I was talking with an older coworker recently where he told me him and his wife love seeing movies. They have a movie pass to get rewards and tickets and he said "Megan, it's worth it."
I had to break it to him that as a 30 year old in the world of social media and me having to be connected at all times, I can't sit through a whole movie. I'm always on my phone or I get up for a second then when I come back, I am no longer in the movie or TV mood so I turn it off.
But I wasn't always like this. I used to love movies and I was able to binge a TV show for fun while paying attention to all of it. I read books now instead and if you question how my ADHD survives me sitting and reading, I will always answer with "I have no idea how it works, but it does." Talking to my coworker made me realize: I miss movies. Not only did he talk me into looking into movie reward programs for myself, I was getting excited to look into what movies are coming out next year.
I started to think about my personal benefits of going to see movies again:
* I will HAVE to put my phone away so I can't use it at all. It'll be nice to relax for at least an hour without constant checking.
* Watching a movie will take my mind off so many things and it's essentially a form of self care for me.
* I would love to go by myself so I don't have to make conversation with anyone before or after the movie, but I'm not against having other people tag along sometimes. I also don't want to rely on other people's schedules, so I'm going to focus on going solo.
* The rewards program I pick will get me good movie butter popcorn and I always need that in my life.
* I would love to write reviews on the movies I see. I haven't written for fun in a long time and I think it would make me feel good to be able to write something with my humor and thoughts.
The only 'con' was the spending money part. But if I see one movie a month, my goodness, I can handle that. I decided to start officially in January for Megan's Movie Me Time and I WAS going to join AMC Theater's reward program called Stubs Premiere. It's only $15 per YEAR (yes, I googled that because I thought it was wrong LOL) and for someone who is financially not able to do a per month thing, it was smart for me. Also, this is of course not sponsored but here's the AMC Stubs link to see the tiers: X
But then I talked to my mom about how our local movie theater, Classic Cinemas, has a FREE reward program. Classic Cinemas is kind of like the indie bookstore of my town, but cheaper. Their movie tickets are $5 and a medium popcorn is $7 with free refills. Their seats are brand new and heated. And with all of that, I don't have to pay for their reward program? The 'con' here is that they don't have any smaller or indie movies they show, but what's stopping me to going to another theater if I want to see those? I just won't get points (which isn't a huge deal.) But Classic Cinemas, you got me; I'm joining.
I was so excited about this new thing for me that I started watching movie trailers for January and February 2024 to see which movies floated my boat and which ones did not. Here's what I found:
Movies I definitely don't want to see but watched the trailer to check it out:
* Sometimes I Think About Dying
* Madame Web
Movies I do want to see:
* Mean Girls (January)
* It Ends With Us (February) (Is this movie still coming out?)
* Lisa Frankenstein (February)
I still have to do some research for March and on but it was fun to see what I wanted to watch!
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On November 28th, I had a bad day and needed to get out of the house. I said "I really want to see The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" so I went to the movies by myself as a trial run for January. I got popcorn, a cherry icee, and a empty theater all to myself. I thought the movie was messy and do not recommend it (MOVIE REVIEW TO COME IN ANOTHER POST!!) but I only looked at my phone once during the unnecessarily long movie but only to check the time.
When I was driving home, I felt so....refreshed. It definitely was a new feeling for me! I didn't check my notifications or emails, if I had to get up, I did so to get my free icee refills, and I did enjoy the main guy in the movie, so it was NICE. I don't do self care much because I physically and mentally cannot anymore. I have too much to do for others or things to stress about to ever take time for myself. Again, my phone is my lifeline. But I'm a kind person and a movie theater rule follower, so knowing I had to put my phone away (even in an empty theater) was the break I needed.
Of course, the notification amount was crazy when I looked at them afterwards, but I decided to talk about the movie with my family at home instead of replying to them right away. I also didn't dwell on my bad day until I was back home from the movie. WHO AM I!?
Shoutout to my coworker who gave me this idea without knowing the positive implications it will have on my life. Well, at least for 2024.
**I'm trying to think of a clever name for the movie review series I'm going to write on this blog so give me a chance to play with some things first because my goodness, this one is hard!**