Sleeping inside the cinema while watching a movie has become my hardest habit to break.
“F1: The Movie,” “Past Lives,” “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” “One Battle After Another,” “Project Hail Mary,” “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” “Die My Love,” “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” “Superman,” “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” “The Drama,” “Wicked: For Good,” “Mortal Kombat II,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Crime 101,” “The Bride!,” “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” “They Will Kill You,” “The Sheep Detectives,” “Supergirl,” “Hoppers,” “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” “Minions & Monsters,” “Zootopia 2,” “Lilo & Stitch,” “Toy Story 5,” “Moana.”
No matter the genre—thriller, action, sci-fi, crime, mystery, drama, romance, fantasy, musical, comedy, animation—I always end up sleeping. Zzzzz. Let’s see if I would still sleep if it were a horror movie, which I never watch.
If only Moana had brought the pig on her sailing journey, that piggy could have kept me awake. But it was the chicken that sailed with her. Darn. What always gets me, though, is its theme song, “How Far I’ll Go”: “See the line where the sky meets the sea / It calls me / And no one knows, how far it goes / If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me / One day I’ll know / If I go there’s just no telling how far I’ll go.” Sigh.
The only movie that kept me awake was Brad Pitt’s “F1: The Movie.” Perhaps because it has Brad. And “One Battle After Another” had a scene that made my jaws drop to the floor, and they stayed there for a long time. Whoa.
What irks me, in addition to my movie-sleeping habit, is the post-credits scene. Marvel helped popularize this trend by using it as an appetizer for its next film. DC copied this style of revving up the audience’s anticipation, and eventually other movie geniuses have also learned to add post-credits scenes. I now have to Google if the movie I’m about to watch has one so I won’t be wasting time waiting for nothing. Since “Supergirl” is a DC production, I expected it to have one—I didn’t even Google if there was the remotest possibility. But—Surprise! Surprise!—it didn’t have one. And there I was, resembling someone waiting for paint to dry.
Let’s see if Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” is the most appropriate theme song for post-credits scenes: “Anticipation, anticipation / Is makin’ me late / Is keepin’ me waitin’.” Yup, it is.
Now, if a movie that is not “The Odyssey” could make me sleep, how much more if it is “The Odyssey”?
Odyssey means the most adventurous journey down a long and winding road with all kinds of obstacles known and even unknown to man. Whew. And despite the cinematic effects of all those obstacles, the long journey could still be an easy lullaby for sleep. Operative word: long.
But the rave reviews intrigued me, so I finally watched it and, based on my unique way of rating movies, it’s zero Zzs out of ten Zzzzzzzzzzs. I didn’t fall asleep at all, and it made me cry—the movie’s heaviness kept me awake the whole time, which shocked me because I’m not even familiar with Greek mythology.
That’s why I love watching movies even if I’ve made a bedroom out of SM’s Director’s Club. Some things are meant to stay the same, and experiencing the magic of movies inside a cinema is one luxury that I still cherish.
