Mikes Film Talk

The Watchers has, like many other films showing simultaneously at cinemas and streaming online, a high ceiling in terms of internet v movie theatre outlay. The prices charged would be laughable if they did not cause so much damage to one’s pocket.

It’s the Pandemic

Covid-19 with its world wide reach affecting millions (Note we say affecting and not killing.) Businesses died sad and ofttimes silent deaths. Such was the reach of this disease that almost all businesses were reined in. Hollywood still made pictures but they lived and breathed the new safety measures set out by the CDC.

One aspect of Covid-19 being in the driver’s seat was that films would be released online at the same time, or near as dammit, as a threatrical run.

The prices were horrific. (I wrote about this ‘new’ phenomenon just over two years ago. Click the link above to read it.)

A new way to stay in for the movies

Back in 2022, the live action version of Mulan was available on the Disney + channel. For the low price of $29.99, on top of your subscription fees, Mulan could be seen in the comfort of your own home.

I thought then, and still do, it was exorbitant to say the least. A few folks with more than my ‘one person’ family, explained that by the time you added the extras found at the cinema, popcorn, fizzy pop, et al. The 30 buck offer was cheap.

Still too expensive though

Coming back to The Watchers (I’ll bet you thought I’d forgotten Dakota Fanning and her costars.) I found that renting the film online is $20. *I will be rounding up. After all, what is a penny amongst friends.* Buying it is only $5 dearer.

However.

If I decide to attend the Malco or AMC cinema three towns over, it is only $10. (I get senior rates. But if you have not been alive long enough to get that discount, regular adult tickets are only $12. Children’s tickets are 9 and of course the smaller children (The ones who scream non-stop from the very start of the film.) get in free.

Altering the movie experience

So I started complaining about the extortionate pricing system, but, let’s look at what those big bucks are taking away from you. Sure there are some things no one misses at the cinema: mobile phones, the two old biddies talking non-stop next to you and of course those screaming babies.

But not watching the film in a cinema lacks so much in terms of peripheral experiences.

Example:

In a cinema at the Ipswich Suffolk, UK multiplex I witnessed an entire audience in the theatre rise up and cheer (Loudly, I might add.) at the end of the first new Star Trek. The very moment the late Leonard Nimoy, AKA Spock, starts the prologue of the franchise. People cheered and started pumping their fists up in the air.

Space, the final frontier…

Not a one off

Many years ago, or if you prefer, a lifetime ago, True Grit with John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn premiered in the old Ozark cinema near the courthouse in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

*True Grit was one of many excellent westerns made in 1969.*

For days, the queue to see the movie curled around the theatre and in front of the same courthouse. Inside the cinema, people were enraptured by the tale. At one point, towards the finale, Kim Darby’s Mattie Ross is in a pit surrounded by rattlesnakes.

Rooster goes to get her. Matty is hitting the poisonous creatures as they coil up and hiss. Suddenly one of the snakes strikes.

The entire theatre, including the balcony, screamed. I can still get goosebumps thinking about it.

You cannot get that kind of collective experience at home.

It’s Better than nothing

It is, however, better than nothing. I can, even at my advanced age, get totally caught in a film. I just begrudge paying $10 more than at the cinema. Sure I am spending less by not eating the snacks on offer. But I stopped doing that when I was reviewing films for a newspaper and working part-time for a Critic’s Society… You cannot take notes with butter smeared hands.

At least we can now watch movies at the cinema sans facemasks, social distancing and antiseptic hand washing. Thank goodness for small favours.

I may well end up going to the cinema to see The Watchers. After all, petrol is not that expensive for a short trip to the movies. Tell me what you think. Are the studios and the streaming services overcharging?

While you are thinking of an answer, check out the trailer for the Watchers below.