Reasons why I don’t appreciate Cinema…

Welcome to The Famous Five No.2: Readers of this blog will know that I love nothing better than settling down in front of a good movie in one of my local cinemas. Andy from Youlovethatsh.com has some very contrasting thoughts on the matter…

A couple of weeks ago, I struck gold with a McDonald’s meal and won a free ticket to a ‘cinema of my choice’. The only caveat to this prize was that it was in fact, not my choice, it was McDonalds’. The options were pretty limited and within my locality, it was narrowed right down for me to a certain cinema in Stillorgan. I hate that cinema. I knew almost instantaneously that fulfilling my criteria of;
a) Finding a film I’d like to see
b) At a time that wasn’t completely ridiculous as is often for some reason the case up there
…would be next to impossible. And it’s funny, because no matter how many times I try to remember, I instinctively always end up sauntering over to www.ormonde.ie, which in fact actually brings you to a site retailing ‘fired-clay facing bricks’ instead of the theatres homepage. Hmm, probably more useful anyway. So, we went through the listings.

Now, to give you an example of the bizarre way they seem to structure their listings, the films aren’t actually sorted by their release dates (newest first, as is usually the case), but by a rather more outdated ‘alphabetical’ system. On the day I visited, this meant that the first 3 or 4 films showing, only had one showing a day – Coraline, for example, despite being a relatively new release was only on once a day, at about 11:40. Who the timing of such a showing would be useful for, I was at a loss to guess. And it just has to be the weirdest cinema in general anyway – have a look at ‘Reel Parents’, it’s a series of showings for adults to bring their kids along if they can’t get the kids minded; only issue is, it seems to be as contradictory as it is useful, reminding patrons that ‘film content will be mainly adult orientated’ followed up by ‘Don’t forget baby!!!’ (by the way, I thought having that many exclamation marks in a sentence was exclusively the preserve of MSN-goers who couldn’t be shagged writing ‘lol’…like myself, for example). It’s all very strange. In fact, cinemas in general are just very bizarre.

Reel Parents

I used to convince myself that sitting in a darkened room trying to hear a film over the giggles of pre-pubescent girls and singletons trying to convince themselves of their own self-importance by leaving their mobile phones switched to ‘ring’ (and in some cases, subsequently answering them without a hint of guilt) was actually a good way to spend a couple of hours. I’ve since come to the conclusion it isn’t. It’s sad really, because the whole concept of sitting in a big room with a huge screen eating popcorn really appeals to me, but a couple of incidents took place, which I simply can’t forget about.

The first of them occurred a number of years ago in Dun Laoghaire. I wandered in with my schoolbag (yeah…it was definitely quite a number of years ago!) and got as far as that little ticket-check point they have that I always think looks like an auctioneers desk. Anyway, I was sent back and told instead that I’d have to put my bag into storage or if I really had to keep some belongings on me, I could deposit and bring them in a bucket for the duration of my visit. Is this Dublin Airport? No I don’t think so, and even they wouldn’t treat you like that. What kind of an appalling procedure is that to put people through I wondered?

Then there was the sheer awfulness of those ‘rules and regulations’ cartoons they run leading up to a film. I know to put my mobile phone off and that there’s probably time to annoy everyone once more and get them to move so I can go get another overpriced popcorn from the concession stand. Only issue is, the people who these videos seem to be aimed at generally show garish disregard for them and proceed to leave their phones, talk, make ‘sound effects’ as we’re all strictly warned against and just become general mammoth irritations. That means that the rest of us, who already have the common decency to not need these fruitless videos are left watching some tasteless cartoon for a few minutes and wondering how they managed to make such an informative video end up being an eyesore. The only answer I see to this is to bring back ‘Damo’. Although nobody probably remembers him.

I remember talking to a friend of mine a couple of years ago who was actively involved in actually running one of the larger movie theatres in Dublin, who informed me that there was ‘no money’ to be made from the ticket prices and that all the money came from selling those overpriced popcorns. But what I want to know is, what the hell are their overheads that charging people a minimum (generally) of €8 doesn’t seem to cover it? Now, to give Dun Laoghaire some credit, they seem to have brought in Student Tuesday’s and discounts and all the rest but just as they’ve done that, cinemas all over have started bringing in 3D films, which they generally make a point of noting is the ‘only way’ to watch a film. Of course it’s the ‘only’ way, the ticket prices are higher and the usual student discounts aren’t valid for them. It all just makes me very tired even thinking about it.

So, anyone for a free McDonalds cinema ticket to Stillorgan? Just pay postage and packing…