Late Night Movie Night 2020 🎥
The following narration represents an actual live, in-person, in-the-moment account of the event in question. This statement is absolutely true*:
It’s Friday night. You don’t have anything to do (who really does these days anymore anyways, right?), so you figure it’d be a good night to stay in (ha ha) and watch a movie. You change into your comfiest set of pajamas, pour yourself a cup of tea, and sit back in your chair. You’re incredibly comfortable, but you can’t shake that feeling of isolation and loneliness that’s been weighing down on you. It feels like it’s been so long since you’ve seen people just to hang out (at least since what was it… Tournament of Champions?). Good thing you don’t have to worry about that tonight.
Because tonight is APASA’s Late Night Movie Night!
Clicking the Zoom link this time isn’t accompanied by the flood of self-hatred that clicking into class normally gives you. As the swirling screen ushers you into the room, you can’t believe your ears for a moment.
Is that… Dynamite? Like Taio Cruz Dynamite? Like middle school dance Dynamite?? Like I came to dance dance dance dance Dynamite???
It’s so absurd you can’t help but smile for a moment. Then the music stops, and the INCREDIBLE event host Cody’s cheery voice comes on to announce the start of the event. The movie kicks right off, playing from the streaming platform smoother than a fresh oiled set of-
A joke, a joke—Zoom doesn’t work like that. A few clunky (like Kimberly’s internet) moments pass, but the technologically advanced miracle of the 8081 bandwidth comes through, and the movie soon begins unfolding before you from Cody’s screen. You (yes, you) know what the movie is at this point—The Farewell, Golden Globe winner extraordinaire featuring Awkwafina’s character Bili and her extremely mediocre Chin- I mean attempts to reconnect with her grandma while grappling with the question of whether or not to notify her of her impending death. You laugh, you cry, you cringe a little inside at the unfortunately relatable family dinner scene where Bili gets told how useless she her career choices are as the parents rant about how great being Chinese is, and you—MAJOR SPOILERS—heave a massive sigh of frustration when you find out in the end that Bili’s grandma DIDN'T DIE (Patrick here, yes I am very opinionated about this).
And there’s really something to be said about sharing that experience with others, no matter the countless months and miles that we’ve been separated by. Finding connection even amidst the gray banality of quarantine life I think remains something remarkable— that even in a period defined by isolation, our hearts and minds can still be together.
*Yeah, no
1 Hawaii’s area code