Thirty years ago, the life I have now would have been pretty much unimaginable to me. My day-to-day existence is firmly tied to my phone, a tiny computer I carry around in my pocket. I gave up owning a car and am now chauffered about by a robot taxi. Texts are my preferred communication to the point that I will refuse to answer any phone calls. If you're having an emergency and are trying to call me about it, oops, sorry, leave a message.
Aside from the techno marvels, I have also seen tremendous changes in my personal life. I have outlived so many old chums that the Venn diagram of my emergency contacts and my friend group is just one overlapping circle. One part of that steadily shrinking gang is a bunch of miscreants the origin of which would have been one of those things so baffling to the 1996 version of me.
So here's how that all started: several years ago I stumbled across the performance art website called Chaturbate. Do I have to explain what that is? I don't want to, I'm busy. If you don't already know, just go look, you'll be amazed. And welcome to the year of our lord, 2026. My favorite model and artiste there is the Romanian Rockit himself, Mikey. I didn't realize initially that one of the unwritten rules for this chicken chokin' channel is that viewers just watch silently without interacting. Is it really a surprise that I, on the other hand, would gab along like it was a fucking group chat?
Mikey liked that because just sitting there and whacking turns out to be boring. Again, a sentence I could not have imagined 30 years ago. But there you go. So we got to be friends and then other frequent flyer visitors evolved into a core group of buddies that has lasted for years now. I don't remember how it happened, but eventually we decided to start watching movies together and commenting by text about whatever cinematic masterpiece had sucked us in. And so now every week, Sunday night is The Chaturbate Film Society Night at Movies.
I love these group movie experiences. For one thing, we watch plenty of movies I would not have otherwise chosen, but wind up really enjoying. I would give you examples, but my old man memory fails me yet again. By Monday afternoon I cannot remember what we watched the night before. Fortunately Amazon Prime saves a list of these masterpieces and I went back and looked to see what my viewing pleasure has included.
A list of highlights would be Everything Everywhere All At Once (brilliant), Tuner (really unexpected and charming), Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die (I think I liked it better than the rest of the gang but I really found it hilarious and weird). I also thought Redux Redux was pretty good and there are others, so many others, (we've been doing this every week for years) but I got tired of scrolling through all my video history. While we're at it, I would like to recommend something I watched without the club, An Englishman Abroad. Alan Bates and Coral Browne, written by Allen Bennett, where Miss Brown plays herself in the true story of her bumping into Guy Burgess in Moscow in the '50s. Trust me, it's brilliant.
Dog movies that definitely got a thumb down from us are universally anything that runs for more than an hour and a half. If you can't tell a story in 90 minutes, you need an editor with a firmer hand. Our group taste leans towards humpy lead actors in science fiction and action. Lottsa action. If something doesn't blow up in the first 15 minutes, why bother? Also why is the beautiful Henry Cavill in so many bad movies. Do better Henry, beauty does not last forever.
One small problem with our running commentaries is that it's easy to get distracted by the action (lottsa action) and miss out on the texts. Then when I finally look back, there will be a string that makes no sense. "He is so dead" "I did not see that coming" "I hate her" are doubtlessly insightful in the moment, but I have no idea what they're talking about now.
Anyway, this may not be the hangout I was imagined back in the day, but I'm perfectly happy with sharing a movie night with a gang of jack off aficionados. Turns out the future is such an odd place to live.
Naked guys in the here and now:
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