A Plug for the Theater Experience

One of my favorite things to do is to sit in a dark room where it's illegal to talk to me. I'm of course referring to the most magical place on earth: the cinema.

As strange as it may seem given you can't talk at the movie theater, I hate going there alone. I need somebody to elbow, to laugh with, and most importantly (and sometimes ongoing for years to come!) to debrief with afterwards. Luckily, I have found a moviegoing associate to help me keep the Niles Wonderland Cinema, our primary theater, in business.

A quick plug for Wonderland, as they must stay in business for the rest of my life: movie tickets are $5. My go-to order is a ticket, a small popcorn, a large Mr. Pibb, and a jalapeno + cheese stuffed pretzel, which in total costs $15.50. Unheard of in the movie game. I went to an AMC in Chicago with my sister, and the cashier had to pry the credit card out of my hand after he told me my ticket ALONE was $22.

Over the last 5 years, my fiancé Ryan and I have seen 254 movies in theaters. Obviously Covid slowed us down a bit. The recent SAG-AFTRA strike also threw a wrench into our plans for some of the most anticipated upcoming releases - i.e. having to wait until March for Dune: Part Two, which we should have seen in October.

Movies at home are great, but there’s just something special about experiencing them in the theater – the giant screen, the superior sound, the lack of distractions, the removal from reality. For a few hours, you are transported from your world into a brand new one.

I love when something - a scene, a score, a performance, an entire film in general - just sticks with me, and I find myself coming back to it time and time again. The scene where time stands still in The Worst Person in the World, the pharmacy scene in Promising Young Woman, the scores of Oppenheimer and Barbie (even better back to back!!), Ke Huy Quan’s return to acting and Oscar-winning performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once, and the entirety of John Wick: Chapter 4, to name a few.

Ryan and I track the movies we see on an app called Letterboxd. We’ve seen 94 new releases so far this year (this includes both in theaters and on streaming services), and on Letterboxd we can rate, review, and rank them. I can also see what my sister, friends, favorite comedian, etc. have rated the movies they’ve seen, which is very fun, but I have to admit, can skew my impressions. I try not to look at other scores or reviews until after I’ve formed my own opinion. My thoughts on a movie can shift the longer I marinate on it, whether it be for better or worse. I’m constantly editing my ratings in Letterboxd to reflect this.

I will include my top 12 movies of the past few years (with 2023 obviously still being a work in progress as we have yet to see Priscilla, Wonka, Aquaman 2, The Iron Claw, American Fiction, Ferrari, and The Color Purple). If you need a movie recommendation or want to argue with me about the ones that cracked my top 12, I am always here for it.

Tess Swain

Program Manager

Notre Dame Institute for Global Investing (NDIGI)

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