Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at parents of infants who are taking in Christopher Nolan’s popular new epic, “The Odyssey” — with their babies in tow.
Millions of cinephiles and Greek mythology fans have poured into movie theaters across the country since July 17 to watch Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated new film, “The Odyssey,” based on the classic epic poem by Homer. As its popularity skyrockets, some theaters have allowed even the youngest moviegoers to take seats (or laps). Over the course of the nearly three-hour blockbuster, these viewers have cooed, cried and suckled. Some, understandably, grew fussy during the previews. Many of them showed up in strollers. They are the infants who have accompanied their parents to baby-friendly screenings of “The Odyssey,” part of a long-running but low-profile feature of the movie industry, as my colleague Andrew Keh wrote in a Saturday dispatch from screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse in Downtown Brooklyn and Nitehawk Cinema in Park Slope. Several theaters across the country offer these baby-friendly matinees, including at least five in New York City: Alamo Drafthouse features them at its three theaters, and Nitehawk Cinema, which has two theaters in Brooklyn, has added a special showing. Andrew writes that such “Adults with Infants” screenings allow parents to easily and affordably leave the house to take in a popular movie without shelling out big bucks on a babysitter or worrying about disturbing other people in the theater. As Stephanie Gittleman, a parent attending a 9:45 a.m. matinee with her 7-week-old, put it: “It’s hard to see a movie otherwise.” To prepare for the epic with an infant in tow, parents have made elaborate and extensive packing plans, as if gearing up for a long flight. In the theater, they spread blankets across their laps and parked strollers in the aisles. They ate popcorn while soothing their children. Many prayed to Zeus for their babies to nap. It is not the first time that parents have filled theaters with their young children, despite some protests from fellow adults. Lydia DeKok, a Nitehawk bartender, said one childless patron had left a baby-friendly screening of “Mad Max: Furiosa” and had scolded her and other staff members for allowing infants to watch movies with so much violence, foul language and sex. “He was like, How could you let babies watch this?” she laughingly recounted to Andrew. “And I’m like, The babies aren’t watching!” Still, the screenings are not without their challenges for parents, who have to balance caring for their children while trying to pay attention to the movie. During an especially long scene in “The Odyssey” where Odysseus is at odds with the goddess Circe, Morgan Belgrave had to excuse herself to soothe her daughter, Blythe, who was crying. Still, Andrew writes, she craned her neck in between baby bounces to keep up with the action. Some babyless moviegoers have been taken aback to discover infants in the audience, despite the theaters’ best efforts to label the special screenings. Two young men who bought tickets for the matinee quickly abandoned their plans after seeing “hella babies” in the seats around them, opting to exchange their tickets for a standard screening later in the day. For some parents, the screenings also offer a chance to keep up with pop culture and to avoid the ever-present spoilers of the movie. Others see the screenings as a nice break from the marathons of feeding and putting their children down for naps — or from watching “Frozen” on a loop. “Our friends who don’t have kids are all going to see ‘The Odyssey,’” Grace Hoerner, a mother and moviegoer, told Andrew, as her 5-week-old daughter, Kira, slept on her chest. “We want to be able to say we saw it, too.” WEATHER Expect showers and a possible thunderstorm with temperatures near 82. Rain is expected to continue into the night with a low near 71. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Aug. 15 (Feast of the Assumption). QUOTE OF THE DAY “He may have unintentionally saved her life.” — Hector C. Lora, the mayor of Passaic, N.J., on the 10-year-old boy who was credited with saving his 11-year-old sister after he and their 10-year-old sister fell into the rain-swollen Passaic River, were swept away and drowned. The older sister appeared to have been inadvertently shoved back toward the shoreline by her brother. The latest New York news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. METROPOLITAN DIARY Mother Bucka’s
Dear Diary: I was born and raised in Brooklyn. When I was 1, my family moved into a two-family house in East Flatbush. I became instant friends with the little girl who lived upstairs and was almost a year older than me. Her name was Elise. We became inseparable. Flash forward to when we were in our late teens. She met a guy who drove a taxi, and they became close very quickly. In spring 1977, she and I took a weekend trip to Washington, D.C., traveling on a bus that left from outside Grand Central. When we returned, her boyfriend, Bruce, came to pick us up along with a friend of his. The first thing we did was have ice cream at the guys’ favorite place, Mother Bucka’s, in the West Village. The next day, I was told that the friend, Jay, had asked for my phone number. A couple of weeks later, he called me. The first thing I said was: “It’s about time.” Flash forward again, and we’re now two married couples. Unfortunately, about 25 years later I became a widow. But Elise has celebrated over 40 years of marriage bliss. The best part about having a friend for over 60 years is all the reminiscing we still get to do about that wonderful trip to Mother Bucka’s, and the life it created for us. — Fran Sturm Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. — M.K. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
