Filmic Friday 312: Social Distancing And Film

In Which I Talk About COVID-19 and Movies

It's fun to get together and watch movies with friends and family. Movie theaters are great for dates and just to relax and enjoy yourself. Hitting up a RedBox or other rental kiosk can be a great choice for a night in.

But now there's COVID-19 to be concerned with, and with cases all the way up here near Nowheresville, it's time to think about some changes.

I'm already a fairly antisocial person - social distancing won't be as big a change for me as it might be for some social butterflies - but this will still change how I view movies.

It's unlikely that I'll have the option of a movie theater soon (hopefully it waits for after tomorrow, though, there's a 35mm print of In The Bedroom I'd like to see with my partner...), and I'm already paranoid about the disease-slicked screens of the grocery store kiosks.

So how do we engage in the social behavior of movie-watching when we're all freaking out and don't want to get sick?

Well, there's a few options, in my mind.

There's streaming, which most people have or have access to (and if you have family with Netflix or something, now might be the time to beg for the password, tbh).

There's also cable tv, but fewer people have this, now, and companies like to make it hard for you to share this experience outside your home.

You could also make sure your fellow viewers have a copy of your movie of choice in their own homes.

These three solutions are great for being housebound.

Except that you're still sitting in a room alone watching a movie and having no one to talk to.

Well, chances are, if you're 30 or younger, you're on your phone anyway, so hook up a group chat or a multi-person Facetime call or something and get to sharing your experience digitally!

To be honest, if movie theaters and production companies want to really make bank, they'll run Pay-Per-View-style movie streams under their branding with built in conferencing to make groups more interested in streaming these shows from home. It could be on an emergency basis, running when there are natural disasters or plagues or just really bad air quality.

This is a scary time. Yes, it's unlikely that most of us will catch this disease (I think. I hope.) but it pays to be cautious, especially with an illness like COVID-19.

Here's a few bits of advice from my heart to yours:

• You're allowed to be anxious about this. It's scary. Anyone telling you to stop worrying is either worried themselves and trying to keep you from heightening their anxiety or they just are not paying proper attention. You can be worried. Just use that anxiety to prepare in sensible ways. Which ties into my next point:
• Stop buying toilet paper unless you actually need it - there wasn't a shortage before the panic because every continent except for Antarctica makes their own TP. The US imports a very small amount from Canada, Mexico, and yes, China, but we're not going to miss the Chinese imports that much because guess what? We make our own TP. It's going to be okay in this regard.
• When selecting a movie, try not to pick anything that will keep you up too late! Your body needs proper sleep, and spooking yourself out by watching that extra-scary horror movie might not help. I'm not saying you should switch over to all kids' movies, but now is a good time to pick up some things that won't give you a heart attack. If you're looking for scary but not too scary, I recommend The Lost Boys.
• I'm sure I'm about to piss people off but here's some mild medical knowledge that's easily accessible by laypeople like me:
• Homeopathy is not medicine. It's literally just placebos. It's pseudoscience and should not be confused with medical science.
• Naturopathy is also not really medicine. Yes, many medicines are derived from nature, but please remember that by definition, literally everything is natural. If it exists, it is in nature, and therefor it is natural.
• Antibiotics cannot cure viruses because antibiotics only fight bacteria, so if you're talking to someone who claims they're on antibiotics for their "cold", they have misunderstood the situation and do not have a cold. They have a bacterial infection. Also, COVID-19 is a virus and thus is immune to antibacterial materials.
• You cannot cure this with honey. You cannot cure this by drinking bleach. One is tasty on toast. The other will literally kill you.
• Remember, if it has "alternative" in the title, unless prescribed by an actual straight-up medical professional, it is not medicine and it will not work. Our great grandparents used this stuff because there was no medicine.
• And finally, if you are going to be around people you like and you have allergies, please consider dosing up on your allergy meds, despite the grogginess. Try not to sneeze too much.

We'll get through this, guys.

We're all in this together (ish).

Seriously, though, this week's recommendation is The Lost Boys, which I only saw about half of because I kept falling asleep (I was super tired), but if I ever see the whole thing? I'm blabbing about it on here. Promise.

Also, uh... I need to start working on a list of movies as I watch them because... my memory? She is the suck.

That'll about do it for me, guys!

Stay social from a distance and take care of yourselves!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC