We’re all a bit like Tom Wingfield in “The Glass Menagerie” or Binx Bolling in Walker Percy’s “The Moviegoer,” using a darkened cinema at times for sheer flight, other times as a gentler escape, and come Monday in New York to the tune of 33-percent capacity.
But then there are those instances involving the opposite of escape — togetherness. Locally, at least with the Regal chain, we may have to wait till May 21, but my teenage kids and I have been looking forward to a return to a former tradition of loud music on the ride to the theater, the heady scent of hot popcorn greeting us in the lobby, once at our seats the bucket greedily policed by my daughter, no kernel removed until the movie starts, later the furtive trip mid-picture back to the candy counter for a free refill. And, who knows, maybe a good show.
Afterward there might be a stroll through a deserted downtown Southampton, a trip to Carvel for ice cream, a detour among the busts of Roman emperors forming an incongruous gauntlet on the old Parrish lawn, but always the all-important movie dissection on the drive home.
Long gone are the days of lines down the block. Readers out there may remember just such in East Hampton for Roman Polanski’s adaptation of “Tess of the D’Urbervilles,” released stateside in 1980. Almost hard to believe now. I don’t know quite what I was doing there as a 13-year-old boy, but, with an intermission breaking up the three-hour film and the crowd spilling out into a lobby packed like a Tokyo subway car, it was nothing short of an event.
Still, these days it doesn’t take much to achieve that sought-after communal viewing experience, just a smattering of Marvel fans cheering the return of Captain America in “Avengers: Infinity War” will do.
Sticking to Marvel, the other day my son texted me the just-released movie poster for the forthcoming “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” And it’s about time. Born of the 1970s martial arts craze, if ever a comic book series was suited to a movie treatment, Master of Kung Fu was it, with elements of espionage involving the MI6 British intelligence agency (a turtlenecked Black Jack Tarr, no less, leading with his handlebar mustache) and a father-turned-enemy, Fu Manchu, from the old Sax Rohmer crime novels.
Of question? The decision to give Shang-Chi a haircut and lose his headband. And now the billowing red robe with gold trim, often tossed aside to reveal a rippling torso dripping with sweat as Bruce Lee-style beatdowns were administered, has been replaced by a form-fitting tunic.
It may not quite match his meditative ways, but no matter. We’ll be watching.