New York's Hottest Club Is $5 Movie Tuesdays
On casual movie going and my recent film favorites.
The suburbs change you in strange ways. I was so fatally bored here while I spent a few months applying for jobs that I became the reason local movie theaters are still in business (probably).
And with my recent visits come revelations: I declare it high time to bring movie-theater-going, even if the movie in question is mid, back. The TikTok brain worms deep within me desperately want to write: “Hot girls go to the movie theater! With their tinned fish and their IBS! Hot girls shit and cry and throw up while they watch ‘Armageddon Time’ and ‘Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile!’”
The premise is simple: find a close friend who is willing to watch a lot of ok movies with you week after week—this is the hardest part—then make a ritual out of choosing a new movie. Some weeks will delight you and others will have you walking out of the theater in agreement with your viewing partner that the movie in question was a dumpster fire of a disappointment (I’m looking at you, “Amsterdam”). But that’s all part of the fun.
Most commercial theaters have discounts on Tuesdays, like AMC or Cinemark, so you’re only spending $5-7 on a ticket plus whatever you spend on concessions. But the real $5 Tuesday veterans bring snacks in their tote bags. My movie snack of choice is a Cherry Vanilla Olipop paired with some kettle chips from an embarrassingly loud bag that will crinkle and crunch while you shove your hand in it as the movie plays. I am nothing if not a self aware public nuisance.
As a majority of our movie viewing over the past few years has taken place on streaming platforms, we’re losing the simple pleasure of theater going and the conspicuous consumption of cinema. When I watch movies on HBO or Netflix I am much more inclined to check my phone as the movie plays. In a theater, not so much. When I watched “American Psycho” on my malfunctioning laptop as I sat wrapped up in a blanket on my bed, I almost immediately forgot the details of the plot once the movie ended. When watching becomes both a communal act and a weekly event, we pay more attention, we debrief as the credits roll, we further appreciate the experience.
Around 85% of U.S. households subscribe to at least one streaming platform, according to a recent digital media trend study done by Deloitte. As these platforms raise their subscription prices or pump more advertisements in between episodes, justifying an additional weekly media cost seems economically unreasonable. Streaming has given us full access to various forms of art at a fixed price—$12 a month for HBO’s catalogue, $10 a month for more music than you will ever have time to listen to on Spotify. Simultaneously, our willingness to appropriately match the time and energy that it takes to produce art to the cost of it is at an all time low. This is all to say that most people won’t go to a theater to watch a movie if they can stream it at a later date. And if that movie isn’t vetted by critics or the general public as something 100% worthy? Please.
Audiences will pay for a ticket if they know the movie is going to be some groundbreaking cultural event (“Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Black Panther” comes to mind). But what happens to all the mid-tier movies? Where do they go? They slowly disappear and theaters are left with Marvel movies (funded by the military), Top Gun (funded by the military), and some Oscar-buzzy biopic intent on humanizing another problematic 20th century musician. Art shouldn’t be a groundbreaking feat for us to justify the cost of its creation and consumption, that’s all. We should justify it because it’s fun or thought-provoking or ugly or misconstrued or dreadful or, at the very least, something to do.
You shouldn’t attend $5 Tuesdays to save middling movies, that’s not the point of this writing. You should attend them because Tuesday is a disappointing day of the week, we’re heading into awards season and this is a lovely time of the year to watch some Oscar contenders, and meeting up with a friend regularly to discuss something other than your personal lives or the news is refreshing. It’s also cheaper than getting drinks or dipping pita into a shareable shallow bowl of labneh at some trendy restaurant, which is all that you end up doing with your friends and close acquaintances post-graduation, it appears.
Lastly, here is a one-sentence review of every movie I’ve seen throughout my $5 Tuesday journey and a few movies I’m excited to see this month:
“Bodies Bodies Bodies:” Fun for most Gen Z viewers and some Gen Z-curious Millennials, but not so fun for that one NYT film critic.
“Don’t Worry Darling:” Wasn’t worried in the slightest.
“Amsterdam:” Confusing and unnecessary.
“Ticket to Paradise:” Divorced couple tries to stop their colonizing and irritating daughter, but love colonizes all.
“Triangle of Sadness:” Kind of like “Snakes on a Plane” but with a luxury yacht, less snakes, and more bodily fluids. (Note: I have never seen “Snakes on a Plane.”)
Some movies I’m looking forward to seeing:
“The Fabelmans”
“Bones and All”
“Armageddon Time”
“The Menu”
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”
…
Thank you for reading! I’m working on a longer piece that I hope I can write up shortly. Check your inbox in the coming weeks for it :) In the meantime, get some rest and read a book.
Love your writing Nina!
🥰❤️