{"id":44060,"date":"2024-06-05T02:16:53","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T06:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=44060"},"modified":"2024-06-05T04:14:04","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T08:14:04","slug":"the-working-mans-artform-reflections-on-the-movie-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/05\/the-working-mans-artform-reflections-on-the-movie-theater\/","title":{"rendered":"The Working Man\u2019s Artform: Reflections on The Movie Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThis is a working man\u2019s art form. It\u2019s not the opera. It\u2019s not theater. It\u2019s not going to a big concert. The idea was that anyone could go and see a movie\u2026 we have priced them out to where now it\u2019s a deal.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Quentin Tarantino<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was a kid we lived in a small one bed room apartment shared by four people. My dad worked all day and only on the weekends could he really find time to spend with me and my brother. On the weekends he\u2019s gather us together and we\u2019d find time to do something together. The only caveat is we\u2019d had to be able to afford it. Even in the late eighties that was a tough endeavor. So we\u2019d go to the park, or the public pool, or free day at the Bronx Zoo. But quite often he\u2019d snatch up me and my brother and we\u2019d go to the movies together. It was the least expensive option that offered an immersive experience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We\u2019d go to our neighborhood theater, The American, at Parkchester, plunk down some money, and get lost for a few hours at the movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>We couldn’t afford theme parks. We couldn\u2019t pay for Six Flags. Or Disney World, so we went to the movies. It cost a lot less, we got to experience something big and we had a lot of fun in a communal setting. I think this is where my love for movies was cultivated because it was often a time where you could sit in an air conditioned room and just escape for a while. It\u2019s one of my favorite scenes from 2002\u2019s \u201cIn America\u201d where the Sullivan family seeks escape from their current woes to check out \u201cE.T.\u201d Except for us, my dad would often make compromises with us on what we should watch and a lot of times he\u2019d placate me and my brother.<\/p>\n

So we went to see \u201cTim Burton\u2019s Batman.\u201d And got to see \u201cHome Alone\u201d three times (he wanted to see \u201cKing Ralph\u201d). We watched \u201cWho Framed Roger Rabbit?\u201d twice. We sped to the theaters to watch James Cameron\u2019s \u201cThe Abyss\u201d and believe it or not my dad actually liked \u201cTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie.\u201d The fact was that movies back then were much more accessible to everyone. They were for rich people, and for poor people. They were for men, women, and children. Before the eighties came along you could even go to a local neighborhood theater and catch a double feature for the price of one movie.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Before that you could probably catch a double feature and a short beforehand. Theaters still practiced the idea of playing shorts before movies, but that practice long died when the nineties rolled around, as they were pushed back in favor of more ads for TV shows, and glorified behind the scenes shows discussing the latest Hollywood project. Going to the movies as a child were some of the best moments of my life and some of the most raucous. I can still remember standing in the mile long line with a mob of kids with my cousins and brother to see \u201cHoney, I Shrunk the Kids!\u201d I vividly remember sitting in the stadium seats and crying when their ant buddy died.<\/p>\n

I experienced \u201cJurassic Park\u201d for the first time in theaters, and the new renaissance of Disney with Pixar\u2019s \u201cToy Story.\u201d There is nothing like it and there never will be again. These are experiences that I was able to enjoy and soak in because once upon a time the movie ticket barely hit five bucks allowing for an art form that was so absolutely accessible. Sure, today you can point and click and watch any movie or TV show that you want. And yes, I\u2019d also rather sit at home watching a movie than trek to theaters in today\u2019s climate. But with all that comfort, we lost the experience, and the spirituality of it all, and we stopped looking at movies as a medium of art that we had to absorb and think on for a while.<\/p>\n

We watch a movie, and we move on to the next. And we move on to the next. By December, we\u2019d have filed it in the back of our minds.
\n\"\"<\/a>In 1989 when went to see \u201cBatman\u201d between the three of us, the total was about nine bucks. Back in 2011 (the last time I stepped foot in a theater), between me and my brother, we\u2019d dropped at least thirty dollars, not including medium cherry sodas. Hollywood and movie theaters just aren\u2019t working hard enough to bring the movie fan and the budding potential movie buff back to theaters anymore, because it\u2019s no longer about giving us something unique and incomparable. It\u2019s now about the bottom line.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about cutting costs, and spending less, and price gouging, and shrinkflation, assigned seating, and the assurance that our effort to get to the theater will be met with sheer indifference and yes, even buyer\u2019s remorse. Why spend fifty bucks for the movies at a time where people are struggling to make rent and put food on their tables? It\u2019s not a form of escape now, it\u2019s just another task. It\u2019s so sad that with how we process and consume entertainment now, Hollywood doesn\u2019t get it. And they don\u2019t want to get it.<\/p>\n

I hope that someday the every man and the working man can win back to the movie theaters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis is a working man\u2019s art form. It\u2019s not the opera. It\u2019s not theater. It\u2019s not going to a big concert. The idea was that anyone could go and see a movie\u2026 we have priced them out to where now it\u2019s a deal.\u201d \u2013 Quentin Tarantino When I was a kid we lived in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3415,688,737],"class_list":["post-44060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pcthugs","tag-movie-theaters","tag-movies","tag-nostalgia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44060"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44067,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44060\/revisions\/44067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}