Wideopen spaces in muted return to movies, museum
There were plenty of empty seats and no popcorn as the Bay Area went back to the movies over the weekend. And there were wideopen spaces in front of the exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Some movie seats were left
empty on purpose, extra space being the pandemic’s new normal, just as it was at SFMOMA where visitor capacity was limited to 25%. Some movie seats, though, were empty because people weren’t inclined to pay $19 for a ticket to “Tom & Jerry.”
This was the reopening scenario that greeted movie and museum fans who leaped at the chance to resume activities out of reach during months of pandemicdriven restrictions and now reopened with San Fran
cisco’s latest advance in California’s reopening blueprint.
“It’s great to be able to meet friends in places like this again,” said Arturo Najera, waiting in line Sunday with Chad Standish to enter SFMOMA. The two get together only at museums, so they hadn’t seen each other in nearly a year. Standish gave his friend a good laugh by mentioning beforehand that he’d grown his hair — then showing up in a blonde “Wayne’s World” wig.
The museum offered a freeadmission Sunday, by reservation, to announce that it was open again, maybe this time for good, after the pandemic closures. The people not in costume such as Standish mostly came dressed up and waited in a line that stretched from the historic Third Street entrance, down the block to the W Hotel and toward the closed Howard Street museum entrance.
“We’re big museum people when we travel, and this almost feels like travel,” said Jason House, who came with his girlfriend. Katlyn Guajardo. “We’re going to start at the bottom and see everything,” she said. That could take all day, but there would be no rush because the tickets had no expiration time.
The free day was fully booked, with 2,000 guests staggered at halfhour time slots. Even if they were all inside at once, SFMOMA holds 9,000, so it would be below the 25% capacity.
“It’s so nice to see people after all this time closed,” said SFMOMA Chief Administrative Officer Noah Bartlett, greeting people in the atrium with “welcome in.”
“It’s a breath of fresh air for sure. I’ve been wanting this for a while,” said Avni, who admired an Alexander Calder sculpture on the terrace with her roommate, Sasha. They declined to give their last names, but Sasha directed, “You should also note that we are very fashionably dressed.”
Meanwhile, on opening weekend at the movies, the giant Metreon complex at Fourth and Mission streets welcomed filmgoers Saturday for the first time in months.
“I’m anxious to get back to the movies,” Apryl Walker said. Among a handful of midday customers, she waited to buy a ticket for “Judas and the Black Messiah” and told The Chronicle, “I think it should be safe. It’s probably safe. I hope.”
Christian Duncan bought a ticket for “Chaos Walking,” about a planet full of men who can read each other’s thoughts. Reviewers panned it, and The Chronicle’s Little Man fell asleep while watching it. Duncan said reviews didn’t matter, especially for the first movie he’d been to in a year.
“You come here for the experience,” he said. “The big screen. Getting out. I don’t like reading reviews. I can judge for myself.”
Getting inside one of the Metreon’s 16 theaters is no mean feat. In addition to the $19 ticket price, Duncan was asked whether he was healthy by ticket taker Mark Devera and a security guard.
The concession stand, traditionally a theater’s cash cow, was closed. “Your favorite treats will return as soon as guidelines allow,” the Metreon, which is part of the AMC theater chain, says on its home page.
Sean Coulehan, who brought his two boys, Tom, 6, and Ted, 2, to see “Raya and the Last Dragon,” didn’t know about the nopopcorn rule.
“I’ve got some popcorn in my backpack,” he confided. “Don’t rat us out. Please.” (The Chronicle did not rat him out to theater staff.)
Across the street at the Westfield San Francisco Centre, five pictures were showing on nine screens. Elevators to the theater on the mall’s fifth floor were reconfigured for a maximum of two riders at a time. Dozens of signs reminded moviegoers to wear masks and maintain their distance.
Buying a ticket from the Metreon’s lobby dispenser was different, too. Choosing a seat calls for strategy, Matt Kitagawa said. He picked seat F2 when he purchased his ticket for the dragon picture. It’s in the sixth row, one seat away from the aisle.
He picked that seat knowing the aisle seat would be blocked after he bought it, and the two seats on the other side of him would be blocked, too. Just to make sure, he signed on to the machine a second time to verify that seats F1, F3 and F4 all had X’s on them. They did.
“I feel better,” Kitagawa said. “There’s still a risk involved, I know. But it’s nice to have the empty seats next to you. And it’s nice to have the theater open again.”
On Sunday’s trip to SFMOMA, by 10:30 a.m. Julie Thompson and her wife, Diane Meier, of Oakland had already made it to the fifth floor terrace in need of coffee. But the cafe was closed. They went outside to give their 5yearold twins, Alex and Isabel, a break.
“It’s good to be out and see colors again,” Thompson said. “Things have been really drab.” When she told Alex they were going to a museum, he went to his room and came back with his own portfolio of colored drawings on a clipboard.
He carried it with him throughout the galleries. He was impressed with what he’d seen insofar as it had given him some ideas.
“I want to make more,” he said and busied himself with a fresh sketch.