Movies Around The Clock

In New York City, there are various establishments that are open 24 hours: supermarkets, laundromats, gas stations, newsstands, drugstore chains like Rite Aid, to name a few. But there are no 24-hour theatres. There are a couple of theatres in the city that have midnight screenings during the weekends, but that is not the same as having 24-hour screenings.

Some people may think that in this age of the Internet, DVD/Blu-ray disc players, cable and satellite TV that a 24-hour movie theatre is unnecessary. I disagree. There are times when at 2 AM cabin fever strikes and you need  to get out of the house. What better way to escape cabin fever than to catch a flick at the admittedly ungodly hour of 2 AM or 3 AM alongside other similarly afflicted patrons.

Showing movies (classic and contemporary along with short films) around the clock would help the bottom lines of many theatres as well as give movie lovers an opportunity to make new friends among fellow cinephiles, especially in the wee hours of the morning, thereby sparking cinema-related (and other) conversations.

That brings me to a photo I saw in an issue of the Christian Science Monitor Weekly magazine (December 22, 2014) showing a movie theatre in a Moscow suburb with several rows of beds. Beside each bed was a nightstand on top of which was a small lamp. This theatre, noted the caption, "replaced standard seats with bedroom furniture, including 17 double beds," all of which were supplied by the furniture retailer IKEA. An American movie theatre with such amenities might lure a lot of people to post-post-midnight screenings.

This 24-hour movie theatre idea is worth a try. And who knows, it might catch on nationwide.