The regular box office is back. Ordinarily, that sentence would arrive with exclamation points. But after six months of pandemic-induced nothing, the numbers are still off. Theaters are showing films but at a reduced capacity, and mine in New York City are still closed, which helps explain how, in the last weekend of August, the Top 10 movies made just $12.5 million. I would love to see “Kajillionaire,” but “in a schlep to New Jersey and maybe get sick” sort of way? As it is, I raced over there for “Tenet” a few weeks ago and left sad.
The conditions were optimal. New Jersey caps theater attendance at 25 percent, and my boss rented out the entire house as a precaution. So a few of my colleagues and I sat rows apart and agreed to remain masked the entire time. It was lonely. That’s, in part, because I was enduring another soulless Christopher Nolan afternoon. “Tenet” is a save-the-world heist puzzle with yachts and spies. Nolan cares about time and space as mechanical matters that are meant to double as existential. What a skilled delusionist he is: His movies always seem heavier than they actually are.
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