An (Unofficial) Official Report: Movie Theaters Are Back
Movie theaters have returned in full-ish force. Let's also rank Pixar films.
I’m not sure if you were paying attention, but last weekend was the Masters. For those who don’t know, the Masters is a golf tournament of some acclaim. As golf tournaments are wont to do, it features a lot of golf. What it doesn’t feature (and this is truly unfortunate) is a methodical and intricate story about 19th-century Macedonian shape-shifting witches.
So … after a long workday that concluded around 8 pm, in which I did some live-blogging and newslettering and podcast editing and probably more verbs that end with -ing, I made my way to the 10 pm showing of You Won’t Be Alone at the Angelika downtown and purchased some Buncha Crunch, because of course.
A few minutes before the film started, a whole host of patrons showed up. I expected it to be just me and maybe one or two other randoms, but instead we were in the double digits! For a gruesome Macedonian horror movie! At 10 pm at night!
Yes, this is a polling selection bias, but I’m happy to announce that movie theaters are back. When I saw Everything Everywhere All at Once in IMAX, it was sold out. I have a friend in Chicago (Ben) who said he had a pretty packed showing of that movie as well. The Lost City? Pretty crowded. The Batman? Full. Morbius? I didn’t see Morbius, so I don’t know. We all have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.
There have been plenty of pieces announcing the death of the movie theater, but it does seem like there’s been a small uptick. Watching stuff at home is nice, but you know what’s also nice? Not spending every waking second in your house and/or apartment.
Independent theaters—at least in New York City—are returning with aplomb. There are Studio Ghibli retrospectives and Robert Eggers late-night showings and Morbius as far as the eye can see.
The Northman—a historical epic that starts with a Viking bar-mitzvah—is dancing the hora into theaters soon. And we also have a Nicolas Cage action-comedy starring Nicolas Cage as Nicolas Cage. There’s even an Alex Garland horror movie dropping soon called Men. Terrifying…
What I’m trying to say is that theaters are back, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Morbius Season.
A Dumb Thing To Do: I Rank The Pixar Movies
Spoiler Warnings: I write about the endings of Finding Nemo and Marley & Me in here. Also, Coco. Please do not read if you don’t want to know the finales to these movies that you should’ve seen a long time ago.
The other night, while hanging out with friends, I got an alert from Letterboxd. Now, usually, when I’m with chums, I try my best to zone in and pay attention, but I got thrown off by a recent like for one of my reviews and ended up on the movie app for a second or two. In those brief moments, I saw something that truly terrified me. No, it wasn’t my inane reliance on technology in moments that don’t necessitate it. Instead, it was a middling three-star review for Finding Nemo.
It also just so happened that the culprit happened to be sitting right next to me on the couch. I would never go so far as to out this person—it was Molly—but this individual, whoever they are (again, it was Molly), went on to say that she found Finding Nemo to be a tough watch as it was too sad. She then went on to discuss her favorite movie, Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor, and give the take that Marley & Me is a better time than Finding Nemo because the former only has two sad scenes and the latter has quite a few. Now, we don’t have the time to discuss all of that, but what we do have the time for is to rank the Pixar movies. Why? Because this is my newsletter. That’s why.
Oh, also, I haven’t seen Inside Out, Brave, Cars 3 or The Good Dinosaur.
Sorry. I’ll be doing this in groups, because we’re already 700 words in, and this was supposed to be a shorter Aerial Shot week. It goes in the right order too, so the closer it is to the bottom of the list (vertically speaking), the better it is.
21-18. These are all bad movies. They have little-to-no redeeming qualities. Next!
Cars 2
Monsters University
Onward
Finding Dory
Just 17. I appreciate the attempt, but this movie doesn’t work at all. It falls flat, despite the lofty goals. Sorry.
Soul
16-14. Darn good movies. Not masterpieces, but some of the better films from their respective years and wouldn’t be against a rewatch.
Toy Story 4
Cars
Incredibles 2
And now we have 13. It’s too soon to really rank this one, but very good on the first watch. Sweet, great animation and a bit more risque and boundary-breaking by Pixar standards.
Turning Red
12-9. Very, very good. Almost great. You should watch Luca if you haven’t already.
Toy Story 3
A Bug’s Life
Luca
Toy Story 2
8-6. Stone-cold classics. If one of these is your favorite, I’ll allow it.
WALL-E
Finding Nemo
Toy Story
5-3. God, remember the end of Coco when the grandma starts singing along with Miguel. Fucking brutal. That one hits hard.
Coco
The Incredibles
Monsters Inc.
2 & 1. Movies about rats that can cook and a house that can fly. My personal favorites of the catalog. Up gets the slight nod because the opening sequence may be the best thing Pixar’s ever done.
Ratatouille
Up
