In Praise of an Afternoon at the Movies / Donna Masini In: Lit Hub Daily June 11, 2018

4:30 is my favorite time to go to the movies, and I’ve found I’m not alone in this. At 4:30 I can slip into a theater with a bottle of water. No line. Little chance it will sell out; that a tall man will, well into previews, station himself in front of me. Nothing odd about seeing a movie alone at 4:30. On Saturday night at 8:00, it’s hard not to feel too visible, pathetic. Have the urge to wear a sign: I have many friends. I am loved; drape a coat on the seat beside me until the lights go out—like Miss Lonelyhearts in Rear Window, setting a wine glass for an imaginary companion. At 4:30 I can sink back in the dark, in the company of strangers, many of whom are also alone, sip my water, and wait for those enormous figures to move across the screen. Wait to lose myself.

By 4:30 I have, for better or worse, done my day’s writing. Nothing to feel guilty about. I can give myself over to pleasure, to the danger of feeling. When I emerge two hours later, transformed, senses heightened (paper is more paper after you’ve heard movie paper, cilantro more its sweaty green self), it won’t even be time for dinner. The whole night’s ahead. As I leave the theater the day itself has transformed. Even if the sun’s still out, it’s evening sun. During the liminal 4:30 screening, we pass over the threshold from afternoon to evening distracted, in movie time.

When I enter a 4:30 movie, I’m aware that a lot of people are still at work. There’s an aura of playing hooky, of the sexy cinq à sept hours of illicit love affairs I first discovered in dark theaters. Here are two of my quintessential movie experiences:

I sneak out of school, take the ferry to Manhattan for a double feature of Women in Love and The Virgin and the Gypsy at Carnegie Hall Cinema. At intermission, with all the drama of a 16-year-old, I proclaim (to myself) the first movie too intense, too profound, for me to submit to another film. I wander the city with Laurentian intensity and, on the ferry crossing back, tell a man my name is Gudrun. I have been transformed. (Around this time I insist we name our new family dog “Gudrun” but lose out 5 to 1 to the more popular “Cindy.” To be fair, Cindy, a beagle mutt, looked even less like a Gudrun than I did.)... [mehr] https://lithub.com/in-praise-of-an-afternoon-at-the-movies/