It’s bee a long, long road back to the theater for us at Cocktails and Movies…
Almost 20 years ago, I was dating the VP of International Marketing at Sony Pictures and we were going to see the new Sandra Bullock film, “Miss Congeniality 2.” This wasn’t (and isn’t) going to be the best Sony film, or the best Sandra Bullock film, or even the best of the series. And so, no one really wanted to come out with us to see a movie on a Friday night.
While we were having happy hour drinks before the movie, we called up some friends and asked them if they wanted to join us for happy hour and a movie and Cocktails and Movies was born.
Cocktails and Movies 1.0
The early days of Cocktails and Movies was done all on Evite, taking in such movies as “Borat,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” and even a funny kids’ movie “Chicken Little” (Zach Braff). While most of the laughing we did at the film was laughing at the kids’ laughing at the movie, the adults glared us inebriated movie goers in the back of the theater with contempt, and longing…
Eventually, in the early 2010s, Cocktails and Movies became CocktailsandMovies.com, launching as a basic WordPress blog site. Simple and easy, we shared the weekend box office, the upcoming estimates on the upcoming weekend (back when low end box office numbers were in the 10s of millions of dollars), and reviews. We created cocktails and even pulled from the DVD vault to find movies everyone missed in theaters. Our staff was small, featuring some creative writing on reviews and one of the best trailer gatherers that one could ask for, while yours truly managed the Cocktails and Movies events here in LA.
During that time, movies got BIG. The Marvel Universe launched in 2012 with “Avengers,” having been teased with Robert Downey, Jr.’s “Iron Man” and Chris Evans’ “Captain America” laying the groundwork for what would be the tent pole events for us every summer to gather movie goers around a happy hour for cocktails and movies like it was meant to be.
Cocktails and Movies (and the world) Takes a Pause
Unfortunately, in early 2019, I was diagnosed with Stage IIIc colon cancer. Taking some time out for surgery and 6 months of chemo, I vowed to keep CocktailsandMovies.com going and return to the theaters with events in 2020…
We all know how that turned out. Over the last five to ten years, movie-going has diminished. If you asked five people why they don’t go to the movies anymore, you’ll get five different answers. Probably ten.
- “It’s too expensive” – true, so has everything else.
- “It’s a pain to go with parking, and all those people talking” – this is something that I have noticed, depending on the movie you see, but the shared experience of a big, fun movie is what it’s all about.
- “There’s nothing to go and see.” – true, but if you pick your movies, you can have a great time, especially with cocktails and movies.
- “I have no one to go with.” – THAT is why we are here!
Welcome Back!
So, welcome back everyone, to the world that is CocktailsandMovies.com. Right now, it’s just little old me as I continue to revamp the site on our way to creating something that can be mentioned in the same sentences as Rotten Tomatoes, Cinemablend, AV club and all the others. I hope we can bring you some insights and great cocktail recipes. My plan in the future is to bigger and broader events, and to have interviews with movie makers, actors, writers, directors and anyone who will join us in our bar.
Until then, please join us for our events and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!
