New Experience: Secret Cinema

The Beacon is one of my favorite movie theaters in Seattle: it's small but very well kept, with comfortable seats, a bright projection, and great sound. It doesn't show the regular comercial fare, preferring instead to show independent movies, and also some classic movies from the past (as I saw myself the first time I went there, when I watched "Sorcerer", a classic movie from the 70's). Among other cool things, from time to time The Beacon has a Secret Cinema session.

The idea is this: as marked in their calendar, on a given day they will have a session in which they will not divulge which movie will be shown. To make things more interesting, that given session will be completely free: all you have to do is show up. Doors open half an hour in advance, by which time there already is a line outside (as you can see in one of the pictures below). People are allowed in until the room gets fully occupied and then, at the scheduled time, an employee from The Beacon comes up to give some comments about the movie you're about to watch, but still keeping it a surprise.

I checked out a Secret Cinema session last Friday. The employee in one of the pictures below made some comments about how the movie we were about to watch was, well, very unexpected, but he emphasized that part of the fun of Secret Cinema is that movies vary wildly from session to session: on the next Secret Cinema session we would probably watch a completely different movie from this one. So we were all very excited to see what was waiting for us, the lights turned off and then...

...they started showing Jackass: The Movie. Talk about unexpected! I would have never, ever, guessed that The Beacon would show that. But they did! It was really gross, revolting, brain dead... and funny. To my forever shame (and of the other people in the theater) we couldn't help it but there were a number of times that we laughed out loud. I hate to admit it, but I actually had a great time.

So, there you have it: on Secret Cinema, you get to watch a movie for free, but you can never know what you're going to get!






Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 18, 2024 at 11:09 PM

    👍 I love the idea of showing up without knowing what to expect, and the surprise of watching something as unexpected as Jackass :D

    ReplyDelete

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