By: KATIE KLIMACEK
Staff Writer
You are sitting in your seat as the last and final credit rolls up on the large movie screen in front of you. The lights brighten just enough for you to see your feet, and you leave the movie theater. As you walk from the dark theater out into the bright lobby, you can’t seem but to shake the feeling of the movie that you have just seen.
Whether it was a romantic comedy or suspenseful thriller, you still feel like the movie is going on. For the past two hours you sat in the same seat, watching a story unfold in front of you. You watched as the man down on his luck won the lottery and the little girl battled the evil witch, and in a sense you were in that story.
You felt the emotions when the character laughed or cried; you understood the motives that each person had. It was like you where a part of that story, and now that story is over, but yet you still feel like it is going on. After that final credit rolled, the story keeps on playing in your head.
As defined by Urban Dictionary, a movie hangover is “Just like a book hangover, when you have finished a movie and you suddenly return to the real world, but the real world feels incomplete or surreal because you’re still living in the world of the movie”. You know you have seen a good movie if you leave the theater with a great movie hangover.
Movies were made to excite the audience and take them to a different realm, whether it is two dimensions away on another planet or ten years in the past, films transport you to that singular place.
Movies allow you to think about things that you normally wouldn’t. And when you have a movie hangover you are allowed to think about the story for as long as you want. You think about why the guy couldn’t have the girl and why that one had to die.
In a scene having a movie hangover almost helps you re-evaluate your thoughts. It assists in bringing your wants into the forefront of your mind, and helps you find out what you really want. To a certain degree, that thought can be very liberating.
Not only are you caught up in the story, but the music behind the film as well. The music in the film plays in your head for days even weeks after you have left the theater.
Composers add that finishing touch to the film, and without their music, the films would not have that much of an impact on the audience. Some composers are able to put together an amazing score for a film that propels the audience into an even greater state of a movie hangover.
One example of a great movie score would be by Thomas Newman, for American Beauty. The film alone is fantastic; a perfect embodiment of a drama, but Newman’s score takes the film up to a Spectacular level.
In his score, Newman is able to bring that little something extra to the film through his composition; the music alone really makes you think about what is going on. Even after the film is over with, you can still see the story play out when you hear the score alone. If a film is able to change your live for just a small amount of time you know you have seen a great film.
In a sense having a movie hangover is the greatest feeling in the world. You, as an audience member, are able to stay, for just a little bit longer, in the films that you love the most. You are able to make your own story and live it out the way you want it. Having that movie hangover gives you that feeling of imagination and fantasy and allows you to have a quick escape from reality, and sometimes that is all we need in our lives.
