The Projector #10: More Newsletters About Movies and Food (Patreon)

We’re still in the doldrums of the movie season, though that’s about to change. Scott and Tasha (along with virtually every other film critic in the world) are off in Toronto seeing what sounds like one great film after another. But for the rest of us, all that lies ahead. So let’s pick up the conversation about movie food we started last week. Based on the comments from last week’s newsletter, whether or not dinner belongs at the movies—as opposed to before or after a movie—remains an unsettled question. There are traditionalists who hold that “movie theaters achieved their Platonic ideal sometime in the mid-’90s with the advent of stadium seating” and those who welcome the addition of food options because in movie theaters “your gluttony is shrouded in darkness.”

Fair enough. My suspicion is that we’ll be seeing even greater experimentation when it comes to food at the movies as theaters try to find new ways to draw in moviegoers and make more money off them once they’ve got them. But, thinking beyond food, is there another innovation as likely to be as universally well-received as stadium seating? 3-D was supposed to be it, but that’s had its limitations (which is another subject matter entirely). I’ve never had a chance to check out a 4DX screening, but it sounds like kind of a nightmare. The closest I’ve experienced has been the deluxe Dolby-branded house at Chicago’s River East 21, which I’ve liked, apart from my first time there, a screening of Blade Runner 2049 that felt like it pumped the soundtrack’s back end directly into my cerebral cortex.

I guess the underlying question is this: How important are the extras? Good sight and sound are, of course, essential, but at what point does a moviegoing experience become too much like a theme park? Let’s just leave that there and see what you have to say in the comments.

On a much more serious note, I know I speak for everyone involved in The Next Picture Show in mourning the loss of our colleague Andrea Gronvall, a longtime Chicago-based film critic (for the Chicago Reader, Movie City News, and other outlets) and former Siskel & Ebert producer, who died last week. Anyone who read Andrea knew her as an insightful and observant writer but she was also one of the most open-hearted people you could ever meet, someone who’d want to know what you thought about the movies you’ve been seeing and remember to ask about your family. It’s hard to imagine screenings, or movies in Chicago, without her.

Finally, stuff to read:

For a sample of Andrea’s writing, here’s a recent, long review of Christian Petzold’s Transit for the Chicago Reader.

The BFI recently published an oral history of Crash. (David Cronenberg Crash, not the bad one.)

What’s TV without Walton Goggins? Well, it’s not as good as TV with Walton Goggins, Brian Grubb argues at Uproxx.

For Vulture, Keith Phipps talked to the behind-the-scenes talent of Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.

At The Verge, our pal Noel Murray looks at the first season of Blumhouse’s horror series Into the Dark.

And, at The A.V. Club, A.A. Dowd revisits It through the lens of his own personal history.