Cinema, These Days

What it means to visit the cinema in the modern era.

I love the cinema but it’s easy for me to forget this for years at a time. But at least I still remember. For most, the movies are a place they haven’t visited in a long time. They promise they’ll go when a great new film comes out but life happens and that day never comes.

It’s impossible to go to the cinema without a feeling of deep nostalgia. Maybe not if you go to a swanky ‘Everyman’ while you sip on your wine and snuggle up on a deep sofa - but that’s not what I’m really talking about.

I’m talking about that rescued multiplex with 1980s carpet and an ever dwindling customer base.

I went to see the new Spielberg film on the opening night and it was just me and six other people. A genius titan of the film world releases a new movie but the world doesn’t notice. The people don't flock here. Not anymore.

So you feel a sense of, ‘I remember how this used to be’ and it’s inexplicably linked to ‘I remember who I used to be.’

You sit in the cinema in the dark at 9pm on a Wednesday and you remember so many things about yourself, and about this art form you love. The popcorn and the carpet and the battered old seats feel like home. Because they are home. They’re who you were and who you are.

But the world is on TikTok and Netflix and you don’t really know what this movie house means anymore. Is it just a relic? Are you just revisiting an old girlfriend, the house you grew up in, or is this really part of who you are now, today?

I saw ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ and I felt good about film in a way I hadn’t in some time.

But this building is still so darn empty.

And they’re renting out the screens for dance classes and séances and support groups, because they draw more people than the movies do.

When I’m here and loving a movie, I wonder why I ever stopped doing this.

Not that I ever truly stopped. But one day I loaded a film up on Amazon Prime and doomscrolled Instagram and a decade went by.

There’s nothing better than sitting down with that big beautiful screen in front of you as you munch on hopefully fresh popcorn. But this isn’t the thing it was, it’s different now. It’s niche. And you can’t be certain this building you love will still be here tomorrow.

But it’s essential.

Especially for you, because you love movies.

You just don’t always remember that you do.