Firstly, a confession of sorts: I don't have the statistical knowledge to thoroughly discuss the finer points of today's moviegoing market from an economic standpoint. More to the point, I don't want to. Anyone actually interested in this kind of metadata is welcome to it; not me. Even if there were 72 hours in a day and our lives comparably longer for it, I'd likely still find it a corrosive waste. (Oh, your stock in Disney went up again? I'll let you know the next time a Marvel movie doesn't put me to sleep.)
That said, I feel more than qualified
to talk about today's moviegoing market from a consumer standpoint.
That word, consumer, carries baggage of the ilk I just tried to
distance myself from, yes, but even an idealized perspective on film as
art must acknowledge the forces at play, even when we're reticent to play by their rules. We're consumers of a product
that, from case to case, may or may not also be art (the reverse can also be said on rare occasions), in an industry entrenched with injustices
since its inception. On a playing field where John Ford
explicitly distanced himself from the term artist, or where Roger
Ebert once placed Spider-Man 2 in his top five
films of the year while also maintaining that it is not art, I think
the closest we can come to truth is to acknowledge that everyone has
their own version, and few, if any, are without some level of
implication, and that the more gates are open, the better off for
everyone.
As a consumer of movies born in Ronald
Reagan's United States, it should come as no surprise that Martin
Scorsese's GoodFellas was a watershed moment in
my cinematic upbringing. Even though the first time I saw it was in
the form an edited, pan-and-scan television cut, it's hold was
remarkable. Flash forward 18 years, and I've since purchased it three
times (letterbox VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray), but when my local Alamo
Drafthouse announced that they would be hosting a screening of the
film's new 4K restoration to be served with a specifically curated
four-course meal, there was no doubt that I would have to be there.
I've not kept track of which classics
I've seen theatrically in 4K; off the top of my head, this and last
year's re-release of the original Texas Chain Saw
Massacre might be it. Much as I love the tactile resonance
of physical film, I have eyes, and both of these experiences were a
glory. Watching GoodFellas again this past
weekend, I was struck by the level of grain that was captured in the restoration, and
with the exception of the absent reel markers and inevitable
scratches, as well as the occasional freeze frame employed by
Scorsese (in which the flickerless projection is most apparent;
pictured), the experience was almost film-like.
Hollywood is fighting to keeps asses in
seats, but if there's a way to fight the growing trend of people
saving their dollars by waiting for Redbox, it's the Alamo way, which
I've come to think of as being an improvement on the comfort many
people take in the living room experience. You likely know the
general deal – the theater is also a full-service bar and
restaurant. I'm not a food critic, but as someone who enjoys good
things, I've never had so consistently excellent an experience with
either such establishment (I just checked my Letterboxd records, and
I've seen at least forty-four shows there in the last five months,
and I think I've ordered food or drink at all but one of those times). The
GoodFellas dinner was four courses, beginning
with a light tomato and mozzarella cheese salad, then crostini with
olive salad and garlic, followed by a main course of baked ziti, and
a dessert of tiramisu, which I should have taken into account before
driving home. The leftovers themselves would shame a great many
stand-alone restaurants, where projection and aspect ratios and crowd
control aren't all matters of concern. When I'm no longer in driving distance
from an Alamo location, to paraphrase James Joyce by way of Sean
Penn, I'll feel the lack.
The GoodFellas
screening, alas, did not go off perfectly, albeit in ways that made me feel all the better about where I was. I find myself judging
theater chains in much the same way I find myself measuring my
favorite comedians against each other, which is to say, how they
function when something goes wrong. The (I'm assuming) family that
was seated immediately to my right has already accelerated my
eventual transmogrification into a grouchy Clint Eastwood type
defending his plot of land, and as much as I wanted to wring their
necks, the feeling towards them that I'm trying to settle on is
abject pity. Their lack of awareness concerning their surroundings
was awe-inspiring; despite the “THIS AUDITORIUM IS NOW A NO TALKING
ZONE; KEEP YOUR CELL PHONE DARK, SILENT, AND OUT OF SIGHT”
announcement that plays immediately before the movie, these
evolutionary prodegies took out their phones and used their
screens/flashlights to look at their menus, despite the warm
illumination beckoning from the helpfully-placed lights under their
tables. Before long, a runner swooped into to explain to them that
cell phones were not allowed for any purpose and that they could read
their menus easily with the provided lights, and with what I imagine
must be a highly practiced tactfulness, in place of the string of nasty
similes I'd have probably unloaded as an offended patron.
This traveling circus more or less
behaved for the rest of the movie. A head-slapping highlight: the
shining star sitting closest to yours truly asked his maybe-sibling,
during the wailing strings of “Layla,” “what's getting made?,”
reaffirming my belief that some people simply don't deserve good
things. What happened next was something I'll never forget: during
the final, cocaine-fueled stretch of the film, this ne'er-do-well in
training took out his phone. The screen wasn't
on, but he nonetheless took out his phone and was fidgeting with it, unable to sit still lest the mortal terror of existence overtake him, apparently, audibly tapping it at one point until I gave him a glare that I
find myself hoping haunts him later in his life during moments of
intimacy.
In hindsight, I realized that I could, and should, have raised an order card -- as per the warnings, cell phones should be out of sight, screen illumination notwithstanding -- but at that point, I was more concerned with Michael not letting the sauce stick. These experiences, frustrating though they are, serve two purposes: they remind us how good things are otherwise, and they satisfy a certain anthropological interest on my part. As a young adult in an Apple age of convenience, I'm terrified of losing my autonomy and diminishing my attention span; I realize that I don't need to worry that much. Here I am, trying to carve out time to rewatch The Turin Horse uninterrupted; this little oaf, and likely the bulk of his infected gene pool, on the other hand, couldn't even make it through motherfucking GoodFellas – arguably the cinematic equivalent of lighting in a bottle.
In hindsight, I realized that I could, and should, have raised an order card -- as per the warnings, cell phones should be out of sight, screen illumination notwithstanding -- but at that point, I was more concerned with Michael not letting the sauce stick. These experiences, frustrating though they are, serve two purposes: they remind us how good things are otherwise, and they satisfy a certain anthropological interest on my part. As a young adult in an Apple age of convenience, I'm terrified of losing my autonomy and diminishing my attention span; I realize that I don't need to worry that much. Here I am, trying to carve out time to rewatch The Turin Horse uninterrupted; this little oaf, and likely the bulk of his infected gene pool, on the other hand, couldn't even make it through motherfucking GoodFellas – arguably the cinematic equivalent of lighting in a bottle.
In the words of Robert De Niro's Jimmy
(not Joe Pesci's Tommy), “what is the world
coming to?” But I know better; it's long been like this, just in
different forms and details. There's always a tide to fight, against
thoughtlessness and impatience, and anyone who loves anything will
eventually have to at least figuratively get into bed with something
or someone they don't like. It's as possible to avoid bad crowds as it is to avoid insects, and to have even the vainest hope of doing either, you'll probably have to move to Antarctica. In the dozens of trips I've made to Alamo, I can count the negative impressions I've gotten from my fellow patrons on one hand, which is not just a better success rate than virtually every other theater I've ever attended, but also even the most ideal Thanksgiving meal with one's extended family. At the end of the day, the only bad thing about the GoodFellas dinner party was that more people didn't show up. Remember the Alamo.