At the beginning of 2020, I saw the potential movie slate for the year, and when the blockbusters were going to hit the theaters, but the world had other plans sadly. This resulted in the movies being shut down all together, and if there are new releases of movies, then they were released digitally on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or worst on demand. There have been several movies released on demand over the course of the last couple of months, and these movies cost $20 each. Now big picture $20 to see a movie is not a big deal especially if you watch it with another person and want to get some movie popcorn, it is immediately over $20, but as someone who lives alone and had an AMC A list subscription spending that money for one movie just seemed unreasonable. Pre-pandemic I had been paying $22 a month to be able to see up to three movies a week at any AMC theater, and most weeks I went to the movies at least twice, and there were even times when I would use all three uses for the week. These past months my movie consumption in general has gone down.
There is just no replacing going to the theater and experiencing something new and immersing to take the viewer out of the hustle and bustle of the world and into a new story. It was also the easiest place to keep the phone put away as well, this device that is a constant presence in everyone’s lives. The theater is one of the few places left where phone usage is taboo and completely frowned upon. Now when I try to watch a movie at home, it usually results in me watching the majority of the movie, but just out of habit I end up checking it and can be completely taken out of the experience all together and end up missing key parts of the movie. One other problem that does not help is the lack of profoundly good movies being released on streaming services. Netflix typically releases formulaic slop that fights into certain people’s viewing algorithms, but the movies would underperform if put into theaters. This is not to say the movies put straight onto Amazon are any better. If any of these movies that were directly released to streaming services were truly supposed to be great, they would not have been released to streaming first.
By now we should have been packed into theaters and have seen Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, A Quiet Place Part II, Wonder Woman 1984, Black Widow, and the new James Bond. Instead all we have gotten is Scoob. The worst part is that some of these movies have just decided to push back their release dates by whole year. Fast Nine was the first to do so, and I do not really care about the Fast franchise, but there is something about watching a car movie in a Dolby theater with the best sound system in theaters. Also the new Halloween movie was pushed back a year, which is the most important to me, and the new Conjuring movie was pushed to 2021 as well. The release date for Tenet is continually pushed back, as Christopher Nolan seems to be the one who wants to be THE director to bring back movies and save the industry from destruction. Nolan does not seem to want to try and push it a year. I promise when it is safe to go back to the movies that it is worthwhile to go and see the movies there. Nolan does not make movies for them to be watched on laptops and TVs. Movies packed with emotion are felt more so in theaters when being experienced with others, comedies are funnier when you are laughing with a crowd, horror movies are more enjoyable when you are jumping in your seat with those around you, and action movies will have you more on the edge of your seat if they have your full attention on a massive screen instead of being viewed with your phone in your hand! The theaters will need your support when they come back, and the experience is worth it!
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