Tenet (2020) (1 Viewer)

[Jason_V]

It’s hard to blame individuals for making decisions to travel or go out when there’s no consistent guidance from the top down, and when what little guidance is available is aimed more at encouraging businesses to reopen than not.

Is it something I’d do? No. But the guy here doesn’t appear to be breaking any rules. There’s no restriction on air travel. His destination state is allowing theaters to be open and not quarantining arrivals.

100% agree. If the airline is open and the thing he wants to do is open, then by all means, enjoy yourself. Do it safe and responsibly and you lessen your risk. To shut down commerce in an entire country for 9 months to a year is sheer lunacy. Aside from the economic hit the government takes from reduced or no revenue, the people can't take not getting paid for that long. Businesses don't have enough money to pay their people without them working and generating revenue through customers. People can't be customers if they don't have jobs or get paid.

What rule or law is this person breaking?

I have a work friend who has not left her apartment since March. She's a healthy, young woman with a husband who does the errands. When we talk about even going for a walk with masks and six feet apart, she bristles. Why? She's hella scared. I don' blame her for being scared, but I'm also not going to watch the world through my window. I'll be safe and do what I can to stay that way. Everything we do in life includes risk, including the after dinner mint I also choked on Sunday afternoon.

 

[Jake Lipson]

What rule or law is this person breaking?

I didn't say he was breaking a rule or law. Of course the people interviewed in the article are within their rights to do as they wish and may therefore make their own decisions. I just think this is the kind of thing that is going to make matters worse before they get better, so I find it unfortunate.

I get it. I love the movie theater so much, as do most of us here, and I miss being able to go there dearly. I wish there was a way for me to see Tenet in a theater safely. But the best way for us to get back to a place where doing that is safe for all is to make sacrifices like this now so that we can have nice things later.

 

[Jason_V]

Oh, I know you didn't, my friend. 100% didn't mean to imply you did.

We tried having everything closed. That didn't work for various reasons. We've tried appeals to morality and social responsibility. That didn't work. We're not going to get a national decree or law like other places have gotten. So what's the next move? The only thing I can think of is people who are comfortable doing things go and those who aren't, don't.

 

[TravisR]

This is the stupidest thing I've read all week.

It makes me angry how stupid and unsafe this is. It is only going to make things worse. I just can't even...

‘We’ll Do Anything to See ‘Tenet”: Meet the Fans Taking Flights for Christopher Nolan’s Latest

They know how it looks, and they don't care. For Christopher Nolan, navigating pandemic air travel and governmental red tape is worth it.

variety.com

From the article:

"My friends think I’m crazy, going all the way across the country to watch it, but we want to show support for this film and we’ll do anything to see it."

They're right, dude. Leaving out the pandemic and the risks related to that, just flying to go see a movie that you may not like is nutty.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

100% agree. If the airline is open and the thing he wants to do is open, then by all means, enjoy yourself. Do it safe and responsibly and you lessen your risk. To shut down commerce in an entire country for 9 months to a year is sheer lunacy. Aside from the economic hit the government takes from reduced or no revenue, the people can't take not getting paid for that long. Businesses don't have enough money to pay their people without them working and generating revenue through customers. People can't be customers if they don't have jobs or get paid.

What rule or law is this person breaking?

I have a work friend who has not left her apartment since March. She's a healthy, young woman with a husband who does the errands. When we talk about even going for a walk with masks and six feet apart, she bristles. Why? She's hella scared. I don' blame her for being scared, but I'm also not going to watch the world through my window. I'll be safe and do what I can to stay that way. Everything we do in life includes risk, including the after dinner mint I also choked on Sunday afternoon.

I actually disagree with your conclusion though we both agree the guy can’t be blamed for doing something that was available to him.

If the entire country had shut down the way European countries shut down and the way New York shut down, we could have some semblance of normal. We didn’t, so we can’t.

I actually think going out and patronizing non-essential businesses now is simply prolonging the pain by allowing the virus to continue to spread. Indoor dining, theaters, all of that being open now will have the result of making this go on even longer, thus making more people afraid or unwilling to take chances, thus leading to longer periods of economic duress. This is continuing to the degree it is because we have not collectively committed to meaningful action.

The biggest problem continues to be the virus’s long latency period between when an individual catches it and when they first experience symptoms, and the up to two week period between when they get it to when they know they have it, and the ability of the virus to be spread by those who do not yet realize they’re sick. And that’s what makes things like “lesson your risk” ineffective in my view. For most contagious illnesses, they don’t spread like this and there isn’t a tragically long period where sick people are spreading the illness without realizing it. If there was a way for an individual to go to a theater and only risk their own well-being, it would be a different story. But you could go to the movies, get sick, not know it for two weeks, and then give it to everyone you see between then and now.

We’re now seeing reports that one business meeting in Boston led to tens of thousands of infections around the country.

What happens if, for example, someone goes to the movies, gets sick, doesn’t know it, then goes and teaches at a school, gives it to their students, and then those students give it to the rest of the school and all the parents? By the time the teacher knows he’s sick, it’s far too late.

I have a hard time with the notion of individual risk with this particular virus because one person accepting an individual risk means that everyone they come in contact with must also accept that risk. My neighbor choosing to go to a movie makes it more dangerous for me to go to the supermarket. We don’t really see that to this extent with other illnesses.

This is unprecedented in our lifetimes which means the fallout and the ideas of what we should do to contain it will also seem unprecedented and perhaps unworkable, but any problems faced in fighting the virus could be overcome if only there was a will to do so. Unfortunately, there is not.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

We tried having everything closed. That didn't work for various reasons.

I think this is the biggest problem. We didn’t actually try this but we’re acting as if we did. If you look at what the countries that have had success battling the virus actually closed during their shutdowns vs what we closed down, by comparison we didn’t close. And we abandoned our incomplete shutdown before the science told us it was safe to do so.

 

[Jason_V]

I don't disagree with any of your points, Josh, honestly. Anything that affects one of us can be communicable to others, for sure. But if I do my part by keeping tabs on how I feel and do the things we should do to lessen risk and you do the same thing, we may not eliminate risk completely, but we've both done our part to keep each other safe.

The number of things open in the spring in my part of the country was really limited. Essentially pharmacies and stores which sold food. That's it. The difference between us and Europe is that we don't have the social support systems Europe does. If we had paid people to stay home and not go to work...if we had shut everything down except the most essential things...if we had healthcare tied to something other than employment...if we had a higher national saving rate and a lower debt rate...if we didn't have a patchwork of rules and guidelines that changed state to state and law enforcement announced they wouldn't enforce...if we believed science and experts over politicians...if we had judges who upheld a governor's right to shut everything down...lots of if's there, I know.

 

[Wayne_j]

I think this is why Governor Cuomo didn't want to open anything that would encourage people to travel out of their area before the entire state was reopened. People flying across the country to go to a movie isn't a great idea right now.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The number of things open in the spring in my part of the country was really limited. Essentially pharmacies and stores which sold food. That's it.

You’re in Washington state? Just curious. That’s actually kinda awesome that so much around you had been closed - if the rest of the country had been as restricted them, we could have been mostly done with this now.

New York is doing among the best, if not the best, of all the states. And yet, I was flabbergasted at what things were allowed to remain open, and then how many things that should have been closed that somehow weren’t, and it was not exactly reassuring. They allowed construction of luxury condos to continue as “essential”. One of my relatives was going out several times a week to the plant nursery to buy garden supplies. Any cuisine you could think of was available for takeout or delivery. It didn’t seem like there was anything that one couldn’t go out and get so long as they ignored the risks in doing so. And what scares me is, if that’s how it was in one of the “good results” states, what does that mean for the rest of them?

I can’t blame the dumb kid for taking a short, cheap flight to participate in an activity he’s waited years for. I can blame the rest of our systems and societal structure for allowing him that option in the first place.

 

[Jason_V]

You’re in Washington state? Just curious. That’s actually kinda awesome that so much around you had been closed - if the rest of the country had been as restricted them, we could have been mostly done with this now.

Yup, right outside of Seattle.

Having things closed was nice, though I was very lucky to have worked from home the entire time. I understand the personal economic need to have things open. I do. Working in a business where we help small businesses start up, it's vital to be able to open gyms and yogurt shops and car care shops and dog grooming...if they don't open, our company makes no money and I don't get a paycheck. Then there's the other part about locking down for the greater good. We, as a country, zigged when we should have zagged.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Yup, right outside of Seattle.

Say hey to my cousin for me!

There’s no doubt that all of this is really difficult to navigate. I appreciate this conversation we’ve been having - if we had more of this kind of discourse at all levels, we’d be a better world indeed.

 

[Jake Lipson]

From the article I linked on the previous page:

“I’m not too worried,” he shrugs. “If I get sick, that’s my problem, but I want to make sure I don’t get anyone else sick, so I’ll be following the precautions.”

That's the problem right there. He can do as he wishes, but following the precautions does not guarantee that other people won't get sick. Could he go and see it and get lucky and be fine? Sure, maybe. But he could also go and see it and get sick without knowing it, which makes it other people's problem. Although he does not have bad intentions, everyone he comes into contact with for two weeks after his screening has a potential problem.

Also, he is obviously a big Nolan fan. Presumably this means he would like to be alive to see whatever Christopher Nolan makes as his next film after Tenet. Is Tenet really worth seeing that much if it's the last movie you're going to see? It's going to be sad for me not to see Tenet in the theater right now. But I'm going to skip it so that I stay alive for whatever's next after the virus is finally over.

On another note, advance ticket sales are outpacing Dunkirk and Interstellar at the same point in their sales cycles, which scares me.

‘Tenet’ Advance Ticket Sales Besting ‘Dunkirk’ & ‘Interstellar’ In US, UK & Australia – Movio Insights

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s the first good sign we’ve gotten on advance tickets sales for Warner Bros.’ Tenet, particularly here in the U.S. Movio cinema analytics corp tells Deadline that …

deadline.com

On the one hand, it's possible that more people are buying online in advance than they did before in order to reduce in theater contact, which would be a good thing. But on the other, this suggests that a lot of people are going to accept the risk for themselves (and others) in order to see the movie. I wish they wouldn't.

 

[Jason_V]

I dunno...the last movie I saw in the theater was The Hunt. Now, if THAT was the last movie I ever saw in a theater, I'd be pretty devastated...

 

[Jake Lipson]

Now, if THAT was the last movie I ever saw in a theater, I'd be pretty devastated...

That's why I'm super glad my last one was Onward. Of course, I didn't know it was the last one at the time, so it wasn't a conscious decision on my part for it to be that. But still. If there had to be a last one for a while, I couldn't possibly have done any better than that.

Of course, I look forward to the day when I can safely remove Onward of that distinction and see something else. But right now I just can't see that happening until there is an effective vaccine that has been distributed widely enough for me to have it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I dunno...the last movie I saw in the theater was The Hunt. Now, if THAT was the last movie I ever saw in a theater, I'd be pretty devastated...

My last was Call of the Wild - if you gotta stop somewhere, you could do a lot worse than a couple hours with Harrison Ford.

 

[Jake Lipson]

if you gotta stop somewhere, you could do a lot worse than a couple hours with Harrison Ford.

Ford was the best part of that movie for sure. Unfortunately, the fake dog didn't work for me at all though, which made the whole movie kind of hard to invest in.

 

[Wayne_j]

My last film in a theater was King Kong (1933).

 

[Jake Lipson]

King Kong

That's another really good one, of course.

Speaking of re-releases and bringing the thread back on topic, I really do hope Warner Bros. finds an empty weekend at some point after the virus is over to bring Tenet back out again. It's obviously coming now and there's nothing we can do to keep the train from leaving the station, so I have accepted the fact that I will miss this release and see it on Blu-ray. But if they brought it back out, even for a brief period Fathom style, after it is actually unquestionably safe to go, I would probably do that.

The only way I wouldn't Is if I really hate it when I get the Blu-ray, but I doubt that very much. The only Nolan film that didn't really interest me for repeat viewing was Dunkirk, and it was still a very interesting and well-made piece of work. I do think Tenet will be more to my liking because he seems to be working in the same sphere as Inception and Interstellar which I think are great.

Of course, there might not be very many empty weekends, particularly if more tentpoles get delayed. But we'll see what happens.

 

[TravisR]

The only Nolan film that didn't really interest me for repeat viewing was Dunkirk, and it was still a very interesting and well-made piece of work.

Dunkirk is probably my second favorite Nolan movie with Interstellar being the top of the list. There's a couple moments in Dunkirk that I found to legitimately thrilling and a couple in Interstellar that I found legitimately moving.


The last two movies I saw in a theater were Onward and The Rise Of Skywalker.

My last film in a theater was King Kong (1933).

You haven't been to the movies in 87 years?

 

[Wayne_j]

Dunkirk is probably my second favorite Nolan movie with Interstellar being the top of the list. There's a couple moments in Dunkirk that I found to legitimately thrilling and a couple in Interstellar that I found legitimately moving.


The last two movies I saw in a theater were Onward and The Rise Of Skywalker.


You haven't been to the movies in 87 years?

A Fathom Event obviously