Just a fraction of the ridiculously long line around 5:30PM, right before we headed into the theater.
Shia LaBeouf is no stranger to hosting odd events, so when I heard he was streaming live video of him watching all his movies in reverse chronological order, I wasn’t surprised. I also wasn’t surprised when my best friend, who has pronounced herself Shia’s biggest fan, texted me on Tuesday night asking to go to theater where fans could go and watch the movies with him. However, I was surprised when I actually said yes to going and ended up on the subway at 10AM on Wednesday morning.
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Shia LaBeouf announced an event called #AllMyMovies that began this past Tuesday. For the following 72 hours, Shia holed up in the Angelika Film Center in the East Village to view every movie he’s been in, starting with the most recent and going back to the first movie he was ever in. Fans were welcomed to join him in the theater, which holds about 50 people, for as long as they want. For those who couldn’t attend, a live stream was set up, but not to watch the movies. With no audio, people were welcomed to watch Shia watching his movies, a concept that only Shia could get away with.
My friend Stef and I arrived at the theater at 11AM on Wednesday morning, and while the line was long, we figured it would only be an hour or two until we made it to the front. We were wrong. After asking a group of people near the front of the line what time they arrived at the theater (5:30AM), we settled in for a long day. Luckily, neither of us had anywhere to be and were fully prepared to spend the entire day there.
After about two or three hours in line, things started to get interesting. A guy walked through the door with huge pieces of cardboard and announced to the line that everyone was welcome to come make masks to wear during the first Transformers movie (unfortunately, most of the people who made masks never made it in for that movie). There was also a middle-aged woman with a lawn chair waiting in line and taking selfies, but it turns out she was getting paid to wait in line for someone else and wasn’t actually in it for Shia. We realized that the guy in front of us in line was actually watching a Shia LaBeouf movie on his phone, essentially pregaming watching Shia LaBeouf movies with Shia LaBeouf by watching a Shia LaBeouf movie. What an interesting collection of people.
Stef got super excited when we got to the home stretch of the line around 4:30. Little did she know, we still had an hour and a half to go.
By the time 5PM rolled around we were exhausted. We had been sitting on the dirty floor of an indie movie theater for 6 hours and our energy was low, but we knew that we couldn’t give up yet. At this point, the line had extended from inside the building to outside and down the street, probably quadruple the size it had been when we arrived. When we consulted the schedule and realized that Surf’s Up, an animated movie about surfing penguins was up next, we knew we had to get into the theater, and soon. It was as if Shia himself has heard our prayers, because we got into the theater just after 6PM and right as Surf’s Up was beginning.
There were only a few open seats in the theater, so we headed straight to two open seats that we saw in the front. I didn’t even noticed Shia when I walked to my seat, but Stef pointed him out after we sat down. I had expected Shia to be half asleep during the movie, but he was laughing along with everyone in the theater throughout the whole movie.
During the next movie, Disturbia, is when things got interesting. I left the theater to use the restroom and Stef went and claimed new seats near the center of the theater where Shia was sitting. I made a stop at the concession stand and got a text from Stef saying that Shia was in his seat and it was in the aisle of our row, so I would have to go past him to get to my seat. I came back into the theater and there he was, blocking me from my seat. I waited as someone took a picture with him, and then awkwardly said, “Hey, sorry, but can you move so I can get to my seat?” Cue awkward laughter and blushing. He smiled and stood up so I could get through, and when the guy sitting next to him didn’t realize I was trying to pass, he said, “Hey, dude, she’s trying to get past.” Meanwhile, Shia was stuck between his seat and me. Cue more awkwardness. Finally, the guy sitting next to him moved and I made my way to my seat, after getting my foot stuck in the handle of someone’s bag on the ground and nearly tripping.
We stayed for two more movies, Disturbia and Bobby, before deciding we needed to leave so I could make the last MetroNorth train back to campus. While we wanted to get a picture with Shia, he had left the theater after the movie and we were pressed for time, so there’s nothing to commemorate our appearance there except for the fact that my awkward encounter with Shia was captured on the live stream and thousands of people probably saw it.
I might have spent over 12 hours in an indie movie theater just to sit in the dark with an eccentric celebrity, but the experience was totally worth it. I didn’t know that I needed to watch Shia LaBeouf movies with Shia LaBeouf, but now that it has happened, I can die truly happy.