Over the past year or so, I’ve become far more interested in film as an artistic medium. I’ve always enjoyed going to the movies, but I’m beginning to seek out more interesting and unusual fare, particularly the classics. One reason I’m watching more films from the 1960s-1990s is because so many flicks these days are full of social justice pandering and parroting of the Leftist bromides du jour. It’s refreshing watching movies in which people act like people, and not drones from the HR or Diversity Departments.
In The Age of The Virus, we’ve been encouraged to stay home and watch TV—a commentary on our diluted sense of “sacrifice” in the twenty-first-century West. But that’s had an interesting impact on the cinema, by which I mean movie theaters. With endless content on streaming services and bigger, cheaper televisions, it seems that the old movie palaces and multiplexes are increasingly obsolete.
Regal Cinemas re-shuttered its theaters across the country after making a go at reopening. When I went to see The Empire Strikes Back and The New Mutants, there were very few people there, even during prime weekend screening times. The New Mutants was a full-freight flick, but Empire and other classics were just $5! Even then there were loads of empty seats—and that wasn’t just because of social distancing requirements. I asked a manager how he was doing and he said, “Well, at least we’ve got some people here tonight.” It does not sound good for the future of theaters.
The Portly Politico 