Movies: Escape or Compass?

Is it ever really "just a movie?" Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Most of us Gen X'ers raised ourselves on pop culture

We didn't exactly have a choice.

"You’ll be swell, you’ll be great, gonna have the whole world on a plate!”

Our old record player used to crackle with the voices of Merman, Streisand, and Garland. My mother used to sing "Everything's Coming Up Roses", completely unfazed that our life was anything but roses.

But that song became the refrain of my childhood, a reminder that, somehow, things could always change. Movies, music, and stories were my first taste of magic and the easiest way to escape when I needed to.

Which was a lot. I don't think we ever really grow out of that need; we just get better at pretending we don't.

I don’t remember exactly when I first saw The Wizard of Oz, but I vividly remember the annual ritual: my mother ceremoniously wheeling the TV into my room and eating popcorn out of a mixing bowl (extra butter, of course) in my bed.

And when Dorothy stepped into glorious Technicolor? Sigh.

There was a lot in my childhood that I couldn’t control, and movies were the only place in my life that didn't require hypervigilance.

That total immersion still gets most of us good when a story really gets to you. Case in point: I recently sobbed through the second half of Me Before You while my family looked on with concern and secondhand embarrassment.

I know it's not exactly high art, so I wasn't expecting much. But there I was, crying over fictional people, as if their choices affected me personally.

It was awesome.

My cinematic education was eclectic, to say the least. I was enthusiastically singing show tunes before I was old enough to understand what I was singing about.

I knew every word of, Dance: Ten, Looks: Three, before I even had boobs. I honestly thought When You're Good to Mama was just about helping with chores.

Thanks to VHS, I got completely hooked on musicals like Fame, A Chorus Line, and Staying Alive. I couldn't get enough of "the big show" endings.

Movies like that taught me early on that success takes work, nothing is guaranteed, and if you're lucky, you might see the antagonist get theirs.

Once I was old enough to actually sit in a theatre and pay attention, I experienced that shared energy of an audience reacting as one, something every filmmaker hopes to create.

For a long time, that kind of experience felt like common ground, didn't it?

Lately, though, movies seem to be judged more on whether they’re “correct” instead of whether they’re actually, you know, good.

And look, I get it - the world’s a hot mess, and I stay informed because I do care about what's going on in the world. But when I finally carve out two hours for a movie, nine times out of ten it's because I need a break from it.

I’m not against messages. I’m just not keen on feeling like there's a quiz afterward.

Years after my mother made Oz night our annual ritual, my daughter and I created one of our own. She was eight when Iron Man launched the MCU, already a superhero nerd like her mother.

At that age, I was wearing out videotapes of Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Star Wars. So, it became our thing, one movie, one post-credits scene at a time.

We collected memories like Infinity Stones. (Sorry, couldn't resist the metaphor.)

And then we got to Endgame.

Opening weekend. Sold-out theater. The atmosphere was buzzing with anticipation and excitement that you could feel down to your bones.

For three hours, we all laughed at the inside jokes and basked in every full-circle plot element.

When Nat sacrificed herself for the Soul Stone, we were stunned into silence.

When Mjölnir flew into Cap’s hand, the theatre erupted.  

Then, that static crackle of "Cap, on your left"...chills.

Portals opened from Wakanda, Titan, New Asgard, the Sanctums, Kamar-Taj... One by one, the lost ones returned, and the crowd lost its collective mind.

When T’Challa yelled, “Yibambe!” we roared it back like we were all gonna throw down on Thanos. It was peak insanity in the best possible way.

And then:
“Avengers… assemble.”

Two little words signifying eleven years of storytelling, hitting their crescendo in one of the most epic moments in cinema history.

People were screaming and high-fiving total strangers. It was like the Super Bowl, a Comic-Con reveal, and a biblical rapture all rolled into one.
(Too dramatic? Maybe, but not if you were there.)

That final battle scene was a masterclass in communal cinematic experience and payoff. It was huge and emotional, and it earned every second of the years invested to get there.

And then, this:

Oh, we were not ready. At all. One second, we were riding this glorious high of victory, and the next, Marvel bitch-slapped us with the greatest loss in the MCU.

We'd grown up with this character. A decade of wisecracks, upgrades, close calls, bad decisions, and all the “I shouldn’t love him, but I absolutely do” moments.

After ten years, Tony Stark didn't exactly feel like just a character anymore. So when that awful, inevitable moment came, the pain was real, for that moment in time, anyway.

And then little Morgan said she wanted a cheeseburger at her father's funeral. My heart.

That's how they get you, and you freaking love it.

Years have passed, and plenty of us would give anything to experience that again for the first time.

And yes, I know it’s a big, nerdtastic, CGI superhero movie. But it was peak storytelling that cared about its characters and respected its audience.

For my daughter and me, it was also the end of a tradition. Our thing. And now it was over...or so I thought.

I am self-aware enough to see the silliness of rhapsodizing about a comic book movie. But great storytelling transcends genre, does it not?

I've been equally affected by movies like Schindler's List, Children of Men, the D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan, Artax sinking in The Neverending Story (hello, childhood trauma), Yondu's funeral, and the final scene of The Father.

I've only seen The Father once because once was more than enough. I've provided hospice care three times, and watching this reminded me just how precious time really is and why we shouldn't waste it.

Yondu's last words: “He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn’t your daddy,” were a perfectly imperfect expression of how he loved Quill the only way he knew how, more than Quill ever realized, until it was too late.

That made me think about what I'd never had in my own life and inspired me to be more intentional with people I love while they're still with me.

This isn't exactly groundbreaking stuff here; the best movies have always done this.

But not Cats. That movie sucked.

What Endgame had that those films didn't was eleven years of inside jokes, silly debates, and all the little moments that made us crave even more.

The post-Endgame years, however, were a whole different story, and I've already written about that.

That's why I'm excited for Fantastic Four and Doomsday. There's real talent here. Matt Shakman's directing, and the Russos are back (thank God). If anyone can nail it, it's them.

Because I don't simply want something good. And at this point in my life, I don't even want any guidance.

I want to be cinematically bitch-slapped again.

Heather Papovich is the writer behind Unfinished Business, essays on real life, pop culture, and the fine art of not completely losing it.