The Corona Cinema

Welcome to the Corona Cinema

Welcome to the Corona Cinema! You're probably asking yourself: "What am I looking at? Why are there pictures of random movies sliding by? Why is this site named after either a beer or a virus?". And you know those are some pretty valid questions. And don't worry, we've got answers. It all started back in April of 2020. Covid-19 was fresh, lockdown was still cool, and introverts were thriving spending all their days in their room. With the creation of a new group Discord channel, talks were had about watching a movie all together in a call. The movie? The Ritual, a movie I myself didn't get to see; but they did. And thus begun an at-the-moment unoffical tradition to occasionally watch movies on a call. These movies were mostly horror movies, with the first Saw being the only one I got to see. But the true traditon wouldn't begin until later.

The true start of Movie Night was on December 29th, 2023. The tradition was made that every Friday night, someone would pick a movie to watch. Typically the movie would be one the person was very fond of, and that most of the people watching it hadn't seen yet. To make it more consistent, we also had us take turns chosing the films. And so as Trevor picked The Truman Show for the first movie, it began. A few weeks later, with Jayden's pick of A Silent Voice, Ayub began his tradition of movie annoucements in the Discord, along with a chosen still for each one (thats where those movie pics above came from). Around the same time, I created a Google Sheet, where I documented everyone's movie night choices to better keep track of whose up next. Finally, after the absence of people for their own movie nights a few times, the idea of The Unseen List was formed. This list is populated by movies that the choser has never seen, but wants to see. Then, when a person missed their movie night, we would have a Roulette Night, where we spin a wheel and see whose roulette movie is chosen. In 2023, we only had one Roulette Night, which was my pick of Gladiator. But given the size of the growing Unseen List, in 2024 the Roulette Night was given it's own slot in the rotation, starting at the top of the year.

Now that's all well and good, but what is this website doing here? We had a good system going, why move it to a website? That sounds like a lot of work. Sure, it is. But it sounded fun, and so here we are. Like many things, this website was born of a spur-of-the-moment decision to make something cool, and from recent participation in a Web & Mobile class. So while I truly do hope that this website comes to be significantly more efficient to use than our current system, all that truly matters is the experience. As I type this now, I've truly never had more fun making a website before because it's not for a grade, it's not for a job: it's just for fun. And so now you're caught up. So welcome! Enjoy the site, have fun. And remember... Trevor has bad taste.