15 Questions With Marshall Shaffer
"If you want to breed a new generation of moviegoers, you have to embrace the movie palace mentality."
Name: Marshall Shaffer
Location: New York City
Occupation: Freelance Film Critic
Links: Marshall’s Substack, Instagram, TikTok
1. What’s your favorite day & time to go to the movies?
I joke with friends in a self-consciously blasé way that, now, if I don’t see something at a press screening, then I won’t see it until streaming. I’ve gotten very spoiled by letting many hard-working NYC film publicists dictate my social schedule by letting me know when to slot in the newest releases! The more truthful answer is “whenever I can squeeze it in” or “whenever that one screening happens to be available.” But if I were planning a movie outing with friends and I had my pick of day/time, it’d be a late Saturday matinee — 4:45 sounds perfect to me. You bring a full day with you to the theater, and you still have time ahead … ideally, to grab drinks and/or dinner after to digest what you just watched.
2. What’s your favorite movie theater?
I’m cheating a little bit here because it’s only a movie theater for about 3 weeks out of the year: Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. This performing arts stage transforms into the hub of cinematic activity during the New York Film Festival, and there are movies I will deliberately plan around getting to see there. Something in the architecture and design makes it feel like more than a theater — it’s cathedral-like. Over a thousand true-blue cinephiles come together to experience something magical and majestic on the epically giant screen, and it feeds something spiritual inside of me to enter that hallowed space every fall.
If I had to pick just one classic ATH story, it has to be the NYFF premiere of Titane. The woman next to me cringed, groaned, and hid her eyes for most of Julia Ducornau’s bold take on body horror. As soon as the credits hit, she leapt to her feet to cheer in the standing ovation.
3. What’s your go-to movie theater snack & drink combo?
I’ve been ten years clean on soda (seriously, I was addicted and went through withdrawals when I quit cold turkey on New Year’s Day 2015) … so when I tell you the only time I miss an ice-cold Diet Coke is at the movie theater, I mean it. If I get a drink, it’s probably a sparkling water from the fancy Freestyle machines, but I’m more likely to fill up the collapsible water bottle I bring. (You’re welcome for this.)
It’s all about the snacks for me now, especially because nothing besides a soda pairs well with my go-to. If I’m balling out, it’s a popcorn with a Buncha Crunch that I sprinkle into the bag as I make my way down to the bottom. Surely the only reason this candy exists in such a format is to be eaten alongside popcorn? I learned the hard way not to pour it all in right away because the candy will either melt or dive down to the bottom with the nastiest unpopped kernels.
4. What’s your dream movie theater snack & drink combo (if noise and sound weren’t an issue)?
In the era of the dine-in theater, what’s left that isn’t on a menu at an Alamo Drafthouse somewhere? (My first instinct here was chips and queso, guacamole, or salsa.) I’d love a big candy section where you mix and match with scoopers and fill up a translucent bag. If they charge by the ounce, theaters could probably make bank by charging an absurd rate … so long as they kept the bins clean.
5. First movie you remember seeing in a theater?
The first one I ever saw was Pocahontas at age 2, but I don’t remember it at all! The first movie I have a truly vivid memory of seeing was a sneak preview of Hercules on June 9, 1997 (my dad’s birthday, lucky him for getting to do this with me). It’s still probably my favorite of that Disney era, and I remember the exact feeling of walking back to our car in the parking lot singing all the music from the movie.
6. Last movie you saw in a theater?
As of this writing, Splitsville but in a tiny screening room that surely could not accommodate any more than 30 people. Still, even watching with one other person makes a comedy more fun!
7. Is there a movie you wish you could have seen in a theater?
This walks somewhat of a thin line between movie and performance art, but I wish I’d been able to see the “live” version of Zia Anger’s My First Film. She ultimately adapted the fragments of her abandoned first feature into something like a docu-fiction hybrid, so I’m glad I got something from this peak post-COVID theatrical “event” (loosely speaking, at least among the arthouse theater world). But for a while, Anger was doing a version of the concept as projected from her desktop and responsive to each of the audiences assembled in some unique way. I think she’s now put the project to rest, and I’m really bummed I didn’t get to see the work in its original format.
8. Please describe your ideal movie theater seat.
Center aisle on the side opposite the theater entrance, if applicable. I’m willing to compromise on the aisle if the seat has substantial leg room. I’ll always scout the rows that are directly behind a handicap section because they lend themselves to having ample space for wheelchair navigation.
9. One thing you would change to make movie theaters better?
This applies specifically to chain movie theaters like AMC and Regal, not specialty/repertory houses: they should all be PROUD to be movie theaters. I’m going to be partial to the late '90s/early ‘00s aesthetic that defines my earliest moviegoing memories, but I think those designs showed that it is possible to make a movie theater feel like a mall arcade without sacrificing the primacy of movies within the space. So much of the design of new chain theaters feels defined by its shame to BE a movie theater. The Regal from my childhood just went through a redesign, and it looks indistinguishable from a hotel conference center in Charlotte. If you want to breed a new generation of moviegoers, you have to embrace the movie palace mentality. Display the posters. Have the standees. Nod to cinema history. Project the new trailers. Make your spaces feel like the dazzling but democratic art form that fills each auditorium.
10. Tell me about an especially memorable moviegoing experience that stands out in your mind.
I did a whole newsletter rounding up my favorite moviegoing experiences of all time, but those were all positive. This just says “memorable,” so I’m going to go with one that isn’t necessarily the rosiest memory. I was at MoMA to see Bringing Up Baby on March 12, 2022, and walked past a man at the film desk yelling at the workers in an even more deranged way than you’d expect from their patrons (IYKYK). Cut to: 20 minutes later, and a man comes in to calmly explain that there’s been a violent incident in the museum and that everyone is being evacuated because the assailant is on the loose. I had a sinking feeling that this man I’d clocked as being off his rocker might be responsible, and when they later put out the security footage, lo and behold … it was him. Obviously, they canceled my screening, which led me to go see The Batman alone. That was not a bad movie, but it was a downgrade.
11. Is there a trailer you’ve seen before a movie recently that stuck with you?
The teaser for Bugonia had me salivating for more. Yorgos Lanthimos is truly a master of teasing out his projects in a way that feels completely organic to his style of filmmaking, but he does not give away too many of the goods. I think he — or the marketers he works with, at least — understands how to package and sell his vibe in a way few directors do.
12. What’s a movie you’re looking forward to seeing?
I just checked my Google Sheets database of movies whose release I’m tracking, and it’s at over 80 … but as I scanned, nothing jumped out to me more than Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love. This is shamefully (for the industry) only her fifth feature, and each one of them feels like it’s taught me something new about how to watch a movie. That this lesson comes with Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson in tow feels like icing on the cake.
13. What’s your dream combination of director and lead(s)?
Deeply entrenched in my lore is that Amy Adams is the person who inspired me to start writing about movies, so obviously, I am unhealthily invested in her finally winning that elusive Oscar statue. Awards are not life’s report card, to borrow a phrase from Lady Bird’s mom — but I want her to win one … arguably maybe more than Amy Adams wants herself to win one, judging by her output from the last five years.
People have their feelings about American Hustle, but I think it’s Amy Adams’ best work by a mile because it’s so deeply perceptive about the nature of performance, role-playing, and the self. Because I’d love to see her play in that sandbox again, I think she’d work great in a Todd Haynes movie given the way he’s both paid tribute to and upended the conventions of the “women’s picture.” I just know Adams would be a natural at navigating his seemingly paradoxical dissolution of the relationship between irony and sincerity. And, while we’re at it, let’s just throw Michelle Williams into the cast — she’s a regular for his BFF, Kelly Reichardt!
14. If you could live in a movie, which one would it be?
No-brainer, it’s got to be a Nancy Meyers movie — and NOT just for the shallow surface-level read of the fact that her interior spreads are magazine-worthy. I’ve written not just once but twice about the need for people to look beyond the glossy Architectural Digest façade and see the travails and transformations that mark her thematic concerns. I think she believes in the inherent goodness and decency of people, who triumph through sardonic and sincere plots that test their merit and mettle.
But as for a specific movie, I’d pick It’s Complicated because there’s so much FOOD. I have an illustration of Meryl Streep’s kitchen that I bought from Etsy back in 2021 to hang on the wall of the first apartment I lived in alone. I felt oddly connected to being a divorcée when I split from my previous roommates during the pandemic, and I felt a retreat to the kitchen as a way to provide for people and bring them back into my orbit. I’m still miles away from making a chocolate croissant, however.
15. Why do you think people should continue seeing movies at the movie theater?
My two areas of study in college were film and sociology, and my borderline religious defense of the movie theater is where these two disciplines meet. One of my favorite sociological concepts hails from Émile Durkheim, who coined the phrase collective effervescence to describe informal rituals where societies deepened their bonds by participating in a group experience that ecstatically reaffirmed their ties. I think movie theaters are one of the few places left in our world where you can experience that with people outside of your very tightly defined “in” group. It collapses boundaries between private and public as we experience and empathize with whatever’s projected on the screen in front of us. It reminds us that there are so many lives out there beyond our own, each with inherent value and something to teach us. I’m not so naïve as to think that all our problems would be solved if people started returning to the movies … but it couldn’t hurt to allow the people on-screen to help us relate better to everyone off it.