Woke Movie Critics Decry Theater Reopenings

[AndyDursin]

Anything more fearless than these SJW's?

Warning: This article is painful to read.

https://film.avclub.com/please-don-t-go ... 1844756993

Oh wait, here's someone. Hopefully many lives will be saved by killing TENET off at the box office!

[Monterey Jack]

...as they make or review movies that will only be playing in theaters...



What hypocrites. It's probably safer for me to be in a movie theater with five other well-distanced people all facing in the same direction than going to work, where I have people in my face for five or six hours a day six days a week (often with their damn noses poking out over their face masks ).

[AndyDursin]

What gets me is that it's a CHOICE. Nobody is making you go to a theater. If you don't want to go, don't.

The difference here is the people who don't want to go, don't want you to have a choice.

[Johnmgm]

I'm rather at a loss with COVID-19. The mortality rate is between 2-4%. I would bet the author of the article routinely engages in behavior with worse odds. Be that as it may, I get that people are scared, but I don't have the intention of hiding in my house for the next year and a half.

[AndyDursin]

I'm not scared of the virus but seat reservations and mask wearing kind of kill the movie going buzz for me. It'll have to be a special movie to get me to go, but the choice should be there.

[Monterey Jack]

What gets me is that it's a CHOICE. Nobody is making you go to a theater. If you don't want to go, don't.

The difference here is the people who don't want to go, don't want you to have a choice.

I have a former co-worker who left the store to work at a movie theater in late-2019, and he loved the job, being a movie geek who's on the light side of the spectrum. He was heartbroken when his job shut down, and elated when he got called in earlier this week when his chain announced it was re-opening on Friday.

Whether you're making movies or just working in a place showing them, movie theaters deserve to be open as much as restaurants, hair salons, and all other businesses. It IS safe if you keep things clean and sanitized and limit the amount of people in the building, and for all the cries of these businesses being "non-essential", try saying that with a straight face to owners and employees who have been living off of unemployment for the last five+ months. I, for one, will be rolling out for movies every single day I'm not working (or working early enough to catch a 4:00 PM matinee), because I have never in my adult life gone almost SIX MONTHS not seeing movies at the theater. Even with masks, seating restrictions and no popcorn(!), there's nothing that beats a movie in a proper theater, and these people deserve to make a living. It's no longer March, cases in Mass have nosedived sharply, and we need to get back to our lives, goddammit.

[Monterey Jack]

I'm rather at a loss with COVID-19. The mortality rate is between 2-4%. I would bet the author of the article routinely engages in behavior with worse odds. Be that as it may, I get that people are scared, but I don't have the intention of hiding in my house for the next year and a half.

You have a better chance of getting bitten by a shark or hit by a bolt of lightning as you have of dying of Covid (provided you're young and healthy), so as long as you wear a mask properly, and wash your hands and face when you come home, the chance of getting infected is ludicrously remote.

[Paul MacLean]

You know the old saying "the lunatics are running the asylum"? Well, this is the hypochondriacs running the Department of Health.

[Monterey Jack]

You know the old saying "the lunatics are running the asylum"? Well, this is the hypochondriacs running the Department of Health.

Hey, even long pre-Covid, I made a point of never touching the door of a public restroom after I'd washed my hands. I get being clean and sanitary, but no matter how many deaths the news likes to trumpet, the vast majority of them have been old people with pre-existing medical conditions. And I don't want to make light of those who have lost people (God forbid), but, considering how many people there are choking this planet (200 years ago we crossed a billion people on the face of the globe. Now we're at about EIGHT billion ), the fact that we haven't even lost a million worldwide is kind of remarkable. This has always struck me as Mother Nature giving us a very stern warning, and hopefully once the virus has been beaten back or simply goes away by itself like the 1918 flu epidemic did, we'll have learned a valuable lesson...and won't frantically close off the ENTIRE COUNTRY if there's a future flare-up, and properly quarantine the infected sections of the world and take care of business.

[Paul MacLean]

^^Agreed completely.

I admit I'm a little OCD about washing my hands, and my current job takes me to nursing homes, so I've always keep hand sanitizer with me. At the same time, I think about when I was a teenager, and would handle all those septic video games at the arcade, then go out to the food court and eat a burger or pizza with my unwashed hands. Somehow I'm still here!

As far as precautions, as others have pointed out, people die (horribly) every day in car crashes -- but no one is proposing we reduce the speed limit to 20 MPH (yet, anyway).

[Monterey Jack]

As far as precautions, as others have pointed out, people die (horribly) every day in car crashes -- but no one is proposing we reduce the speed limit to 20 MPH (yet, anyway).

More people probably die of cancer worldwide daily than have died of Cornonavirus in the last six months. Yes, the total number of Covid deaths have been particularly bad in this country, but even here, it's only spiked in specific states. The fact that movie theaters have been allowed to open here in Mass where, literally next door in New York, they remain shuttered, is noteworthy. Even the "no concessions" thing here is pointless, as it would be almost impossible to spread Covid via food. If it's "safe" to sit in a movie theater for two hours, it should be safe to pull you mask down to toss a handful of kernels into your mouth or take a sip of soda, and theaters need concession sales to actually make a profit (especially with greedy WB taking almost SIXTY-FIVE PERCENT of the ticket sales for Tenet ). Even if not popcorn, why not pre-packaged candy and bottled soda/water?

[AndyDursin]

The short-term (and possibly longer-term) plans for the future of theatrical exhibition are going to be tested in the next month with both TENET playing in theaters and MULAN going to Disney+ for a $30 fee.

If TENET doesn't do well, and Disney actually overperforms with MULAN, it is going to be curtains for theaters.

MULAN will not be the last to follow this route if it goes well. You'll see others moving in that direction. And if TENET doesn't perform, I could see WW1984 being pushed into next year -- or debuting at home as well at this point.

It's going to be real interesting to see what happens, with a lot at stake for how we watch films. It could impact theaters for the length of the virus -- and/or possibly change things for many years to come thereafter.

[Monterey Jack]

Movie studios should just buy out theater chains. They get to keep 100% of the ticket sale profits that way, and won't have to charge $10 for a small bag of popcorn. I've heard dire warnings about studios only showing their movies in chains they owned if this happened, but they'd not get enough business if they did. They could just charge half of the ticket sales to the other studio...which is what they've been doing for decades, with a slice of the sales going to the theater itself.

[Johnmgm]

My daughter and I braved Covid-19 to see The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the big(ish) screen. It was a blast and pretty darn safe, as we were the only ones in the theater.