where it's due to the staff, who seem to be dedicated to all of the necessary precautions from cleaning protocols and reworked concession stations, to face masks and shields and all. Sadly, the unfortunate truth revealed upon entering an auditorium brings that illusion of effectiveness crashing down.
The theater experience is still about being clustered with strangers in an insulated room with limited ventilation, none of which are good in slowing the spread of a virus for obvious reasons.
Some theaters, such as those operated by Cinemark, seem to have made the smart decision to slightly overshoot the 6 foot social distancing recommendation by blocking patrons apart by 2 empty seats.
Sadly, AMC's optimistic 40% capacity is insufficient. Having sat through 2 theatrical experiences in their, I've never felt more awkward in a theater than being sat between 2 strangers seated less than 3.5 feet apart from me on either side, who promptly abandoned all masking during the actual show, one to eat his popcorn and drink liberally and the other just to take it off period.
This is the fatal flaw in the operation. Nothing shy of patrolling and cajoling by staff will get most patrons willing to risk the theater experience at this time to keep those masks on and if that sounds draconian for a theater outing to watch a movie, you are not wrong.
I often wondered how much I'd be personally willing to risk going to the movies until I realized how ludicrous the notion of playing chicken with buying popcorn and soda for consumption really is. Although ideally, everybody operating and patronizing theaters should be able to make a system like this work if we all take the conditions of this virus appropriately seriously, we're reminded everyday that even the people that should be safeguarding us from its impact are too irresponsible for their jobs.
Sitting in an auditorium for over 2 hours without concessions is deflating but sitting in there afraid to remove your mask because every corner is occupied by couples that are too eager to take their masks off felt as close to a game of Russian Roulette as I'll ever have in my lifetime.
The day we can go back to safe operations, I'll happily leap to it but the sad truth is that we just aren't there yet and it scares me to know that fact, not only for the danger theaters may enable and overlook trying to continue operations in hard denial of their degrading influence but that the very idea of me making weekly and sometimes daily trips to a place that helps me feel at ease from the frustrations of my life may not be the permanent fixture of my life it served to be ever since I was a teenager.
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