The Hell Plaza Octoplex, movie night, Oct. 8, 2020. In the foreground: drums of sanitizer where the lounge used to be.
Once upon a time crowds were so large at the Hell Plaza Octoplex we followed a set routine on movie night. The driver dropped the rest of the family off at the entrance. Another bought tickets with Dad’s credit card and another waited in line to buy troughs of popcorn. It was my job to find good seats. For Harry Potter-scale films I bought my own ticket, took a book and went ahead of everybody else. If the theatre wasn't open yet I waited in line, counted the number of people ahead of me to gauge how fast I’d have to run, and unfolded a portable seat, clutching scarves, coats and extra hats to claim a half a mile of row when I got inside the entrance for the soon-to-be entranced. Our favourite ad for Cineplex used to show a family strategizing their movie night with even more military precision than we had: their little boy trips coming out of the car and his mother shouts "Leave him! Leave him!" as on they run.
In October 2020 lineups are no more, of course. You can walk straight up to the 30-foot-long counter to buy a popcorn (cooked pre-pandemic) from the sad only employee working there. Tumbleweeds blow along the corridors where I once waited with my hats and scarves.
Pre-film ritual: put on the mask, get the ticket scanned, read the sign, squeeze the sanitizer and follow the spaced-out footsteps. No entrancement at the entrance. Inside the theatre are mostly empty seats. Did you choose the wrong film? Is it bad? No, you haven’t made the wrong choice. It just means the damned pandemic has ruined everything. A Cineplex employee with a clipboard walks through the rows, making sure you’re in your assigned, socially distanced seats.
At least we're away from Netflix, we tell ourselves. Then the lights dim and on the screen comes a giant rainbow ribbon in the shape of an N three stories high. We shriek in horror. You can run but you can't hide from the giant beast of -- NETFLIX. They produced the movie you're going to see. It’s available in your home next week.
The soon-to-be-a-minor-tiny movie is Trial of the Chicago 7, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. Once upon a time in America, thousands of young men were dying for a pointless war in Vietnam, so in 1968 a collection of conscientious objecters, radicals and serious weirdos went to Chicago to protest the war by any means necessary in HUGE CROWDS. The courtroom was CROWDED FULL of people in front of an insane judge. Abbie Hoffman (a personal sex symbol of mine, for no apparent reason), Jerry Rubin and others protested they were innocent of conspiracy by wearing funny costumes. Appalling things are done to Bobby Seale, whom I would, 25 years later, interview for a retrospective on the Black Panthers. He asked if I would mention his new barbecue cookbook.
The movie was actually terrific. Well-written (of course, it’s by Aaron Sorkin), decently directed (ditto) and a moving fairy tale about the times when marching made a difference and no one was distracted by a smartphone.
Post-film ritual: go to the washroom where I used to shove old ladies aside for a stall. Meet up afterwards at the tropical fish tank. The fish are still there, looking fresh and well-fed but a little goggle-eyed at the empty view outside the tank, and if you're waiting for someone, it's a little unnerving.
I’ll get the popcorn, you wait in line. We’re at the movies!
After months of movies at home I thought there would be no difference between the home screen and a theatre screen; that's what we've all been thinking during COVID. I went to prove myself right.
But here's the thing. You sit in front of a television. There is an imaginary plexiglass shield between you and the livestreamed product you are going to watch. I didn't know that until I went to the movies for the first time since March, before the pandemic ruined everything.
It turns out you don't watch a movie the same way. You walk into a movie screen.
You walk into a dream.
That's why, after a really good film, you sometimes have to shake yourself to remember where you are. After the first Star Wars movie my sister drove me home along the highway and I still believed the cars whizzing by were starships.
We'll relate these memories, in the years to come, and our grandkids will not know what the hell we are talking about.