To Better Days and My Return to the Movies After COVID-19

Every day, amid the threat of the virus, I find ways to stay positive and think of the future. That's not easy for those of us with pre-existing lung conditions. I have asthma and I live with the specter of COVID-19 and the damage it does to the ability to breathe. It's terrifying, I have been on a ventilator and I know the horror of not catching your breath.

And yet, I dream.

My dream of better days begins with me picking up my phone and scrolling to the schedule of my local movie theater. It's a Thursday and I have my choice of new, wide release, Hollywood fare, featuring some of the biggest stars in Hollywood. I have my choice of space adventures, romantic comedies or skin-crawling horror thrillers.

Then, I open my contacts on my phone and set about making invitations. I have several life-long friends who, throughout COVID-19, I have been kept from for their safety and for mine. But not today, not on this future Thursday where the virus is no longer lingering like the cloaked figure from a Bergman movie, or Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, depending on your movie version of the figure of 'Death.'

More than likely, I will be joined by my friend Sarah, my frequent movie going companion. Sarah always jokes that we never agree on movies but our tastes tend to coalesce more than she will admit. I will pick up Sarah by 6 Pm because we need to go to Chili's. I know, I know, that's not exactly everyone's idea of fine dining but, Chili's is directly across the street from our movie theater and it beats the hour long wait to get into the Texas Roadhouse.

Feel free to mock Sarah and I's choice for chain restaurants, but Chili's happens to be special to us. We went there the first time we went to the movies together and we had an absolute blast. We discovered a shared love for Chili's incredible Margarita Grilled Chicken and Sarah found that a pre-movie Margarita is often necessary when you're about to suffer the latest movie attempting to clone the success of The Conjuring movies.

It may be strange and it may not appeal to everyone, but I dream of that first bite of chain restaurant food. I dream of the hour Sarah and I will spend laughing at the utter nonsense of our lives and the fact that we've known each other for more than 30 years but only became friends in the last decade. That's just how life works sometimes.

As I was saying, dinner lasts about an hour or more, depending on if we forget the time. And then it’s across the street to our favorite, and really, only, local movie theater. It’s a big, gaudy, chain theater, not the beloved small town two-screener, but we love it still. Because of my role in life as a professional film critic, I have become friends with every manager at the theater. These are people I may only see once or twice a week and sometimes they come and go but many I will know the rest of my life.

I miss these people more than any movie and seeing them again is a great big part of this dream of better days. As frazzled and haggard as they often are by life as a movie theater manager, they love movies as much as I do, but more than that, they love conversations about movies, something that I also excel at. My friends at the theater never make me wait in line or pay for a ticket, in part because of my professional credentials, but also because we are kindred, we are friends.

Inside the theater, my dream of a better day after COVID-19 comes together as I take a seat next to Sarah and we begin the ritual of assessing film trailers. Sarah is a true connoisseur of film trailers and I know a good one when she’s quiet throughout and only turns to me at the end to say ‘you're bringing me to see that.’ Indeed, I likely will be bringing her to see that, these are rarely idle words in our friendship.

Whether the movie is good or bad will be irrelevant in the moment. I’m a critic and I will assess the movie in writing,weighing the technical and emotional elements, but in the moment, on this better day, I will be transfixed and I will be at peace. Especially on this day, this first day, this dream of a better day, the first movie I see after dinner with Sarah and joking with my theater friends, will undoubtedly be a great experience. Even a Gerard Butler or Adam Sandler movie would likely be met happily on this first day back at the movies.

That’s my dream of a better day.