Well in what seems like the blink of my eyelids we are now halfway through 2021 already and it has certainly brought some terrifying lows, dizzying highs and creamy middles for sure from the rollout of a pandemic vaccine to the pandemic itself reminding us that like the Terminator it will keep coming back when it wants to for that’s WHAT IT DOES.
THAT’S ALL IT DOES.
Sorry I got a bit carried away there for a moment but that scene from the first Terminator has been on my mind lately.
But this year in movies and well we’ve actually had a movie year so far, from having to really stride across the bones of one last year when the pandemic shut down cinemas and delayed many films across the world to cinemas now being reopen albeit with some restrictions on capacity and tracing infrastructure in place so patrons can be tracked down in case cases are in sessions which sadly has happened here in Australia and many of the big films now having pencilled in release dates such as Dune and No Time to Die.
And for me personally it has felt great, prior to the pandemic I began to think about how many movies I was going to per month and I calculated that on average I was watching 4 to 7 movies a month mostly in cinemas but some also on various streaming services and last year I really missed that, I missed being in my own version of the Great Link which was the home of the Founders in Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
With the Star Trek Deep Space Nine Great Link it was where the Founders (the name of the Changelings) shared their thoughts and memories with each other, the experiences of one would be shared with all in the Link and for me going to the cinema to watch a movie felt like my Great Link where one person sitting in the cinema and having that experience of watching a movie in there was shared by all in that auditorium you were there with that time.
Also I had really begun to think of the cinema and the cinema experience as this strange synthesis of my Church of my Therapy, it sounds silly I know but I will elaborate, it is my church because it is where I go to every week more or less to take in that experience and sit in that space and smell the popcorn, see the posters on the walls advertising coming releases, talk to some of the staff some of who have become friends who I miss when I don’t get to see them over long periods of time and watch the trailers in front of a particular movie I’ve gone to see.
And its also my therapy because it feels very therapeutic for me to sit there in the cinema watching a movie, I feel better about myself and the world around me after I’ve had that experience of cinema going that day, I know this all sounds silly and sometimes even I struggle to make complete sense of it but it’s an inherent feeling I’ve had in the last while and I’m just going to go with it because it’s an emotional feeling not an analytical one.
As for this year movie wise well it’s been refreshing to frankly have one for I didn’t really have one last year as I was more or less shut down from it for most of it and to have a list of favorites, Turkeys and disappointments begin to come together back in March felt like Nature was healing as the kids like to say nowadays and I found myself mainly wanting some fun action adventure excitement to escape into the cinema with and I have a feeling one of those will probably be my favorite film of 2021.
But that is still to be determined and this is mainly about my feelings on the year so far and really how it feels to be back in a cinema enjoying a somewhat normal movie year hopefully that will continue for the rest of this year and beyond because I bloody well missed it and felt like a Solid streaming new movies at home and still do for as good as that is it just isn’t the same as going to the cinema for new releases.
