Ah-Yao's Life Diary 2023/01/18

Wanted to soak in the hot springs happily with Ah-Yao and Liv but missed the postcard event?

Members only~

Become a Gold or Rainbow member and you'll get the high-res hot-springs-exclusive art!

Though the Mama & Ah-Yao autograph is only for event participants😘

I can't believe it!

Ah-Yao, who normally never leaves the house and never exercises, averaged 12,000 steps a day during Mama's special event week!

And even though I was eating like a king those few days, my weight didn't budge one bit~😙

Has anyone here seen a hand-painted movie billboard before?

Ah-Yao recently read a comic on CCC Creative Comics called "The Man Who Painted Movies: The Golden Age of Hand-Painted Posters"

https://www.creative-comic.tw/zh/book/245/content

It's set in 1960s Taipei and follows a small-time delinquent whose life changes after crossing paths with a hand-painted movie poster artist

I used to see one of these artists at the All-American Theater in Tainan, painting huge billboards freehand right on the street, absolutely stroke by stroke, it was seriously impressive!

It's hard to imagine that movie posters across all of Taiwan......actually, the whole world, used to be entirely hand-painted!

I saw a news article recently saying there are only two second-run theaters left in Taipei

I looked it up, and it seems like there are only five second-run theaters left in all of Taiwan......I guess streaming really is that convenient now, and movies hit digital platforms faster than ever too

I remember back in the day you'd have to wait a month or two after a first-run finished before it hit second-run theaters, now it's on streaming within a month > <

Second-run theaters used to be such a great, affordable way for students to watch movies

Back when I lived among humans, I used to go to second-run theaters a lot too, and since one ticket got you two movies, I ended up catching a lot of great films by accident, a lot of Taiwanese films I first saw there

But between the pandemic and the streaming era, it's not just second-run theaters that took a hit, first-run theaters have too

Streaming really is convenient, you can pause anytime or rewind

Lately Ah-Yao mostly catches new anime and movies through streaming platforms too (plus watching together with everyone :P)

But there's still something about theaters that just can't be replaced!

Watching at home makes it way too easy to get distracted, but a theater's environment forces you to actually focus on the movie

It's that immersion, you know?

Talking about all this is making me really want to go see a movie in theaters~