Return of the double feature
Did you join in the Barbenheimer craze? What two movies would you like to see on the same day?
Social cinema
When’s the last time you went on a movie date? Perhaps it’s time to treat yourself again.
It doesn’t have to be with a significant other, it can be with a friend or a group of friends.
Perhaps it could become a regular event where you see the film and then discuss it over a meal or coffee, as you might in a book club.
Once upon a time, there was the Saturday matinee, when neighbourhood picture palaces would screen two movies across an afternoon.
A trip to the movies would not only include two full-length movies, but also a newsreel, a cartoon and maybe a “short” – perhaps a comedy sketch starring the Three Stooges, an adventure serial, or a travelogue – and, if you were lucky, there would be a choc-top ice cream at interval.
The double feature itself would often comprise a “B” movie – one made on a low budget and perhaps a little older – plus a blockbuster starring the hottest stars of the moment.
Sometimes it might be two films of the same genre – goofball comedy, science fiction, detective or adventure – or with the same lead actor.
Back then, going to the cinema was an event, the natural successor to music-hall variety shows. It might even begin with a few tunes played on a grand Wurlitzer organ that emerged from beneath the stage.
The concept is long gone, replaced by television and multiplexes with many screens that each play just one movie on high rotation.
The choc-tops are still there – but you buy them from the “candy bar” rather than an usherette with a tray of goodies, including popcorn and lollies such as Fantales and Jaffas (which often ended up being rolled down the aisles by the bad boys up the back).
But it’s still possible to create your own double feature by putting aside an afternoon or evening and seeing one film after the other.
And that’s what a huge number of people did, in Australia and worldwide, recently when two of the biggest films this year were released on the same day.
They were Barbie, starring Margot Robbie as the famous pink-clad toy doll, and Oppenheimer, about the man who was the driving force behind the creation of the atomic bombs that ended World War II by killing tens of thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The combined running lengths of the films is nearly five hours, so it was a major commitment to see them both in the same day.
Cinemagoer Harrison Croft told the Sydney Morning Herald, “It was electric, kind of like a major sporting event had come to town.
“The whole audience was laughing at Barbie and everyone was intensely focused on not missing any dialogue in Oppenheimer. It felt like more of a community experience.”
Cinema owners were certainly happy, too.
Ritz cinema marketing manager Jaymes Durante said, “People aren’t pitting these films against each other, they’re coming out and planning on seeing both, proving that a crowded market creates a healthy box office rather than a cut-throat environment.”
At the time of writing, both films have done extraordinarily well at the box office, with Barbie grossing more than US$1 billion (A$1.53 billion) worldwide.
There’s no word, however, whether anyone was caught rolling their Jaffas down the aisle.
