Metrograph, 1:46pm
Act I — 12:08 pm
Like visiting a museum gallery on a weekday morning or a cemetery in the off-season, only those most loyal, most spurred with sudden agitation cut through the garbage-pimpled alleyways, past hungry crowds collecting around cafe doors and impatient dogs waiting outside grocery stories, to surrender their afternoons to the entire length of a matinee film. These individuals are not drawn in by the glow of a marquee as they weave among bodies at the end of the workday, not tempted by a simple agenda for their date night, nor the graphics of a subway advertisement. The choice to go is always impulsive. An intervention in mundane life reckless enough to verge on shameful. They have no phone calls to make, no appointments to keep. They ask for a ticket in a soft voice usually reserved for church. They duck into the air-conditioned movie theater lobby without being missed by the world. In pairs or alone, they never know what time the movie is actually scheduled to begin (or care). To enter the movie theater is to enter into a place emptied of time.
Act II — 12:35 pm
Movie theater lobbies are not designed to contain early visitors. The lights are kept dimmed like half-closed eyelids. A movie theater lobby in the afternoon is a stage prepared for a dress rehearsal. Only part of the staff is needed to keep this leviathan of boxed candy and buttered…
