Saving GenX Movie Theater Moments
Kristin Nilsen 0:00
Hi everybody. Welcome to an impromptu PCPs light episode that we are throwing in here while we're working on an epic two part episode about one of our favorite icons from the 1970s we need to give Carolyn just a little extra time to get this one right. I don't know if you have noticed, but we do not mess around with quality. So because we're often like paying tribute to people that were really important to us, people and projects and movies and music or whatever that were that were really meaningful to us when we were growing up. And so it's important to us to give things enough time and attention and make sure we're communicating it to you, the audience, in the proper spirit. And so we are here today with an off the cuff conversation that is unplanned, unresearched and will be mostly unedited. To do none
Michelle Newman 0:46
of those things she just said, none of those things.
Kristin Nilsen 0:48
To not be careful at all if we say any tribute, please remember, we are human beings. We have issues like just like everybody else. So if we say something dumb. Don't Google it. Okay, so, right, I recently sent an article to Carolyn and Michelle that hit me really hard, because I am a big movie goer. And by movie goer, I mean I go to the movies in the theater. Oftentimes I go by myself, because it's not as easy to get somebody to go to the movies with me, as it once was, have you guys? This is one of my questions for you. Okay, have you guys seen your movie? Going habits change. How have they changed recently? Where have you guys landed? How do you mostly watch movies?
Michelle Newman 1:36
I'm ashamed to say I mostly watch movies on my own couch. And I would say that in the past, well, I'll just go since we moved to Denver. So I'll say two and a half years ago we moved to Denver, and I bet in those two and a half years we've gone to the movies three times. Okay? And I don't like that. I mean together, actually, you know what? I just went a few weeks ago to see the pretty and pink 40th, you know, celebration, 40th anniversary in the theater. And I got those tickets. I went with a few of my neighborhood girlfriends, and I got the tickets like, way ahead of time, because I thought, Oh, this is gonna be packed, you guys. We were the only ones in the theater except for two other people, what I know, and this was, like, the, this is 40th, this is what we'll be talking about. This was an emergency situation, yeah, yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 2:31
Well, again, it has to do with their advertising and their marketing. I mean, you know, think about the ways we knew about what was upcoming in a movie theater was lots of times by the coming attractions. And we'll talk about some of that stuff later, things that we're missing out of by not going to the theater. But I can, Michelle, you said two and a half years and you've gone three times. I think I've gone with, like, probably the last time was with Kristen or something. I don't even know, the last time I went to a movie with my
Michelle Newman 3:00
actual spouse. Are you there? Goddess me, Margaret. And that was,
Kristin Nilsen 3:04
like, years ago. That was April 2024
Carolyn Cochrane 3:07
Yeah, that is, that is probably it. And that was a very fun experience too. You know, you do have to plan that kind of stuff, so it's a little extra effort to actually get to the theater, but it's like anything else. Once you're there, you're so grateful you made the effort.
Kristin Nilsen 3:22
So this is exactly what this article is about. Yeah, is. So this was an opinion essay that was in the New York Times written by the CEO of Sony Pictures. His name is Tom Rothman, and it's called, why I love the movies and how to save them, because we can't have movies. This is what we're finding in this era, is that you can't really have movies in a movie industry without movie theaters. They're trying, but they're finding that it's very difficult. So I'm just going to give you a quick overview of this of this article. So obviously, since the pandemic, the movie industry has been struggling to find its way, and what they're how it even works. How do you make movies and where do you put them in? Who watches them and why? And the pandemic is, the pandemic is only one of the stressors. The other, of course, is the new media landscape of streaming. So the result has been that movie theaters no longer play a big role in American life the way that they once did. And if we're not careful, he says, We will lose the movie theater industry entirely, which, to me, would be crushing. And to this guy too, this is his whole point. But he does see a solution, and that involves something called the window. Okay, here's where we get nerdy, and here's what we're going to be talking about. The window is the period of time between when a movie is released in theaters, when it's available to rent or buy, and when it's available for free. And in the old days, that looks like in the theater, available at your video store and then airing on TV, today, that looks like in the theater rent on a streaming store. Service for free on a streaming service. So do you guys remember, go back in time. Do you remember what those windows were like when you were growing up? Forever?
Carolyn Cochrane 5:11
I mean forever just like, yeah, for
Michelle Newman 5:15
it to come on VHS, yeah.
Kristin Nilsen 5:18
It'll be a year, two years until it came out on VHS,
Carolyn Cochrane 5:22
and it would be at the movie theater for a good chunk of time. I mean, I guess, unless it was, you know, a real loser
Michelle Newman 5:31
from my cinema class in college, if a movie had legs, that's what you're talking about. Like, if a movie had legs, it meant that, like it stayed there. And I remember they used the example of pretty woman, tells you when I was in college, but it was like that movie had legs. That meant it kept making money. It kept making money, so they just kept it in the theaters. Well, that push, that makes that window even longer, right? Yeah, that window is bigger because if it's in the theaters for five, six months, you know, it's not gonna be available on
Kristin Nilsen 6:04
VHS for right? Why would they change course when they're making money? I mean, I remember going to the drive in to see, I think it was Saturday Night Fever or something like that. And it was, and I'm going by where I lived, you know, because I lived in certain places during certain years, and if Saturday night, Saturday Night Fever came out when I lived in this place, that means if I saw it in this place, it was in the theater for like one or two years. I mean that I realized that drive ins are like second run, but that's legit. You could have something that was so huge that you could still be seeing it in the theater a year
Michelle Newman 6:37
later, and you would have those second rate theater, yeah, just called it, whatever theater, yeah, because we had some. And in fact, I feel like there was one in Excelsior and there was, yeah, anyway, it was one, yeah, you'd be like, shoot. It's not in the theater anymore. Oh, I know where we can go see it, because you knew you still had to wait. And so if I missed it in the theater. Even as a kid, I knew where the other theaters were bumped
Kristin Nilsen 7:04
down, yeah, we would call it the cheap theater.
Carolyn Cochrane 7:09
We had $1 theater, I think it was
Kristin Nilsen 7:10
called the dollar theater, yeah, Hopkins, the dollar theater. So, pre pandemic, so when we were kids, it was very, very long, and you might have to wait two years for it to come on on TV. I remember I had a kid in my fourth grade class, and he had not seen Star Wars. And I was like, Dude, what is wrong with you? How have you not seen Star Wars? And he said, My mom says, I have to wait till it comes on TV. And I remember, I'm 10 years old, and I was like, Honey, this movie is not going to be on TV. Get another mom big it's not coming to TV. You won't you'll be 19 years old when you see it on TV. So pre pandemic, that window was generally 75 days before the pandemic, you had you had a theater. You had a movie in the theater for 75 days before it went to today's version of rent or buy, which was still streaming, right? We still had streaming in 2019 so that's, that's two and a half months, right? Yeah, two and a half months something would be in the theater right now, according to this guy who wrote this article, the window is, what is killing movie theaters, because the window is 17 days. That's what the window is. Imagine, why?
Michelle Newman 8:30
Yeah, even bother? Why? Yeah? Why even why get out of your pajamas?
Kristin Nilsen 8:35
Yes, exactly. You can watch it for free in your own home if you wait two and a half weeks. And that was something that we were kind of trained to do in the pandemic. We were trained to watch movies at home in the pandemic, maybe you even want, I mean, with a 17 day window, you might even want to see it in the theater, but you can't get your act together in two and a half weeks to go see it. There are only two weekends that's two weekends that makes no sense. So he says, most people no longer have a habit of going to the movies like we did when we were kids. I mean, maybe your habit was going to see a movie once a summer, but still, that was part of your habit. Some people might go to see a particular movie, but only if it has generated enough cultural urgency, like everyone is seeing it and you don't want to miss out. There are a bunch of other reasons too, that people brought up in the comments of this article, which we're going to talk about in a minute. But more importantly, he is making a case to save the movie theater experience, because it is important to our culture. So let's, let's be honest, like no matter how comfy you are on your couch in your yoga pants, watching a movie at home is just not the same, right?
Michelle Newman 9:50
It's not at all. And I think that's one of the things that I took away from the article, but, and it's not like, you know, a new idea we've talked about it on here. I. Know, many times. But for me, yes, is it a movie I want to see? Like, why? Why is it? Why do I miss going to the movies? And why did I love going to the movies? And I loved going to the movies. I loved going to the movies. I mean, my friends almost every weekend, yeah. But it's not just the movie for me. It is. It's the whole process and experience of it. And it fires like every single one of my senses. So it's, it's from pulling up and seeing the big, you know, whatever movie theater you're going to. It could be a small marquee, if it's a cute little one, you know, in a small town, it could be the giant one with all the the boards, you know, the white boards with the black I don't have the time
Carolyn Cochrane 10:43
underneath it. You don't even have the times of the showings. It's as
Michelle Newman 10:46
soon as you walk in, getting hit in the face with the smell of movie popcorn in the
Kristin Nilsen 10:52
sound too, yes, and it's
Michelle Newman 10:55
almost sometimes, it's almost too much, but it's in the most delicious way. And for me, regardless of what movie I was seeing, I wanted to look at every not just movie poster, but the stand ups, you know, the big cardboard cutouts. And the it's that it's the people in line that are also waiting for their popcorn or their ticket, or as you go and you hand your ticket to the, you know, to the guy, as you go through, it's that, it's that, you know, down the hall and, you know, the second theater, right? It's, it's the whole process. And you know, for me, like carpeted hallway that you walk down is very roller skating ring. To me, yeah. Do you remember when you would be, like, skating on carpet, like to go to the bathroom or something. I feel like that's the same carpet that's in the movie theaters, because that's what it is to me, too. So it's and then walking by the ones, and you're like, Oh, I wonder who's going in to see that movie that looked bad. Or, Oh, look, there's all the kids going in to see that one. Like, you walk past all the other doors and you see what's what's showing in them. It's all of that, and it
Kristin Nilsen 12:02
feels like everybody's having a night out.
Michelle Newman 12:05
Yeah, it totally does. And it's so communal. And it's like, I'm gonna talk later about, I'm not even talking about the communal experience you have with the other people that watch the same movie as you. I'm just talking about, yeah, the experience of everybody going to the theater. And so I wonder, well, then why don't I go? Why have I only gone three times in two and a half years? And I'll tell you the number one reason we have two great movie theaters within less than 10 minutes of us, the number one reason is, I don't There's nothing I want to see. They're not making movies I want to see. And Kristen, what I love about you is you sometimes just take a chance on a movie. I do. You're like, I want to go to the movies. I actually on the Oscars. The other night, there was an ad for a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer. And, oh, yeah, that's on Netflix right now. Yeah. So I say, so that, well, yes. So they show the whole, you know, it was like a movie trailer, basically. And before that was over, I looked at, I looked at Brian, and I said, Oh, we're going to the theaters to see this one. And then at the end, it's like, coming to Paramount plus, or whatever, yes, or whatever it is. And I was like, mother, like, so then they make one I want to see directly to streaming. And Brian goes, Well, it's because all those streaming services are basically, like, they're, they're studios now basically making movies, yeah? So I just haven't had one I wanted to see, well, wicked twice, like in
Carolyn Cochrane 13:26
theater, because I want well, and I, I think that he mentions it in the article. But you know, so many of the now theater movies are these franchise, you know, Marvel Universe, or these huge sequel, epic, yeah, movies where we're really missing out, like, I think about the Kramer versus Kramer's of the world, they're not getting theater time. And it's just it makes me really sad. Like, those movies that make you kind of sit and think and feel, I mean, what do you feel if you're going to see, I don't know, one of those, Captain America
Kristin Nilsen 14:01
you're just like, driven. It's all plot driven. It's not and this is, this is the vicious cycle. If people aren't going to the theater, then they have to make movies that only big crowds will go to. That has been something that has been proven to get people in the seats. Okay, we'll do the same thing we did before. We'll do Avengers, do another Avengers, do another Avengers. Do another Avengers. He's the author.
Michelle Newman 14:23
I forgot his name. Now of this article, he says that. He says that it like they have to have a built in fan base, that yes, and it's not right so and it's not us. No, the types of movies that I want to see, because they're not part four or or something with, you know, like a terminator type movie, the boy that just aided me didn't it Okay? Grandma, been to the movies recently, the trailers I've seen, the previews I've seen, and I love previews like I don't I'm the type who's like, Oh, get the. Like, 20 minutes later, because the previous I want
Kristin Nilsen 15:03
to see.
Michelle Newman 15:05
And there, there's, you know, do you guys do the thing like, I know, it gets mocked. There's like, so many funny, like, memes about it, but where a preview is over, and you look, if you're with someone at the movies, you look over
Kristin Nilsen 15:16
and you're like, Yeah, we do some sideways.
Michelle Newman 15:21
But the last movie I went to with previews, I was like, There's not one. There's not one. Oh my
Kristin Nilsen 15:26
god, see. Because usually you know what it was.
Michelle Newman 15:29
It was like five of the seven previews I watched were things like the Minecraft movie or Sonics hedgehog. He was that,
Kristin Nilsen 15:37
don't they usually show you trailers for that demographic that you're watching usually,
Michelle Newman 15:43
and it might have been, it might have been wicked,
Kristin Nilsen 15:45
or something like that. Okay, yeah, so there, there are lots of there are lots of reasons to be in the theater, and you hit on a really important one, Carolyn, and that is feeling, because sometimes the feelings that you are having during a movie watching experience are amplified when you're having the same feelings as all the people around you. It's a communal experience. It's a collective experience. That's kind of what we're about here at the pop culture experience. Like, what is it called the pop culture reservation society? There we go. She just changed our No, we, yeah, we. When you share an experience with somebody else, your joy is amplified. And that's what it's like being in the movie theater. And they've actually done a study. This was not in the article. This is just something that I know they have shown that the bigger the screen is, that you watch something on, the bigger your feelings are. So if you're watching Kramer versus Kramer on a tiny screen, you'll be like, that's sad, but if you're watching it on a giant screen in the theater, you you're like, racked with sobs.
Michelle Newman 16:47
That's a great bummer. Yeah, you shrug your shoulders and walk away. Bummer.
Carolyn Cochrane 16:52
Boy, not only the size of the screen and also just the sound, the sound is so different. I mean, now people have whatever their theater rooms and that kind of thing, and have their surround sound. But there's nothing like that. Was it THX, or whatever? Remember there before the movie started, and it was a special sound, and it would make that, yeah, right, and we all experienced that. And also Kristen, what I like about it is it's kind of a great equalizer the movie theater, because it doesn't matter, you know, how rich you are, like, you could be super, super wealthy, but you're still going to the movie theater along with the girl that's saving up her babysitting money to get to go. So when you're in there, we're all, regardless of, you know, socioeconomics and all of that, we're all having these shared human experiences, because that's what these movies are. I mean, the ones that have really tug at our heartstrings and make us want to go, at least make me want to go to the movies, are the ones that have these universal themes that it doesn't matter where you grew up or how much money you make, it's that, yes, we can relate to this grief or this joy or whatever it is. And I guess that's what I really like, and to just remember why we're here on this planet, and I won't cry I mean
Kristin Nilsen 18:07
that that is, that is the definition of art, that is, and to do that together with other people, especially with people that you love, is really, really important. And when you do it with strangers, there's something about sharing a movie experience with strangers that makes you feel like you are one with the world. It's a sense. It's a bigger sense of belonging. It brings us together. It's unifying. I mean, think about doing, have you guys ever gone to the sing along, Sound of Music? Yeah, think about doing a sing along, Sound of Music at home. That's not fun, right? You go to the Sing along Sound of Music, because you are all one voice, human experience, yes, yes, right? That's the perfect example of why going to the theater is important.
Michelle Newman 18:53
You really think it has something to do with this. So, you know, we criticize teenagers today, or even, you know, young adults, of not of of needing things to be super quick, right? And not having the attention span to sit and do something for, you know, X amount of time. So think about it, when you're at home, even I'm guilty of this, and my husband's guilty of this when we have, when we watch a movie. I'm usually needle pointing, or he's doing something on his phone, or he's, you know, he can, he multitasks by playing, you know, a game on his phone while he's watching a movie. When we watched sinners last week, I was kind of, I really noticed that both of us were doing nothing, like, yeah, and it was one reason because that movie so crazy that we were like, what just happened? I might have been noodle pointing and I put it down, like, I can't do that. I can't multitask watching this. But I'm just wondering if, if one reason people are not going to the movies is because I. They have to just sit there in the dark and watch a movie for two hours when they think, if I just watched it at home, I could also be folding the laundry, or I could be emptying the dishwasher, or I could be needle pointing, or I could be, you know, doing something, and that
Kristin Nilsen 20:14
was something that popped up, that popped up in the comments, and I think, yeah, you're right. It is sad, because they're saying that as a positive like, when I'm at home, I can fold the laundry. How sad that you write laundry while you try to engage with a story. And this is an opportunity for you to not do the laundry, to not needlepoint, to not be playing a game on your phone, to not be scrolling Instagram, but to actually engage with a story fully, with your full heart, fully, actually think about it. And this is part of what is sort of, you know, the disease of our time is that our attention is quite fractured. And in the in the article, he says, people have been trained to watch movies a little bit at a time, instead of in one sitting. And so, yeah, if you're 12 years old, you've probably never sat still for 90 minutes in your whole life, and you don't even know how to do that. We need to do that. We need to be able to do that, to engage with something for that amount of time. But now, just like music is being made a different way for screaming, for streaming movies have to be made a different way for people getting up and watching it the next day. I don't do that because I can't I can't even, I can't even eat and watch TV because I can't focus great. I can't do it. And that's just part of my psychology, right? I have to make sure that nothing else is happening so I can fully engage. But this is part of the difficulty of getting people back in the seats. But he made a very important point. He asked a really important question, and he says, try to think this is another of his arguments for we need to have cultural spaces and communal cultural events. Again, he says, try to think of a seminal movie moment from your childhood or your young adulthood, which means in the theater, something memorable that pops up for you. What was the movie? Who were you with? And conversely, try to think of a seminal movie moment that took place via streaming.
Michelle Newman 22:19
Yeah. No. I mean, I think back, I think one of the most seminal Movie Moments that instantly comes to my mind. And I actually, if I sat here and thought for a long time, I could think of dozens, but I was either my friend, I'd have to look at the date that the movie Ghost was released. But what's that probably I was either 91 sophomore or junior in college, maybe a junior in college. I went,
Kristin Nilsen 22:47
I was out of college, say, 9091
Michelle Newman 22:49
Okay, so yeah, and this makes sense, because the two people I went were my room, my apartment, roommates, my senior year of college, so 91 maybe. And anyway, whatever, I probably should know that, because what an impactful movie. And the reason it's so impactful is because we were in the theater. It had opening weekend, and at the end of the movie, I was sobbing so hard, like, like, I mean, like, I had never sobbed before, yeah, and out loud, because then you're gonna turn inside. Credits are over, yes, and and then, you know, then I don't know, it's like, the music dies down or whatever, and the movie's over, and I felt so stupid because I was, like, ugly crying. But I just don't, I just will never forget, the lights start to come up, and I am embarrassed because I'm like, like, I was like, like, I was gonna, like, vomit, you guys, I was crying so hard, and it's one reason that I love and hate that movie like I don't. I'm always like, I can't watch it again because, and I have watched it many times. But I looked around and not only were my two roommates crying as hard as I was, but everybody in that theater was if they weren't, if they weren't crying audibly. You saw them wiping their faces with their napkins or whatever, and instantly I was like, Oh my God. I felt like I felt better. But at the same time I felt, I felt it almost kind of felt like I was like, wrapped in a hug, right? Okay. Now, had I been sitting at home watching that on VHS with just my roommates, sure, it would have been like, we would have probably all cried and hugged each other, but it Yeah, I just remember the feeling of we were sitting kind of close, and we're turning around and just seeing everybody, like, broken up. Yeah? That's a movie theater
Carolyn Cochrane 24:36
moment so powerful, yeah. And it's a universal human emotion that to see all these people also experiencing that is, I mean, I don't know what the word is. There's got to be some word for what it feels like inside when you see that. Listeners, we got it, yeah, a similar memory in that. For me, it was Kramer versus. Kramer, and I saw it with my best friend and her mom and my mom, and same thing, like our moms were crying. And I remember they had, like, a Chevy station wagon. It was like burnt orange. And I just remember looking out the window the whole ride home, and I was just crying the whole way, I think, like that. It, that's the first movie I can think of that, you know, just wrecked, or wrecked me, I guess, yeah, hard. And I was just really wracked with sobs, and I just, I couldn't talk, and I was just looking out that window, and I still remember that. And, you know, our moms were crying. We were crying. It was, it was all the stuff,
Kristin Nilsen 25:38
and you can feel it, you know, just to your point, Michelle, like, you can feel it when the whole theater is filled with grief. And to share grief with people, that's a really healthy thing to do. I have a lot. It's interesting. It'll be interesting to see what movies pop up and how many of them are sad. One of my crying moments was in the movie she's having a baby Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McDonough and
Michelle Newman 26:03
you guys, you know what? Just pause, yeah, listeners, if you're all freaking out right now, too, the three of us love this movie. How have we not done it yet? We're doing it. We're doing it. I think because we don't do a lot of stuff from our late like our I mean, I guess we do. We do. We do a lot of stuff where we're in high school or whatever, but this was, yeah, okay. Now you know what moment
Kristin Nilsen 26:24
I'm going to talk about. This is the always last moment. It's a gut wrenching life or death moment involving a mother and a baby. I mean, give me a break. Yes, really, you doing to us, right? And Kevin Bacon is standing in a hospital hallway in the scrubs that they gave him to wear in the delivery room. And then he is briskly, like removed from the delivery room because there's some scary shit going down with his wife and his baby that's not yet born. And he stands there alone, crying. And Kate Bush starts to sing, oh my god, Kate Bush, and now I'm gonna cry just thinking about that moment. And the audience is breaking down in grief. Holy shit. I am crying. The audience is like, you can hear people going, you can hear that, right? And the man and so we're sharing that grief together. And Kevin Bacon is, he's like squeezing his little scrubs hat. He's like squeezing it in his hands and his chest right now, perfectly, yes. And there's a man in front of me who says out loud, wipe your nose. Man,
Kristin Nilsen 27:32
just like we just all started laughing, like the whole theater started like we needed it so badly. We were so going down the road where we couldn't bring ourselves back up again. And that moment made it was already a memorable moment, but that wipe your nose, man, because Kevin Bacon is just like covered with snatch his face, and he provided us with the relief we needed. You guys,
Michelle Newman 28:01
I know you different experiences, but will agree with me, if it weren't for movies in the movie theater, I don't know if I would be married to my husband right now, because me too how important those early movies were. Our first date was at the drive in, but here's how we were at his fraternity always had, like this Friday, tapped at two. They tapped two kegs at two o'clock. I mean, what a fraternity thing to do in the 1980s right? And we had dated the year before, but it went, it went really badly. So we're not we don't count that we do. But anyway, for the for the purpose of this conversation, we're not going to and we were flirty again and everything. And you know, it was kind of back to like, oh, Brian Newman's cute and, you know, and so funny. And we're flirty. And of course, you know, you'd have some beers, and it turns into, what are you doing tonight? And I had my friend with me, and we were like, I don't know, blah, blah. And he's like, well, a bunch of us are going to see cocktail. This is a good day cruise cocktail at the drive in. You guys should come. Well, we did go to see cocktail, and everybody was like, you know, you open up the back. I think it was like, what kind of SUV would we have? I don't even know it was someone's car, but everybody it would be a Bronco sitting next, yeah, sitting next to each other with your legs out. And so Brian and I end up sitting next to each other, and we were very flirty through the whole thing. I mean, that's a that's a memory every time we see cocktail like, that's a movie that holds a really special meaning for both of us, because we always think about that first time. And we have so many other ones. I can remember the accused. I mean, we, I remember then later, you know, years later, I don't know how many years later, a year, two years later, seeing Harry, When Harry Met Sally in the theater, and both of us loving it. And I just remember sitting next to him. And you know how When Harry Met Sally starts, and all the couples, the old couples, are sitting on the couch, old married on the couch. And I remember sitting there thinking, I. Yeah, that's gonna be us one day. But I couldn't say anything like that out loud, because we weren't that serious yet. But I was like, I wonder if that's gonna be us one day. And so these are all movie theater moments,
Carolyn Cochrane 30:12
because I have that written here in my notes about going on a date to the movie theater and going to see a movie. And I think, and that even goes before us. I mean, our parents, that was just kind of a given. And I went on a couple of dates in high school. I could, but I can remember each movie that I saw on a date. I saw Halloween with a guy. Didn't really even I just didn't know how to say no to people, which was not a good thing. So I ended up going on to things I didn't really want to another one was, you probably don't even remember this movie, and I wouldn't probably remember it, had I not gone on a date, something wicked this way comes. I remember that, and I remember that whole movie. I would have probably never chosen it. Had it not been that someone asked me on a date, and I think he kind of chose it, and my very last movie date, I can tell you, would have been Breakfast Club with my now husband, Andy Cochrane, but it was a real date, like we weren't really a couple yet. And he was like, Do you want to go see this movie? And I, like, had a plan, what I was going to wear, and we went out to eat before it was literally, like, our first last date kind of a thing. And so, yeah, I was also thinking about, remember, even it was portrayed in TV shows and stuff, like, you'd go on a date to the movies with a guy and he'd yawed around you. Or you thought about, just like you'd be making out the whole time, like, who cares what the movie even is, we're it's dark. And yes. And so it was such a moment, not just because of whatever the movie was, but it was this experience of, that's what you did on a date, because you didn't really have to talk a lot. That was one good thing.
Kristin Nilsen 31:50
You didn't have to face each other exactly. You didn't have to be 21 or 19, depending on what the drinking age was. So yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 31:58
So I think that that's something that our kids today, well, who knows if they even go on dates anymore, which they really they
Kristin Nilsen 32:04
just hang out, but, you know, but that is to your point. Like, if you let's say it was cocktail, would you invite somebody over to come watch cocktail? Inviting somebody over to watch something on Netflix is not the same as inviting them out on a date to go to a movie theater. And those first movies are they tell you a lot about the other person. So Mike's on my first date was the Little Mermaid. And I didn't I didn't know this guy. I didn't know anything about him. I didn't think he was my type at all. And it was his idea to go see this Disney movie. And this was before adults went to Disney movies. Now we all go to see Disney movies, not back then, not in 1989 and he said that he knew a four year old who really liked it and thought it was really good. So right away, that gave me really important information about him. And I remember the being in the theater, and the theater just felt so full of warmth, like it was incredibly like, like human humanity, that kind of warmth, because there was this freedom in throwing away convention and being adults and going to see a movie that was made for children. And I was positively moved. I was so moved by this man, by this grown man who wasn't too cool for school, who wasn't who didn't take himself so seriously that he wouldn't suggest going to see a children's movie, and then you have the music from the movie, and all of that becomes part of the memory. And that's an epic first date. And that's not, would you be like, want to come over to my No.
Carolyn Cochrane 33:41
I mean, I would be like the pipe smoker if you had a guy in college asking to come over and see Little Mermaid these
Michelle Newman 33:50
movies, just because you said that Little Mermaid, that was my older daughter's first movie in the theater. It must have been re released, because this would have been in like 96 96 probably because she was born in 19 she was probably, she might have been two, so maybe so obviously, it was like, re released or something. But, you know, I will never forget we got her the little booster seat. She was probably two, and, you know, you put it on the seat, and she was transfixed. And I watched her the whole time, and her lips were swollen from all the salt. And then I'll just never she must have been too, because I'll never forget that night when Brian went in and put her to bed, she said, and you guys remember, listeners, if you've ever seen like a picture of my husband. He's bald now, but he had, he had like Eric Estrada hair. He had like the best hair. He also had Prince Eric hair. Because for just some reason, that night when he went in and said, Good night to her. She went and she this is exactly how she said it Good night, Prince
Unknown Speaker 34:44
Eric, like she
Michelle Newman 34:46
immediately thought dad was Prince Eric, but, like, we have these memories. I mean, every Thanksgiving, you know how Disney would always release their new movie or a Pixar movie, Thanksgiving weekend, the. Day after our family did every year whatever it was, we looked forward to it so like we have these memories with our families, not just going all the way back to the 70s and 80s, but right movies and movie theaters have played an enormous part in our family histories, well
Kristin Nilsen 35:19
and my modern, my, my my family of origin and my Modern Family, my contemporary family, whatever, my current family. Yeah, we created the family I created. We have memories that actually go together in that as you know, if you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, we were a Herbie family. And my family went to see every Herbie movie that came out, we had a Herbie. We Herbie was real. Herbie had like thoughts and feelings and a heart. And then when Liam is two years old, his very first movie is Herbie Fully loaded with Lindsay Lohan. It's like the first Herbie movie in 30 years or something. And my whole family goes with Liam to see his first movie like my mom and my dad and my brother and my sister, and we're all there, and we're all just like staring at him, like ready to initiate him into the family of Herbie. I love that, and that it is when you think about growing up like we have all of these memories tied up with them. But when you were a kid, going to a movie was something that your parents bestowed upon you with great ceremony, right? Like it was a big event, and they surprised you. And I remember the first time that happened where we all got in the car and it was going to be a surprise, and we were getting then they told us we were going to see what's up. Doc, the Ryan, Ryan O'Neil, Barbara Streisand movie. And I didn't, I was so young, I didn't even know what that was, but I was like, sounds good to me. And then it that repeated over and over again with Benji and the Pink Panther movies and the bad news bears. Guess where we're going. And it was always a huge dramatic event. And then, of course, ET, I think I've told this et story before, where we were stuck in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, with SIG and SIG, who were like, cousins of my grandma. They were married with Sigurd and Sigrid, and they were SIG and SIG, and they were so old. They were old as the hills, and we were dying. And finally, my mom's like, can we just, like, get out of here and go see a movie? And so SIG, old SIG was like, it's really the directions are really hard. You just follow me. I'll take you to the theater. You follow me. And SIG could not see and we, I thought we were gonna die on the way to the movie theater. Well, think, and my dad was like, we'll find our way home. You go back home. We will find our way. We made it to the movie theater. We didn't know anything about this little alien movie called et but it was the only thing in the theater. And then again, as a family, all of us are absolutely enchanted in this movie theater, in this random place that we've never been, Rhode Island, Woonsocket. Where the hell are we? And we will never forget it. It was That was my sister's first movie, and she looked exactly like Drew Barrymore, like they were twins. They were the same age, they were twins, and that was all part of the experience. And again, just to reiterate, I wouldn't one of my mom said, why don't we go inside and watch et?
Carolyn Cochrane 38:15
It wasn't just the movie. I mean, you know, it's like, sometimes it was the movie, but lots of times it was all the stuff that surrounded that actual film. It was the getting in the car. It was your trip following aunt SIG, who was gonna drive off the road. It was your sister looking like Drew Barrymore. It's this little town. It's all the things that just happened to be around this movie and this collective experience that you guys had, and that's kind of some of the stuff I had in my notes. It was so much more than just the movie. It was all the stuff that surrounded it that you happen to remember. Because unlike you, Kristen, my family didn't all go to the movies together. That was a huge, huge thing. Yeah, so because of that, the times my dad went are memories that are just ingrained in me, and I know I have shared on here standing in line to see Star Wars with just my dad and he he was so giddy, and that's what I have here. He was like a little kid before, and so much after. I just remember how happy he was. He wanted to talk about it a lot, and I was still kind of young, but it was seeing your dad in this different light, I guess, especially for me, because it wasn't like he ever went to see the Disney movies with with us. He wasn't at Bed knobs and broomsticks or the Herbie movie. That was just my mom taking us with our little lunch sack of popcorn that she'd pre pop at home, yeah, well, actually, we had to take it in. I guess they didn't get mad at you. I don't know. Oh, we had it. Maybe we did. Maybe my mom hit it. I just remembered, like a big straw macrame kind of bag that she had that she probably would have fit it in there, yeah, but yeah, we had to bring our own popcorn. And she would say, That's all your. Gonna get for the whole thing. So, like, you know, basically parse it out, like, ration it as you're watching
Kristin Nilsen 40:06
highway robbery. That was
Carolyn Cochrane 40:08
highway suck on the, you know, suck on eternal. Speaking of that, that's another part of the movie. Experience was, like, the food that went with it, and Junior Mints, the only place I would ever eat Junior Mints was at the movie theater, so much so that if you offer me a junior mint now, it's like, cheating or it's wrong. I like, it's not right. It's like, Yeah, I can't experience remember?
Kristin Nilsen 40:35
Do you remember a candy called Flix? I have not. This is going to take some research, somebody listening research this. For me, it was in a little tube, like a cardboard tube, wrapped in like a bright colored foil. And then when you opened the foil end, there were, they were almost like chocolate kisses, and they had funny little men on the outside. And they were called flicks. And the only place I ever got them was at the movie theater in Orlando, California. Yeah, I didn't put that together until I was an adult, but I've
Michelle Newman 41:04
never seen, Oh, I see them. They're little. Did you find them? Yeah? Warehouse, no, they're out of stock. Oh, I bet they don't, but there is a picture of it that, yeah, they look like, they look like little flat chocolate kisses.
Kristin Nilsen 41:18
Yeah, they're little flat chocolate kisses. And this is a memory of when I'm like, four years old. Probably gonna see Charlotte's Web
Michelle Newman 41:24
chocolate wafers and handy tube dispensers and assorted colors.
Kristin Nilsen 41:28
But just like you, Carolyn, there are things like even movie popcorn smells different than the popcorn you make at home. Oh, absolutely. I mean, how many people really Make popcorn At Home anyway, right? We do. All the time, but
Michelle Newman 41:40
it's, it doesn't smell like if you get movie theater butter, it's not the same.
Carolyn Cochrane 41:45
Or the sound of the straw in the like, plastic thing when you're trying to get to the bottom there's like, it doesn't sound like that anywhere else but a movie theater Uh huh. Or like people, you know, whispering like hushed tones, but they're loud, like, it's not like a person's loud voice, but especially before the movie starts, where you technically could be talking in a regular voice. It's this hushed, loud voice. It's hard for me to explain, but it's just a certain voice that I've only ever heard. Somebody's trying to get
Kristin Nilsen 42:14
something in quick before the movie starts. Yes, like you need to go to the
Carolyn Cochrane 42:18
bathroom and I want to take just a minute to for us to all remember the ticket stub, because I recently came across in getting ready for this episode, a ticket stub in my scrapbook for the Amityville Horror, which was the first R rated movie I ever saw. And so I had that, you know, written next to it, and my friend Debbie's dad took us to see it. And of course, as the role follower I was, I was never going to go, you know, to an R movie unless What do you I guess it was you had to be accompanied by a parent if you were under 17, which was crazy. But then I had this, all these little ticket stubs. I had ticket stubs from every high school play that my high school did all in this kind of falling out of my scrapbook. And I just thought, gosh, that's a thing that we, you know, they scan our barcode on our phone. Oh, I did just do, I
Michelle Newman 43:11
did just print out, or I saved all of my friends and my ticket stubs for Pretty in Pink, because they did come out. I don't know why they
Kristin Nilsen 43:20
they will probably, and I put them
Michelle Newman 43:23
in my little junk journal, yeah, with all these little cute, pretty and pink stickers, because, because it was fun, it says, like, pretty and pink 40th anniversary on it. And so they must have, I think, what I had, because I had it on my phone, you're right. And so I even must have been when they scanned it. They came out
Carolyn Cochrane 43:38
this, those little rectangles. And you'd have to go up to the lady with, like, the little curvy thing. They tear it
Kristin Nilsen 43:44
in half, yeah? They drop it, drop one half. They give you one half, and then they drop the other half in the little box that had a little slit in the top, exactly. And think of those you didn't know, like, when you were going, actually, that might not have been my first R rated movie. I think that was the jerk. Anyway. Anyway, talk about movie Rosemary's Baby, yeah, that's true. That was probably rated R and I was three months old. But that having that, having those tangible movie tickets, you didn't know when you were watching that movie, and saving that ticket, that that would be a famous movie someday, or a famous memory, whatever, a very memorable thing for you. You're just like going to see the current movie of the day. You have no idea. And now look at that's such a gift that you have. And you're right. What will our children have to remember? What?
Carolyn Cochrane 44:34
Yeah, well, on that note, I do have a bit of glass half full optimism running through my head because grace my youngest, who is a senior in college, she is going to the movie theater. She's probably seen more movies while she's in college than I ever saw, partly because she wants to be the first one to do everything. So she's in on that window of 17 days or whatever. But she is really. Kind of embracing the whole kind of analog experience of going to the movies, of getting vinyl, of getting, you know, I think she asked for CDs for Christmas, you know, I think that we might, they might save us this, this.
Kristin Nilsen 45:14
I hope so. I think so. Let's see how long this window is, this digital window, because our kids are figuring out that they are missing out on something that we that we had. Yeah, whether or not they will get paper tickets again, I don't know, but I do know that that Liam is collecting CDs and DVDs, and he longs for an analog life. He says so outwardly.
Carolyn Cochrane 45:39
Well, I think a lot of people do, and I think I sent this to you guys, but it keeps coming up in my social media that Memorex has now put out a cassette player to play cassette. So it's almost like a Sony Walkman, but it's it's just cassettes. There's no radio or whatever, and it does have a Bluetooth capacity, but it also has the little place to stick in headphones. And it's not actually like you can pre order them and they're already sold out.
Kristin Nilsen 46:04
Oh my god,
Carolyn Cochrane 46:05
people like and then people are showing in some of the responses, like their pile of mixtapes or all their cassettes that they've kept, and they can't wait to get their Memorex little tape player, because they want to have that whole, as we talk about a lot of times, that whole analog experience of taking the cassette out of your plastic, you know, acrylic holder, or whatever, sticking it in the little player, closing, and it's
Kristin Nilsen 46:29
a grounding experience. And I think anything that is collective and communal is also grounding. And so that's also what you are missing out on when you watch a movie alone, by yourself on your phone.
Michelle Newman 46:40
So yeah, never watch it on my phone. Yeah, but they do.
Kristin Nilsen 46:45
They have people only 100%
Michelle Newman 46:47
do on the airplane last week, and the man sitting next to me, his head was so he had his phone on his tray, and his head was, like, bent over, and he was probably about five inches away from his phone, and I'm just sitting next to him, needle pointing, you know, listening to my book on tape, and I was thinking, how is he saying? How is he, how is he getting and it was probably some really big movie, yeah, and
Carolyn Cochrane 47:13
he's not having any feelings and about the people like the woman who just won, the first woman to win the Oscar for cinematography, and that's all. That's whole art and cinematography for a giant screen in a theater is, I would think, would be much different than cinematography for a laptop screen or even a 65 inch, you know, frame TV hanging over your fireplace. It's just, people need to realize it's just much more than what the storyline,
Kristin Nilsen 47:47
it's the whole Yeah, it's more than the plot. It's more it's more than the explosions. It was interesting reading. Did you guys go through the comments at all? The comments were really, really interesting too, because they gave a lot of other reasons that people aren't coming one of them is that it's too expensive. And that's true. That is absolutely to get a babysitter and go out for a night on the town would be $100 to bring your whole family. Let's say you have three children, that could be $100 like so it's not $5 a ticket anymore. The other thing that people said is that theaters are gross and it to have a nice theater is pivotal. It is absolutely pivotal. We are so lucky in Minneapolis to live in a wonderland of movie theaters, whether they be new with stadium seating and and state of the art whatever or revival houses that are restored theaters that are super popular because they're old and they have chandeliers, and they might be a little bit worn and tired, but, but the people who own them are really excited about showing not just new things, but also old things, revival things. So that's that is key if you're going to go to a movie theater and your feet stick to the floor, I might, yeah, but the other one that really got me, and this is sad, and it speaks to the culture, is that people are rude, and they no longer know how to be in a movie theater. They think they're in their living room and they're on their phones and they're talking to each other and they're jumping up and down and they it was what we talked about before. They don't know how, like we're going. This is like a concert. People like we sit and we don't and we worry about other people's experience. So it's gonna take something to resurrect that and to re educate younger people. I mean, it's on us, I guess, parents of the world, grandparents of the world, to show children how to watch a movie in a movie theater versus how to watch it at home. It's two different things, but I do think that he makes a really good case for how we can revive it and why that's important so and you guys, you have listeners, you have to. Know that this is just scratching the surface of the movie memories that we have come up with. Think back to just the movies that you saw with your family of origin. Think about that and how excited you were, the anticipation of it, the event of it. And we have stripped all of the event and excitement out of watching a movie by just streaming it for free in the middle of the day on your phone, whatever. So if you want to, if you want to add some excitement and some joy back into your life, recapture the movie theater experience. I want to close today by reading you a quote from the article that really moved me, and I think it has a special significance to every member of the pop culture Preservation Society. I think this really speaks to us as a group of people. He says, I suspect that most people reading this can name an indelible memory they have of seeing a film with strangers in the dark on the silver screen that moved them and that they cherish. Still the power of that enduring emotional connection should prevail against all the winds of change.
Carolyn Cochrane 51:01
Yes, I think that's what's missing in our society and culture now, are those moments that we share together and we experience human human being human
Kristin Nilsen 51:13
together, being human together. We need to have more opportunities to be human together. That's exactly what it is. Thank you so much for listening today, everybody, and we will see you next time.
Kristin Nilsen 51:27
In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast. Courtesy of the of who of three companies. Courtesy of, oh yeah, courtesy of the movies
Speaker 1 51:36
I don't know on the small screen I don't know, two good times, two Happy Days, Two
Carolyn Cochrane 51:42
Little House on the Prairie.
Michelle Newman 51:44
My cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai