15 Questions With Maggie Hill, Writer & Digital Essayist

Favorite theaters: The Plaza (Atlanta) and IFC Center (NYC).

Name: Maggie Hill
Location: New York
Occupation: Writer & Digital Essayist
Links: Maggie’s Instagram

1. What’s your favorite day & time to go to the movies?

I love a 10am movie on a Wednesday or Thursday morning. It makes me feel like I actually have office hours at exactly the point in my week that I start craving some structure.

2. What’s your favorite movie theater?

The Plaza in Atlanta is probably the first theater I remember going to that wasn’t some poorly designed, suburban AMC and it absolutely blew my mind. You mean movie theaters can actually be beautiful? No one had told me before!

Then there’s IFC Center, my new favorite spot since living in NYC. I have my go-to pre-movie diner, my favorite bench to sit on in Washington Square Park, and even a nice bar to visit after a screening. It’s like my own little home base, with a rotating cast of good movies and familiar patrons to grow alongside.

3. What’s your go-to movie theater snack & drink combo?

I simply cannot do noise in a theater, so I normally show up with a latte in hand and grab some lunch after the movie is finished.

4. What’s your dream movie theater snack & drink combo (if noise and sound weren’t an issue)?

I’m gonna be so boring right now. If sound wasn’t an issue, I would be eating popcorn.

5. First movie you remember seeing in a theater?

I honestly don’t have many clear childhood memories, so I doubt this is the first, but I do remember going to see Frozen with my parents on Christmas day and being very smug about figuring out the Hans reveal.

6. Last movie you saw in a theater?

Mile End Kicks! I watched an early screener at home but wanted to see how it played in a crowd. So, I grabbed my AMC A-list and headed down to what might be the most strangely laid out theater I’ve ever experienced: AMC Village 7. You have to descend at least three flights of stairs into the literal earth and then walk past an abandoned beige atrium full of ripped open recliners to get to the theater. I did fear I had entered the Backrooms. But, the movie was delightful!

Mile End Kicks dir. Chandler Levack (Sumerian Pictures)

7. Is there a movie you wish you could have seen in a theater?

The fact that I haven’t seen Singin’ in the Rain in theaters is a literal crime. I think I would burst into tears during the first 20 seconds and have to be escorted out.

Singin’ in the Rain dir. Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen (MGM)

8. Have you ever seen a movie more than once in theaters?

Oh absolutely. Whenever I really enjoy a movie, I start to crave the specific feeling of watching it. And I really do love seeing how different groups of people will react to the same moment in different spaces.

9. Do you stay through the credits or leave as soon as the film ends?

Stay through the credits! I love searching for familiar names or learning weird jobs they had to fill.

10. What’s one thing you would change to make movie theaters better?

There’s this singular AI commercial they keep playing at AMC before every movie that makes me want to rip out my chair and throw it at the screen. We’ve gotta stop.

11. Tell me about an especially memorable moviegoing experience that stands out in your mind.

I was a very obnoxious teenager who forced my mother to take me to arthouse films so I could be prepared for The Oscars, which she absolutely hated. But, after every movie, we would still spend at least thirty minutes in the car breaking them down.
I asked her once why she kept going to the movies with me, even after I was old enough to see them myself, and she said “because I wanted you to have someone to talk to, someone who would ask the right questions.” Which is maybe the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for me.
I cannot stress enough how much that woman did not enjoy movies that aren’t Marvel.

12. What’s a movie you’re looking forward to seeing?

The minute that Camp Miasma hits theaters, I will be seated. I Saw the TV Glow genuinely changed my life and the work Jane Schoenbrun does as an internet anthropologist is mindblowing.

13. What’s your dream combination of director and lead(s)?

I would really like to see Anthony Boyle in a film by Andrew Haigh.

Or, like, Isis Hainsworth in a Kogonada flick.

14. If you could live in a movie, which one would it be?

I would like to live in the little snowy village from The Muppets Christmas Carol.

15. Why do you think people should continue seeing movies at the movie theater?

Seeing a movie in theaters is an act of personal choice in a world where intention and attention are often taken for granted. It is a commitment to spending a solid part of your day in a dark room with nothing but a story and several other people who have chosen to do the same. It isn’t passive. It isn’t secondary. It isn’t careless.

Going to the theater, when you actually want to do so, is a decision to be engaged in the life you’re living, the lives others are living, and the possibilities of life being shown to you on screen. Which, in my mind, are three of the most fulfilling things you can do. Theaters make you human, make you present, make you care. And I think that’s a beautiful thing.