My last free ticket at Cinema Nova

There were a lot of ways I felt like a dinosaur on Wednesday night, someone holding on to something that is no longer viable -- and looking pathetic to everyone around him to boot.

I came into the city for a day of work and to go to baseball practice, which is a stone's throw from Cinema Nova in Carlton. Nova is the inner city's premier arthouse cinema -- perhaps the premier arthouse cinema in all of Victoria -- which is notable for the fact that it's an arthouse cinema in the body of a multiplex. The screens are not all huge -- in fact the majority of them are tiny -- but there are like 16 of them, mostly playing independent films, and not all of which play four times a day. So that means if there's something in the arthouse that's out right now, you'll find it among the 20+ films that are playing at Nova at any given moment.

It has also been one of the places that always took my critics card, but that came to a sudden end on Wednesday night -- bizarrely, halfway through the night.

I had originally intended to attend the two+ hour practice and then come to see Kogonada's After Yang at 8:30. But when our normal playing field was off limits to us on Wednesday night due to a conflict from another athletic team, the practice became more about hitting in the batting cages and then using some very small patches of grass to do some limited fielding drills. I got there early, did my hitting and then left in order to sneak in a cheeky 5:45 viewing of Celine Sciamma's Petite Maman, which, like After Yang, has only just opened in Australia, months after it opened elsewhere. The movie is only 73 minutes long, so I felt like I couldn't afford not to take the opportunity to see it, especially if the alternative were jockeying with 70 other baseball players on a patch of grass smaller than a basketball court.

The first thing that made me feel absurd was what I was wearing and what I was dragging behind me. Because I came straight from practice, I had on my Melbourne University practice jersey, my cap, and sweatpants. Not really a proper appearance for a critic attending a screening of a movie he plans to review, but Australians don't judge you on things like that. (And lest you think it's weird that I'm on a baseball team that's associated with a university, it's a giant program that takes people of all ages -- there are probably at least five people older than me across the club's eight men's teams.)

And then there was what I was dragging. I have a bag that's about the shape of a bag for carrying golf clubs, only this one is designed for baseball equipment -- bat, cleats, glove, batting gloves, that sort of thing. It's one of those bags with wheels, so you can drag it, but as soon as you try to go fast, the wheels come out of alignment and it teeters on them, twisting your wrist and requiring you to stop and settle them again. Since I was hurrying to the cinema to get there on time, I had to do this quite a bit.

So I rocked up not only with this bag, but with my backpack, which was carrying my work computer as well. Again not a problem since no one frisks you in Australian cinemas to make sure you aren't carrying in any contraband. (And I wasn't -- not for this movie at least.)

I flashed my critics card, got the free ticket to Petite Maman and found three consecutive seats to myself where I could spread out all my baggage -- literal and metaphorical.

Well, the first disappointment of the night was my shrugging reaction to Petite Maman. Given how I adored Sciamma's previous film, 2019's Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I was quite surprised to see how disconnected I felt from this very early on. I figured an "a-ha!" moment would still come along to salvage it, but it never did. You can read my full review here. 

The movie's short length left me plenty of time to eat a nice dinner on Lygon Street, which has a number of good restaurants, many of them Italian, with seating on the sidewalk. I chose one of them and sat outside, despite a very light rain that fell at different points of the meal. The dinner was yummy as hell and I had plenty of time to get to After Yang at 8:30.

This is where the evening took a bit of a nosedive. 

As I was in the queue for tickets, I saw the guy who had given me my first ticket behind the counter, but he wasn't at a register so I seemed likely to avoid him. This is my preference as I kind of feel like I am getting away with something if I get two free tickets in the same night, even though there is nothing about my critics card that would specifically prohibit this. The feeling of prospective shame was exacerbated by my goofy appearance and all the bags I had with me. I mean, there was no chance I would blend in with the other patrons at the cinema. 

When I got to the front, I did avoid him and provided my request to the woman at the register. However, you never know if the person who is taking your order is familiar with the rules for free tickets for critics, and indeed, she had to check with that same guy who had issued me my Petite Maman ticket. He told me that after he'd issued my free ticket earlier, he'd checked with his manager and discovered that Nova no longer issues complimentary tickets for critics, only a $2 industry discount, meaning my $20 ticket would be $18 instead. 

Flustered, I stepped out of line to try to find documentation that proves my eligibility for a free ticket, since I used to carry in my backpack a list issued by my organization of the movie theaters that accept our critics card. This was a new backpack and I hadn't transferred that list over to it. I went into my email on my phone and couldn't find the proof there either. In fact, I found the proof that late in 2020, we'd gotten word from the critics organization that Nova is not honoring the card "until further notice," and that we needed to respect that decision. I vaguely remembered this, but also thought it was a short-term pandemic thing.

Having already taken up this adversarial position toward the Nova staff, I had to come back to the guy to say "I'll take your word for it, since I guess I don't have any other choice." Then we got into a small semantic disagreement in which he acknowledged that they accepted the card "ages ago," to which I countered "Well, like last year." I guess it had probably been early 2020, but I couldn't relinquish my position. 

The guy was unfailingly polite throughout -- I never got to the point of rude either -- but at this point he did feel like it was time to play his trump card, which was "Well, you already got a free ticket earlier so that was good for you." Might not be right on that exact wording. In any case, it was still polite but strident enough to work as a zinger that left me no alternative than to pay my $18 and drag all my bags in to see After Yang.

This was another of the smaller screening rooms, but unlike Petite Maman, this one was going to be close to full -- at least in the row where my seat was. So while I started with my bags spread out, I quickly realized this was not going to be viable -- and when I had to rapidly remove my bag from the seat to make way for a couple women sitting next to me, it revealed my box of orange Hostess cupcakes I'd smuggled in with me. One of the women made a humorous little comment about the contraband -- not judgmental per se, but in my frame of my mind I had no choice but to take it that way. So not only was I this ridiculous person in a baseball outfit with too many bags, and Lord knows how clean I was in her mind, but I had also violated cinema policy by bringing in outside food. Not just any outside food, but a box of cupcakes, which felt extra piggy.

Although I now had a person sitting directly next to me, which I like to avoid if at all possible, I didn't want to move because I didn't want that to seem like me leaving my seat in a huff after she discovered my criminal behavior. Besides, if I moved to another seat, that might also belong to someone else. But when the two seats on the other side of me were also soon filled, and I again had to clear my excessive quantity of bags, it gave me the excuse I needed. I said to the two new arriving guys "I'll move, I've just got too much stuff."

Fortunately, when I went down closer to the screen to a row most viewers don't dare venture, I did get the three seats I needed and watched the movie without incident.

As a capper, I didn't like After Yang as much as I wanted to either. For maybe two-thirds I thought it had a chance to move into my #1 spot for the year, but I thought it lost focus in the final third and started to meander and sort of repeat itself. Still a very good movie, but ending in mild disappointment -- which felt very symbolic for this particular day. 

The accumulation of the evening's events left me very contemplative on the way home. I was wondering how much longer our critics card would be accepted anywhere -- even though one of Nova's competitors, which is a lot closer to me and which shows both arthouse and blockbuster films, still does accept my card without blinking, every time. And that got me thinking about the continued viability of film criticism on the whole, a pursuit that has lost a little bit of its luster for me lately as well. The absurdity of me wearing my baseball uniform and dragging around all these bags only compounded things, as it reminded me how I have isolated myself in my new house, and how things that were once so easy for me are now inevitably far more challenging. Looking at my reflection in the train window, I saw a tired schlub with too much baggage.