I’ve always loved the movies. I have a vague memory of my first time—seeing Mary Poppins with my parents when I was nine. But what’s really etched in my mind is sneaking off with my fellow sixth graders two years later to make out in the back row of the theater. The thrill of this was somewhat dampened by the theater manager leaning disapprovingly on his elbows on the divider behind us the entire time. Note to hormonal pre-pubescents: do not sit in the back row if passion is your intent. What is a theater manager? you ask. What is making out? Never mind. Forget I said anything.
As a fast learner, I henceforth sat in the middle of the theater. At least that’s where my now-husband and I were on our second date. The Marriage of Maria Braun was on the screen. Or maybe it was something else. The only thing I remember was how electrified I felt by the man sitting beside me, who possessed considerably more expertise than a sixth-grader.
Of course, most of the time I’ve gone to the movies, I’ve been riveted by the action on the screen, not by blossoming romance. Either way, I’ve loved sitting in the darkened theater. It’s one of the things I thought I’d miss most during the pandemic.
But I didn’t, really—not with so much great stuff streaming, and the special effects, blow-everything-up lunacy of so many blockbusters (written, ironically, for an audience of sixth grade boys) that’s increasingly taken over movie theaters.
It was the Oscars that lured me back. I like to see all of the best-picture nominees, and West Side Story wasn’t available via streaming. Besides, it’s kind of a big-screen movie. So my husband and I donned our masks and went.
Unfortunately, we got the time wrong, so instead we saw Belfast, which we had to see anyway for our movie group. It was torture—a solid half hour of idiotic commercials and worse previews. When Belfast finally came on, we were baffled by the strong Irish accents, and realized how much we missed the at-home feature of turning on subtitles. My husband slept through most of it, and I wished I had, too. It was certainly not worth risking Covid for.
Still, timing our arrival to miss the ads and previews, I dragged my husband back to see West Side Story. I’m glad I did. Except for the badly miscast Tony, who looked straight out of a prep school or Calvin Klein underwear billboard, I loved the music, the dancing, the costumes—and my ability to watch without subtitles. Most of all, I loved recapturing the magic of being in a real theater, something I feared I’d never experience again.
Would the thrill of the Oscars also be restored this year? As Donald Trump might have said, “Come to the Dolby Theater on March 27—it’s going to be wild!”
It was certainly a spectacle, and that’s not even counting the slap heard round the world. As we emerge from the pandemic, people still haven’t figured out how to dress. Socks, shirts, pants were missing. Most of the women seemed outfitted by BoobsRUs: I have never seen so many tiny shelf bra cups supporting bloated orbs suspended above a wide swath of skin plunging to the waistline. Perhaps it was an homage to Fellini’s Amarcord, most memorable for a young boy being smothered by a ginormous bosom.
The Oscars certainly reflected the tenor of the times. Was it OK for Regina Hall to be woman-handling a set of hunky best-actor nominees? Would the exuberant display of diversity be enough to erase years of #oscarssowhite, or fuel yet another right-wing backlash? Would Zelensky be beamed in from his bunker in Kyiv? Or would he have to settle for some lame placards and an odd pitch for cryptocurrency donations? Would real and virtual reality successfully merge with pre-recorded acceptance speeches clumsily intercut, and are technical glitches as reliable as death and taxes? Why did there appear to be an exuberant Rave happening as the “In Memoriam” reel ran in the background? Was it a commentary about Partying On while nearly one million Americans are dead from Covid?
Of course, the night of random-but-off energy—often funny, sometimes not–culminated in an out-of-line joke and the even more out-of-line Slap (complete with some weirdly misogynistic self-aggrandizing ruminations about love and protection). All in all, the evening was replete with the quintessential truths of these times: we’ve forgotten how to be with one another, everyone is quietly unraveling, and, as Joe Biden can attest, going off script overshadows everything.
It was a night to remember. Mostly, I’ll be in my pajamas, streaming. But I’ll be back.