America 1987

Chapter 26 Film Screening

Premieres are usually held 2-5 days before the film's public release. The event invites media, industry professionals, and movie fans to participate, and often includes appearances by the creative team, interviews, and limited screenings.

Therefore, in theory, it is meaningless for a film without big-name actors to perform this ceremony, regardless of whether it is a big production or a low-budget film.

For films starring new actors, if they want to achieve a word-of-mouth breakthrough and become a dark horse, they usually put effort into test screenings.

Test screenings fall into two categories. One is a "beta" screening held 3-6 months before the official release, showing a rough cut version with incomplete special effects or dubbing, with the aim of identifying plot holes and adjusting the editing;

Another method involves data testing conducted 20-40 days before the film's release. The audience consists of randomly sampled or specifically invited ordinary viewers who are required to sign a confidentiality agreement. This method is used to assess audience reaction and market potential.

The latter is crucial for any film, as it directly determines the production company's marketing and distribution investment and the number of screenings allocated by theaters.

Therefore, feedback from the audience who attended the preview screening is crucial.

Natasha was one of them.

She is a college graduate from New York University who has only been working for a short time. Because of her high academic qualifications and her pretty appearance, many male colleagues would ask her out for dinner after get off work.

However, she declined them all, because her boyfriend from university had only been dead for less than a year.

He died because he contracted AIDS while donating blood.

However, those around her didn't think so; even her parents felt she had married the wrong person.

"What's his sexual orientation? Do you think I don't know?!" Natasha, who has been living with her boyfriend for many years, is quite helpless about this.

But she couldn't do anything about it. The first officially reported case of AIDS in the United States was in 1981, and in the following years the disease was also more common among gay men, so people called it "gay cancer".

She had received higher education and naturally knew that in addition to sexual transmission, there were two other routes of transmission: blood transmission and mother-to-child transmission, but most other people were unaware of this.

They even thought that shaking hands would spread the virus, so much so that even the bodies were hastily cremated.

Natasha couldn't convince anyone else, and could only let her boyfriend die with this stain on his reputation. So she felt guilty, and every night she dreamed of their beautiful past and the slander people were leveling against him now.

She didn't know if her boyfriend could hear these words, or if he would forgive her for her incompetence.

So when someone asked her if she wanted to see the ultimate romance of "being separated by death but deeply in love with each other," Natasha gave an affirmative answer.

She wanted to see if people could hear the words of the living after they died, and if so, she asked for the answer in her dream.

After entering the theater, she randomly found a seat and looked around. She realized that there weren't many people sitting there, and many seats were empty. It seemed to be a movie without any big-name actors.

But this is even better; if you don't know him, it's easier to project your boyfriend onto the actor.

The first five minutes of the movie didn't have any major highlights. It simply introduced the relationships between the characters. The main characters were two men and one woman, but they were all quite good-looking and easy to watch.

It wasn't until the male lead and the male supporting character deliberately acted together in the elevator, pretending to have a contagious disease, that Natasha resonated with the story.

Although the male supporting character coughed intentionally in the movie, he was probably pretending to have an airborne disease, not AIDS.

But the way the people around her avoided her in the elevator reminded her of the rejection and disgust she felt towards her boyfriend after his death.

For that reason alone, she felt that her two hours had not been wasted.

After watching this prank, she felt that the male lead and the male supporting character had a close relationship, and they even cooperated so well and naturally in pretending to have an infectious disease.

But she soon noticed something was wrong: the male lead suddenly asked the male supporting character to handle a $900,000 transfer for him.

She watched a lot of movies during her university years, so she naturally knew that good movies have no wasted moments. At least the first five minutes of the movie were very enjoyable for her, and she would give it an 85 out of 100.

Therefore, this is likely an important foreshadowing, as the transfer of large sums of money will inevitably bring about changes in the relationships between people.

As the story unfolds, the male and female protagonists chat in bed, and the male protagonist's worries increasingly hint at this potential crisis.

Natasha also began to worry about the male lead's fate. However, the director suddenly stopped there and instead had the female lead get up in the middle of the night to make pottery.

A new vinyl record was placed in the living room, a tool she used to listen to music as a child, though now she mainly uses cassette tapes and CDs. It seems the creators are quite nostalgic. A small object that appeared for only a few seconds in the film evoked Natasha's memories.

Accompanied by background music is an intimate scene that unfolds naturally, but the level of intimacy is just right. It is full of passion, but not explicit, so that a woman like Natasha would not feel any aversion to it.

However, such warm and beautiful times are always short-lived. Soon it was the next day, and the movie unfolded as she expected. The male supporting character was clearly greedy for the large sum of money transferred and even inquired about the other party's schedule, while the male lead was completely unaware.

Natasha guessed that the male lead would die in some kind of accident, which would fit the movie's promotional slogan of "separation of life and death." However, she was still very interested in how he would die.

Clearly, the first ten minutes or so of everyday scenes had already made her feel a certain sense of identification with the male and female leads as a couple.

After leaving the theater, the male and female protagonists unsurprisingly walked into a quiet alley. Based on the Statue of Liberty and the American flag that appeared in front of them, Natasha could roughly determine that the story should take place in New York.

At night, when she walked down a quiet, secluded path, she could pretty much predict what would happen next. Don't forget, she spent four years of college in New York and had some understanding of the city's safety situation.

Strangely enough, at such a critical moment, Natasha was drawn to the female lead's hairstyle. The bangs on her forehead, somehow fixed in place, were slightly upturned, looking a bit like the brim of a navy hat, very dashing and heroic, which suited her taste perfectly.

Then, as the male and female protagonists walked, they began a conversation about the topic of "Do you love me? If you love me, why don't you say it to me?"

This isn't anything new; it's a classic line from a romance movie. The male lead will probably be interrupted by an unexpected event just as he's about to say "I love you," leaving him with a regret.

As she expected, a menacing-looking assassin emerged from the corner, and a gunshot rang out during the struggle between the protagonist and the assassin.

Natasha thought the next scene should be the male protagonist, covered in blood, lying in the female protagonist's arms, barely alive.

As a result, after the gunshot, the assassin turned and ran away, and the protagonist actually chased after him for a while with great speed. However, after chasing for a while without catching up, he turned back, showing no signs of being shot.

Could it be that the bullet missed? Natasha was feeling very confused when she suddenly saw the scene she had expected, together with the male protagonist who was standing there—the male protagonist, who had been shot in the abdomen and was bleeding profusely, lay motionless in the female protagonist's arms.