Why I Stopped Watching Movies

This website, this blog, this personal space if you will, is where I retreat whenever I feel inspired. As my readers would know by now, I draw these inspirations from movies. A good movie usually keeps me thinking about it over several days. I try to reconstruct the most memorable scenes purely with my mind. I reflect on the messages or themes that were conveyed with objects, actions or dialogue. And if I get excited enough, my adventurous thoughts and feelings find their way onto this very page as sentences that others can understand. Unfortunately, these were exercises that I struggled to partake in the last eight months, a pattern that I’m attempting to understand as I wrote this post. In that time, almost 90% of my time was spent at home and looking back, I probably had more time to spare as well. Time that I could have used to watch more movies, for example. But I just never felt the motivation to do something as simple as sitting down and watching a good movie. To boil it down, my yearning to be inspired was nonexistent.

It’s not surprising that “online living” is the biggest culprit of all and its impact on my social interaction is worth commenting on. By nature, I am not an extrovert. I don’t actively seek out social interaction nor am I frequently the initiator of a conversation with a stranger. In some ways, watching movies is an introverted-friendly thing to do. It only takes one pair of eyes, you can do so at any time you prefer on any streaming platform, and normally we’d prefer each other to stay quiet during the show. Now to be clear, these are not reasons why I like movies but it is somewhat in my nature to be drawn towards such types of activities. So I grew quite fond of online living in the first few months, initially believing it was a mental haven for some alone time with awe-inspiring movies and to be lost in my thoughts. But as time went by, I couldn’t seem to translate social isolation into more opportunities for escapism.

I read the other day that going to movie theatres was the most missed activity by Canadians during the pandemic, and I cannot resonate with this sentiment more. Sometimes, I forget how immersive and valuable it is to experience a movie in a dark theatre with big sound and big screen. It is like entering a different dimension shaped by the dreams of a director, one that cannot be replicated at home with a measly laptop. Sure we can always torrent or stream the movie for free, but if I were offered come out of the auditorium with goosebumps, the experience is money well spent with no exceptions. For this reason, I believe home entertainment will never supersede cinema, provided that the industry keeps innovating and understanding audience preferences. The cinema is the best place to, as Cineplex puts it, “see the big picture”. The cinema will always be the perfect response to a permanent demand for escapism. Without it, I find it more challenging to feel inspired by movies. Imagine if Avengers: Endgame was released a year late.

Above all, however, this pandemic reminded me of the value behind the shared, social experience of watching a movie. For a long time, I have grossly overlooked this aspect while being too focused on the screen and not the people around me in the same rom. These people are not just my closest friends and family, but can also be strangers who I forge an intimate connection with by sharing a screen alone and without the need to say a single word. When we share a screen, we share a world together, which I find more meaningful than living it on my own in solitude. The communal ambience behind the synchronous chuckles and gasps amongst the audience harken to our nature as social animals, one that I will always identify with no matter how introverted or withdrawn my personality can be.

Arguably the most exciting part of the whole cinema experience occurs immediately after the movie finishes. It is a long-sought opportunity for a bathroom break, to mentally process everything I witnessed and start chitchatting with my friends about what the heck just happened in that dark room. Perhaps it is another way of saying that I really miss my friends. Beyond their physical presence, I miss their unique views and feelings towards a movie experience. I am blessed to have some of the smartest, most thoughtful, and diversely opinionated friends. When I leave the cinema with them, I am always intrigued and amazed by the similarities and differences between our thoughts on the movie. For example, a scene that resonated with me can feel even more exciting or meaningful when it did so for others as well. Or in other instances, someone may offer a different viewpoint or interpretation of the movie, in which a playful yet healthy debate would ensue. These fun conversations with friends primarily fuel my inspiration to speak these shared experiences into existence on this blog.

I spend much time organizing my thoughts onto this blog for utmost accuracy and impact. What I realize now is that giving a technical review about the movie itself was never my main goal. More aptly, my review is more of a diary entry, recounting a brief journey of escaping reality inside the cinema with a faithful crew of friends and family. I feel the need to engrave such a memorable experience onto something rather than leaving it to decay in my mind. While quality of the movie sets up the opportunity for inspiration, it is ultimately completed with the help of others. Inspiration is indeed best shared with many instead of keeping it to myself, which wouldn’t be different from caging myself inside a box. The question still remains how I intend to use this blog moving forward, as long as the pandemic rages on. Fortunately, this “self-diagnosis” was helpful in keeping my values grounded or reminding myself why I relied on this blog space for so long. One thing is for sure though, that when the world returns to some form of normality, the very first thing I will do is call up my friends and go watch a movie.