The great & powerful lure of the movie theater

I had not been to a movie theater for more than four years Nov. 29 when I went to a preview showing of Godzilla Minus One. The last time I saw a film on the big screen, it had been Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker. In the last two months, I’ve now sat inside a movie theater seven times, including twice this past Sunday afternoon.

I missed the experience and loved being there all seven times. It’s easy for me to sink into a story watching TV or reading a book or listening, but the nature of a theater makes the immersion that much easier.

Godzilla Minus One moved me so much, and it’s so built for that immersive experience — you need a big screen to show a 200-foot-tall monster, right? — that I went back three times for another ride on the emotional roller coaster. Then Toho pulled out a black-and-white version of the same movie — with a statement by director Takashi Yamizaki that it was a painstaking reprocessing of the images, not a gimmick — so I went for a fifth time.

Mostly it felt like a trip back home to the days when we didn’t have a color TV so everything we saw was in black and white — an interesting experiment, but sorry, kind of a gimmick. The good news is the story is worth watching five times, so I still had a great time.

The theater’s schedule was nicely aligned for me to see Godzilla Minus One Minus Color right after an 85^th anniversary showing of my all-time favorite, The Wizard of Oz. (Today is the last day your local theater might be showing Oz, by the way. Check the listings, it’s worth reimagining your Wednesday for.)

Even after all the time that has passed since 1939, The Wizard of Oz is a perfect movie. The actors’ performances, the songs and music, the settings, the special effects, the writing, the pacing, the humor, the pathos — all perfect.

The year 1939 delivered an astonishing number of timeless films — I daresay you could go at least a month watching a different movie from 1939 each night and be wildly entertained every night. Of all those great and timeless movies, none shines brighter than The Wizard of Oz, and on the big screen in a darkened theater, it shines brightest of all.

My seventh movie theater visit was to see The Marvels — a movie set in outer space almost demands to be seen on a big screen — and as I suspected, it is a much better film than one might expect given how much it underperformed at the box office. I think people are just tired of superhero movies at the moment. (Frankly, Avengers: Endgame was such an epic experience that everything that followed has paled in comparison.)

I think I’ll probably cool it for a while — for one thing, the price of tickets and snacks anymore is such that seven trips to the movies cost north of 150 bucks, I’m guessing — but I’m not going to let four years slip by before I go back, ever again. What was I thinking?

1 a.m. reflections

Not enough sleep night before last, so I went to bed early and woke up here, in the middle of the night. And what thinks have I been thinking …

If I don’t pray out loud, can God hear? If ghosts exist, do they see and hear us? Can they tap our thoughts, so that if I “think” a thank you to a dearly departed, will they know what I thought?

There’s so much that we don’t know about life outside these fleshy vessels. It seems inconceivable that this sentience just stops when the body dies — hence the concept of reincarnation. We must go somewhere when the incarnate self dies, right? We go to heaven, or we hop into a newly gestating being and start the journey all over again?

Does it matter? Does the idea that we — whatever it is that defines who we are — will continue to exist after this life make us behave any differently than if we die when we die? The idea of an afterlife is a reassuring concept — we’re gone from this existence, but we’re somewhere else, “a better place” hopefully. There’s also something reassuring about the concept of eternal rest: Go back to being a confused and naive 15-year-old again, knowing but not knowing anything about how this life works, starting over from scratch? No thanks, right?

It matters, but what matters most is that we make the best life we can out of this one, the one we’re passing through right this moment. Just as we have no control over our past actions, and we can’t know the future — all we have is today, and yesterday and tomorrow are abstract concepts — we don’t know where we were before we were conceived and born, and we don’t know where our soul goes when our body dies. It’s the great mystery, and it’s why we build faith in a next life.

Whatever comes next — whether we go to our great reward, or our punishment, or cease to exist altogether, or journey into another body, or change form like a caterpillar into a butterfly — it seems to me that we owe it to ourselves and to each other to be kind and not waste the chance to make the best of each moment, “to seek out new life and new civilizations” as we boldly go into each new day.

I don’t know how to conclude this thought. Maybe it will take you in a direction I can’t imagine as I write this down, and you can tell me where I’m going with this.

And isn’t it miraculous that we have this thing called language, where these symbols on the screen or the page represent words you can hear in your head as if I had spoken them? Isn’t it amazing that this — LOVE — means something completely different from this — AARDVARK — and we have this way to try to convey concepts and understanding across the miles and years, so there’s a way to touch souls and help each other out and know we’re not alone?

Such mysterious thoughts in the middle of night when I’m awake when I usually would be sleeping. Where do we go when we sleep? Where do we go when we die? Where were we before? What was I doing in 1573? What will I be up to in 2171? What are my sleeping dogs doing wherever their souls are as they lie next to me? What are they thinking and what do they want when they’re awake?

We can never fully know the answers, though we long for a time when we do. May every day be an adventure in discovery, however.

A splendid time is guaranteed

Ladies and gentlemen and assorted others, welcome to the show and congratulations for your excellent taste in entertainment! Today for your pleasure, we have a special selection of Chicken Littles with various variations on the theme of “It’s the end of the world as we know it!” I will leave it to your own determination as to whether they feel this is a good thing or not.

A roving musician is here to share her latest song, a little ditty about two young lovers and their adventures exploring life together. We’ll have a performance by Bonzo the Magic Dog, and a man in a cape who can bark “Jingle Bells.”

As always, a splendid time is guaranteed for all. So may I introduce to you an act you’ve known for all these years —

“Excuse me,” came a timid voice from the front row, interrupting the master of ceremonies, who stopped with a lurch.

Um, how may I help you?

“If it’s an act we’ve known for all these years, why do you need to introduce it?”

It’s a custom. It’s even in the song — “So may I introduce to you/An act you’ve known for all these years,” You see?

“Why not say, ‘May I introduce to you an act that needs no introduction’?”

Because it doesn’t rhyme! Nothing rhymes with introduction.

“Suction — gumption — numb chin — it’s not impossible.”

Look kid, do you want to see the show?

“Of course! I was just asking.”

Right. Well. On with the show, this is it!

And the crowd’s roar filled the room, the awkward beginning was soon forgotten, and later, many a patron was heard to say as we turned out the lights, “I had a splendid time. Wasn’t that just splendid?”

“Ahem.” Here now was a now-familiar timid voice in the front row.

Something I can help you with?

“Yes, well, I had a splendid time and all, but what was the point of it all?

POINT? You need it to have a point?

“Nobody likes to invest their time in something if it’s going to be pointless.”

Ah, you poor, misguided young person, you have obviously never voted in an election or scrolled through social media. People invest their time pointlessly all the time.

“So that’s the point?”

Well, it might be. It’s not really for me to say.

“This has been kind of a long way around to get to the point.”

It happens that way sometimes.

“But this was just silly.”

I suppose. But we need a little silliness sometimes, don’t we? Look, kid, did you have a splendid time or not?

“Well, yes, I already said it was very splendid.”

OK, then. That was the whole point.

“Splendid!”