Ok sure, yes, this is the same as the last newsletter, except it’s a movie instead of a meal. The short summary is: Eric and I went to see Minari in an actual movie theater. Huge step for 2021: I re-activated my AMC A-List membership.
The movie is excellent, definitely worth seeing, especially if you want to see a lot of parallels to my early life (we even had a very similar station wagon as the family in the film). And it was a nice second step back into the real world. I won’t craft a beautiful little anecdote around the whole experience the way I so masterfully and pretentiously did for Tuesday’s newsletter, but I wanted to make two big points:
As soon as you can do it safely, go see a film in the theater. After a year of lockdown binge viewing and streaming streaming streaming… a captive viewing experience, passive to the large image, unable to pause, cellphone usage frowned upon… it’s so much better for engaging with a narrative. And I actually think the opposite of what I’ve heard about watching movies at home; there’s a sentiment that you should save the moviehouse for big popcorn films like Avengers: Endgame and you can enjoy your little quasi-indie drama and comedy experiences at home. Hard disagree! Being in a theater might be the only thing that saves nuanced narrative for the next generation… the ability to proceed through the beats of a story without competing with Literally Everything Else means a movie like Minari can take its time from one moment to the next. We need movie theaters to save patient storytelling.
Eric and I have been both been exhausted the last few days. I think we’ll all need to re-develop our stamina for … being. Existing. Interacting with people, and things, and… the air. We went to a theme park for 3 hours and were wrecked. We had one meal out and had to take naps afterwards. We’ve lost our sea legs for living and we’ll need to build them back up gradually.
Also I remember someone telling me you shouldn’t use bullet lists unless you have at least three items, so this is the third.
Recommended: The comic book Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky. This is genuinely one of the oddest and most interesting books I’ve come across in a long time. It has a metacomedic tone that I don’t know if I’ve ever encountered before. Okay here’s the premise: a man and a woman discover that when they have an orgasm, they can stop time. Hilarities ensue? It’s so strange and wonderful… I’m about 10 issues from the end of the series (they only published 32 of them) and looking forward to the … finish.