You can't lose what you never won

[sovay]

All right, Boston-type people who care about film noir. Every Monday from mid-March through late May, the Somerville Theatre will be running a noir double feature as part of their repertory series Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. It is an enticing selection of classics and deep cuts of which I have seen all but four features, but the $64,000 question is whether I will able to see, at last, on 35 mm at the size it deserves, the superlative queerness of Johnny Eager (1942), whether I chase it or not a month later with the slant companion of I Walk Alone (1947). Pre-2020, I would have parked myself in the balcony for more than half of this series, but I have spent four years dedicatedly avoiding extended stints in the company of strangers and I am not quite ready to trust the CDC as to the common-cold negligibility of the persistent plague. On the other hand, which almost certainly has a drink and a half-chain-smoked cigarette in it, there are few characters even in noir whom I love like Van Heflin's Jeff Hartnett, a man who can slouch even flat on his back and misquote most of the Western canon while he's doing it. "Mr. Freud, take a letter." I am beginning to feel slightly stalked by Sorry, Wrong Number (1948).

Comments

[asakiyume]

On the other hand, which almost certainly has a drink and a half-chain-smoked cigarette in it --LOL, the noir hand.

Would you feel okay to go if you were well masked?

[sovay]

--LOL, the noir hand.

I may have to start using that rhetorically!

Would you feel okay to go if you were well masked?

That's what I'm trying to figure out. I have been inside stranger-filled buildings for extended periods of time since the beginning of the pandemic, but only when medically necessary (which has been far too often and nearly the only reason I have gone anywhere in the last couple of years: a depressing state in itself). Everything else is the briefest errand I can possibly make it. It is true that so far I have been lucky. I just don't want it to be thematically appropriate that my luck runs out.

[skygiants]

As one of the people very definitively addressed in the opening of the post, if the $64,000 question resolves in favor I would very gladly join you!

[sovay]

As one of the people very definitively addressed in the opening of the post, if the $64,000 question resolves in favor I would very gladly join you!

Thank you! I will keep you posted. It would be nice to see you as well as the film!

[theseatheseatheopensea]

Ohh that's a great selection of movies! I hope you can see some of them!

[sovay]

Ohh that's a great selection of movies! I hope you can see some of them!

Thank you! I hope it's a well-attended series no matter what.

[gwynnega]

I hope you can see them. (I haven't been in a movie theater in four years, but since it tends to trigger my vertigo dizziness, it'll probably be awhile longer for me.)

[sovay]

I hope you can see them. (I haven't been in a movie theater in four years, but since it tends to trigger my vertigo dizziness, it'll probably be awhile longer for me.)

Thank you. I am sorry to hear your vertigo still interferes with movies. Does anything help with it generally?

[gwynnega]

Thank you. Medical massage therapy helps a lot. So does simply dancing to music (which cancels out the woozy faux-motion feeling, as long as I'm actually moving around!).

[sovay]

So does simply dancing to music (which cancels out the woozy faux-motion feeling, as long as I'm actually moving around!).

I think that's great.

[nineweaving]

Can't spatch sneak it down to that little screening room after hours, for a private show? I know, I know, but you deserve to see this!.

*hugs*

Nine

[sovay]

Can't spatch sneak it down to that little screening room after hours, for a private show? I know, I know, but you deserve to see this!

The microcinema cannot handle 35 mm! I'm not even sure it can handle 16 mm. I will ask spatch about the state of the HVAC, though. Am I correct that you safely saw The Eternal Daughter at the Somerville in 2022?

[nineweaving]

Am I correct that you safely saw The Eternal Daughter at the Somerville in 2022?

Indeed I did! I credit my FloMask, which has safely seen me through six cons, two weeks of folkie camp, two movies, and a college reunion. It's a tank!

Nine

[imagine_that]

FWIW, I wear a KN95 in all public indoor spaces, and frequently outdoors when there are a lot of people around. I haven't done a movie theatre, but I have done a few plays and waaay too many school events. I sing in a choir weekly with children that went mask optional this Fall.
All that to say...in 4 years I have gotten COVID twice, and both times it was because one of my children brought it home, and I caught it before we knew they were sick. (They are some of the very few kids who still mask in their VERY large schools - 1000 kids at one, and 1700 kids at the other. But they still have to eat lunch every day. And still they have each only gotten it once. I'm the mother...the one who takes care of them.)
So, I don't know if that helps you, but in 4 years, I have never gotten it from a place where I was masked.

[sovay]

So, I don't know if that helps you, but in 4 years, I have never gotten it from a place where I was masked.

It is a valid data point and I sincerely appreciate you contributing it. I also mask everywhere indoors that isn't, like, my parents' house.

(I am glad your choir has not given you COVID!)