please empty your brain below
What cinema? What film?

Danny B | 21.03.17 - 7:07 a.m. | #

DG, in this post you have included most of the reasons why I don't go to a cinema. The one you omitted was the parents who bring in their children with the idea that it's some sort of adventure playground.

Jo W | 21.03.17 - 7:09 a.m. | #

Do you listen to the Kermode and Mayo Film Review on Radio 5 (otherwise known as Wittertainment)? On their website they have a code of conduct they would like people to follow when visiting the cinema, as they hate the sort of experience you had too.

Al | 21.03.17 - 7:26 a.m. | #

Four posts today so far. An irony overload I feel. I look forward to finding out what's bugging you at 08.00. (This is a comment, not a complaint).

Dave | 21.03.17 - 7:28 a.m. | #

I gradually stopped going to cinemas when they changed from continuous performances to separate performances.

For those too young to remember, cinemas of old would open at around 1.00pm and stay open until about 11.00pm and you could enter or leave when you liked, the program would just keep running, you could stay all day and watch the films (there were normal two films in each programme) several times.
Because people would often arrive after a film had started they would stay until the next showing and leave when they got to the part of the film they had already seen. This led to the expression "This is where we came in".

John | 21.03.17 - 8:02 a.m. | #

So is this post 7001, 7004 or 7001.4?

Still anon | 21.03.17 - 8:17 a.m. | #

And that's why I don't go to the cinema (maybe a Curzon at a push). Now I dare you to go a few steps further and take a bath with a lot of people you don't know or like - that is, go for a swim in a public pool. Go on, you know you want to...

Waterhouse | 21.03.17 - 8:34 a.m. | #

I rarely go to the flicks largely for the reasons you stated. Two instances that stick in the memory.

1. In a cinema in Melbourne in 2002 I was watching The Fellowship of the Ring (for the second time as it happens) and someone's mobile rang. Did he turn it off? No. Did he tell the caller he'd phone back? No. Did he proceed to have a long, loud conversation? Yep.

2. In my local cinema in Wandsworth seeing SkyFall for the first time. The film is about to start and every seat is taken...apart from one further down my row. Nature abhors a vacuum, and as the opening teaser ends and Bond falls into the river a boy comes up to our row and the Mexican wave begins. The title sequence begins, I sit back down but my seat has popped out of its bracket. I spend half of the Adele song trying to fix it, another half semi-squatting on a cushion that is obliquely on the floor before finally managing to pop it back in. I missed most of the titles and wanted to wring the little bugger's neck. ..

daveid76 | 21.03.17 - 8:45 a.m. | #

I love going to the Cinema, and I go to the very first performance on a Saturday morning, never any other time just the very first performance on a Saturday, usually there are no more that six or eight people dotted around, twelve was the most I have ever seen, and they all appear to be there at that time for exactly the same reason as me, for the pure enjoyment of watching a film without being surrounded by people munching away at huge overpriced boxes of popcorn, followed by a smelly foot long hot dog with the smelly trimmings and a chocolate bar to finish it all of with, then comes a chat about some minor insignificant subject and of course a last lingering look at the phone, that annoying little thing that sits in their pocket and demands to be taken out and looked at every two or three minutes, the only time you will find me in a cinema is first showing on a Saturday.

FishIslandskin | 21.03.17 - 8:50 a.m. | #

You couldn't have moved seat to one of the three quarters that weren't taken?

| 21.03.17 - 9:03 a.m. | #

I seem to have better luck than you, DG. We have two Picturehouse cinemas here in Brighton and by and large they're populated by cinema lovers - we seldom get a distracted audience, as everyone there is there to watch the movie.

The less said about the local Odeon the better, though. People seem to pay £12 a film for background noise to their lives.

Jamesthegill | 21.03.17 - 9:14 a.m. | #

Aside from spectacle entertainment (not films with glasses, but the Big Budget Booms sort of thing), I can't imagine going to the cinema these days. I'm very close to saying "never", but I really do regret not seeing the Mad Max remake on the big screen. It was a hoot on the 40" in the sitting room, so it must have been pure awesome on IMAX or the like.

(And I do recommend MM as the triple-distilled idea of what an action film should be. Must be 8 pages of dialogue in the whole thing.)

Chz | 21.03.17 - 9:16 a.m. | #

I don't know why cinemas insist on booking seats in a screen that won't be anywhere near full, it is just a lack of thought by those involved, much like the rest of the commentary.

Jimbo | 21.03.17 - 9:19 a.m. | #

Try out the picturehouse in stratford, no booked seats - respectful cinema goers and because of the massive vue cinema in westfield very very few children!

Jack | 21.03.17 - 9:26 a.m. | #

The Premiere cinema in Romford next to ASDA costs £4 and is usually empty during the day if that helps. Sit anywhere.

Running_Correspondent | 21.03.17 - 9:42 a.m. | #

Apart from preferring continuous performances, I am probably the only poster here who has worked in cinemas.
In 1962 and for a few years after, I worked at an Odeon cinema as a projectionist.
In those days it was one screen with stalls and circle seating. A stage with curtains and an organ in the orchestra pit!
5 people worked in the projection box! as films were on 20 minute reels and changeovers were required, also the carbon arc lamps used back then needed watching as the did not always burn the carbon evenly.
Now there is normally no projectionist.
Occasionally the stage would be used between films for an act as a publicity stunt to advertise a future programme. I remember we had an escapologist act on the stage the week before we showed "The Great Escape"
The theatre had a uniformed doorman standing outside, and the manager would stand in the foyer in full evening dress-in between visits to the pub!
Ice creams and drinks were brought to you at your seat from the sales girls with their trays, and they would be spotlighted standing in front of the stage at each intermission.
Now there is no film, just a digital projector, often no curtains or stage.
No usherettes. No sales girls
Ticket are often purchased on line.
All rather impersonal.
Seemed more fun in the past.

John | 21.03.17 - 10:26 a.m. | #

Manners ... consideration for others. Sadly lacking these days, although not completely thank goodness.

Tim | 21.03.17 - 10:35 a.m. | #

Interesting that there seems to be a common theme to all today's four posts, the difficulty of perpetuating or returning to a Golden Age that may or may not have really existed, and whether we should try to be doing that.

I wonder whether that was DG's intention?

Slightly surprised that no-one has mentioned this, or is it just so obvious anyway?

Gerry | 21.03.17 - 10:41 a.m. | #

@ John

Yes, going to the cinema was much more of an Event. All the pomp and circumstance has disappeared such as curtains illuminated in ever-changing colours, the interval after the first film and the thrill of the screen changing size and lights going down.

Of course, the cinema has long been declining to some extent; the restaurants must have been quite something in their day but they'd already become disused by the 60s.

Presumably audiences are considered to be much more sophisticated these days, but somehow it's a lot more humdrum and something has definitely been lost.

Gerry | 21.03.17 - 10:57 a.m. | #

Cinemas seem an awful waste of space these days when everyone has a TV at home and a screen in their pocket everywhere. Closing cinemas would definitely free up space for lots more luxury flats.

lockedintheattic | 21.03.17 - 11:16 a.m. | #

These days cinemas are almost like buses - or at least they would be if the ticket prices were cheaper!

Not too long ago a typical home would have a 21" flickering CRT connected to a poor quality VHS recorder.

With the advent of large televisions and high definition digital formats, it strikes me as rather cute that I'd want to pay a higher price than I would for a Blu-ray disc to watch a recorded show at a fixed time with half an hour of adverts along with all the other annoyances that DG has mentioned.

James Armitage | Homepage | 21.03.17 - 11:28 a.m. | #

At least the Toblerone will have had fewer upright segments than it did last year.

Margaret | Homepage | 21.03.17 - 11:40 a.m. | #

I thought it was the same number of uptight segments but thinner ones, with more air in between.

Malcolm | 21.03.17 - 1:02 p.m. | #

Whenever there is a multi-section DG post like today's I always wonder which way round to read it. Should it be the earlier posting first, or should I read them top down.

Or should I worry (or rejoice) that I do not have anything more serious than that to worry about?

Malcolm | 21.03.17 - 1:07 p.m. | #

@Malcolm: you may well be right. I've got some but I'm frightened to open it.

Margaret | Homepage | 21.03.17 - 1:43 p.m. | #

DG won't like this comment, possibly 80% of readers as well.

The last time I went to the pictures was on my 26th birthday in 1990, to see "Goodfellas" at the Odeon Leicester Square. I suspect (because I've never been back to a cinema) that it was the first time that smoking wasn't allowed in the left-hand side of the auditorium.

Back then you could smoke on the underground and national trains, buses, coaches and planes. Also in pubs and restaurants (I still have a McDonalds tinfoil ashtray). You could smoke at football matches. And at your desk at work.

Yes we're all better off for the smoking ban. But people and their kids behaved much better back then, and made less noise. I personally find that I can now smell people's body odour and farts with stunning clarity.

Pete Davidson | 21.03.17 - 2:29 p.m. | #

Nodding in agreement to every word.

I'm just amazed that people can't go about 90-120 minutes without feeling the need to stuff their faces!!
My kids have long since given up trying to persuade us to smuggle in drinks and snacks for them, never mind buy them from the overpriced concessions desk!

Cornish Cockney | 21.03.17 - 3:01 p.m. | #

Surely living where you do DG, you would have went to the Genesis cinema on Mile End Road?

£4.50 on a Monday and Wednesday and you can actually get some rather nice food/coffee/alcohol. Doesn't seem to attract as much riff raff as the chain cinemas either

Lumma | 21.03.17 - 3:08 p.m. | #

The last couple of times I've been, I've been the only person there!
That has been the first show of the day, out of choice to be quiet.
Mostly I do get asked where I want to sit, but sometimes they select without asking, so booking online may be safer. And it also avoids having to stop and risk an impulse buy of food, so their poor service means I spend even less with them.
I do appreciate the digital projection though; I had given up going for a while.

martxw | 21.03.17 - 4:01 p.m. | #

@ Lumma, I was pleased to discover the Genesis with its low prices (at a time ehen I was unemployed) but on about my 3rd visit, I was the first customer for the afternoon showing and found an unpleasantly unflushed toilet in the ladies, then some people talked all the way through the film and didn't seem to know why anyone else objected. I haven't been back, though your report suggests that it may have improved.

I continue to go to weekday afternoon performances elsewhere, there are usually plenty of free seats and it's often cheaper. But I've only once, in 20 years of afternoon films, had the auditorium entirely to myself. I keep hoping for another 'private viewing' one day.

amber | 21.03.17 - 4:09 p.m. | #

I do shiftwork, so go at less busy times, e.g. Tuesday afternoon etc. Call me old fashioned, but I go to the cinema for the film, not to fill my belly. I bring in a bottle of water, that's the limit.

Nigel | 21.03.17 - 5:06 p.m. | #

There is also the "debate" around if it "o.k" to go to the cinema alone? And is it only men that go alone?

Grumpy Anon | 21.03.17 - 5:23 p.m. | #

I remember the Pearl & Dean era of cinema advertising. Oh for the nearest Tandoori or similar along with a few information films!

Rob Healy | 21.03.17 - 8:36 p.m. | #

@ Grumpy Anon, what debate? I now always go on my own, and have done so frequently all my life. When I went with someone, there'd often be a discussion or even argument about what to see, when to go...much simpler to go solo.

amber | 21.03.17 - 10:50 p.m. | #

Go more often? Ha! Like never again!

I can totally relate and confess I have not been back to a real movie in years. Since streaming now makes movie theatres obsolete, I wonder, is it only the snack-dependent extroverts who insist on exhibitions of their thoughtless manners who still go to movies?

And now I'm discovering that YouTube and it's endless supply of excellent documentaries is making even Netflix obsolete, since I much prefer knowledge to entertainment.

John | Homepage | 22.03.17 - 3:00 a.m. | #

Move seat. Problem solved. No blogpost.

dg writes: The nice lady at the counter placed so many of us in Row G that I could only have moved seat by becoming The Snowflake Who Stands Up For No Reason And Pushes Past Lots Of People While The Film Is Showing.

But yes, many cinema-goers have no manners and the cinemas are hugely culpable by selling overpriced, vile-smelling and noisy food. As with pubs, with their overpriced beer, appalling clientele, stenchy food and music/TV/ game machines, much better to stay home. And cheaper.

David | 22.03.17 - 6:39 a.m. | #

@Gerry

DG should perpetuate and return to the Golden Age of DG where he only posted about transport and his excursions rather than the whiny middle class British problems. Or maybe that didn't really exist.

John2 | 22.03.17 - 7:38 a.m. | #

You should have moved, you martyr! Getting up for 20 seconds wouldn't have been a problem during the film. I think you enjoyed the distractions as you smelled a blog post.

Mark | 22.03.17 - 1:18 p.m. | #

Yes, I often endure less than optimal conditions solely in the hope that I can write about them afterwards, and then people who weren't there can lecture me about what I should have done instead.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 22.03.17 - 1:27 p.m. | #

Same reasons I don't go any more. The cinemas must be losing a fortune as many feel the same way. Serves them right if they continue to ignore the appalling behaviour. Should staff each screen. One extra ticket sold would pay for this.

Andy V | 23.03.17 - 8:23 a.m. | #

HOME art house cinema in Manchester which is a direct replacement for The Cornorhouse is the only cinema I attend. Thankfully full of of quiet people who are there solely to watch the film and at a great price.

Rick | 23.03.17 - 8:11 p.m. | #











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