MAIN » ARTICLESCinéma 2005 - Janvier à avril
This is sort of a review on the last four months, the first four months of 2005. I'm only going to mention a fistful of films as my intention is to make this an account on a much wider scale. This year I have only been loyal to 2 cinemas, seeing around 20 films in total; a number lessened greatly by my change in lifestyle from last year and primarily because of Odeon's inability to offer any kind of loyalty/unlimited scheme to its customers.
The Odeon in Lincoln Wharf, and the UGC in Cardinal Park, Ipswich, aren't so different. They're both quite new and located in prominent, fairly up-market locations. They both have reasonably nice interiors, two floors, a pick 'n' mix, male and female toilets and of course everything at both is awfully over-priced. Buying a soft drink is like paying a butler to pick strawberries for you instead of bending over to do it yourself. I'm often reminded when purchasing a select few sweets, to keep my sugar levels up, of the time I paid £9 for breakfast at a motorway service station. The only place in the world you can pay 99p per HALF of fried bread. Oh, I cleaned my plate that morning.
Seriously, I could probably do a whole dissertation on how wrong this is. I could find thousands of examples from Southampton to Inverness of cheaper breakfasts. You can eat lunch at the Marriot Hotel for less than that, or buy 20 Bounty chocolate bars from the vending machine across from my room at university. Jeff Buckley's amazing album 'Grace' is only £8.99 in HMV for god's sake. In what inexplicable moment of lunacy did a badly-cooked, bland-tasting horror of a breakfast become more valuable than a genuine masterwork that is one of the finest examples of songwriting and vocal-performance in the last 20 years?
That price is so high in fact, that I could buy that entire breakfast, plus much more, from Tesco Online and get it delivered to my door for less. This isn't including the amount I must have spent on petrol even being at that service station in the first place. Via the internet I could get:
Forgive me, I seem to have drifted off-topic. So, yes, the cinemas are similar. I believe they both had issues with showing The Machinist recently, the Odeon here ignoring it completely in favour of dragging out Meet the Fockers for as long as they could. Flogging a dead horse doesn't even come into it, at least some weirdo will eat a dead horse. This was more like trying to sell a large rock that only slightly resembled a horse, and in no way resembled a half-decent film.
Remember when Dustin Hoffman's Rizzo fell down the stairs in Midnight Cowboy? When Ben asked Mrs Robinson if she was "trying to seduce" him? When David Summer was trying to defend his home in Straw Dogs or Louis Dega was sending Steve McQueen's Papillon coconuts in his drinking water? There isn't even any need to go into Robert De Niro's Noodles, Travis or Jake La Motta. It makes me want to weep. That was cinema.
It's April already and the vultures are closing in. I think it's been a mediocre few months for film, despite the Oscar-fever, and I'm feeling the May blues coming on already after reading certain reviews on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've been too distracted in this review, mostly by breakfast I admit, so I'll deal with the films of January to April in the second installment. I'm too angry to be level-headed on such important matters. This is art man, not frisbee in the park.
Written by J. King
The Odeon in Lincoln Wharf, and the UGC in Cardinal Park, Ipswich, aren't so different. They're both quite new and located in prominent, fairly up-market locations. They both have reasonably nice interiors, two floors, a pick 'n' mix, male and female toilets and of course everything at both is awfully over-priced. Buying a soft drink is like paying a butler to pick strawberries for you instead of bending over to do it yourself. I'm often reminded when purchasing a select few sweets, to keep my sugar levels up, of the time I paid £9 for breakfast at a motorway service station. The only place in the world you can pay 99p per HALF of fried bread. Oh, I cleaned my plate that morning.
Seriously, I could probably do a whole dissertation on how wrong this is. I could find thousands of examples from Southampton to Inverness of cheaper breakfasts. You can eat lunch at the Marriot Hotel for less than that, or buy 20 Bounty chocolate bars from the vending machine across from my room at university. Jeff Buckley's amazing album 'Grace' is only £8.99 in HMV for god's sake. In what inexplicable moment of lunacy did a badly-cooked, bland-tasting horror of a breakfast become more valuable than a genuine masterwork that is one of the finest examples of songwriting and vocal-performance in the last 20 years?
That price is so high in fact, that I could buy that entire breakfast, plus much more, from Tesco Online and get it delivered to my door for less. This isn't including the amount I must have spent on petrol even being at that service station in the first place. Via the internet I could get:
- 1 whole loaf of white bread (assume 20 slices)
- 6 large Tomatoes
- 6 rashers of Bacon
- 8 Sausages, yes 8!
- 6 Eggs
- & 1 litre of Sunflower Oil
Forgive me, I seem to have drifted off-topic. So, yes, the cinemas are similar. I believe they both had issues with showing The Machinist recently, the Odeon here ignoring it completely in favour of dragging out Meet the Fockers for as long as they could. Flogging a dead horse doesn't even come into it, at least some weirdo will eat a dead horse. This was more like trying to sell a large rock that only slightly resembled a horse, and in no way resembled a half-decent film.
Remember when Dustin Hoffman's Rizzo fell down the stairs in Midnight Cowboy? When Ben asked Mrs Robinson if she was "trying to seduce" him? When David Summer was trying to defend his home in Straw Dogs or Louis Dega was sending Steve McQueen's Papillon coconuts in his drinking water? There isn't even any need to go into Robert De Niro's Noodles, Travis or Jake La Motta. It makes me want to weep. That was cinema.
It's April already and the vultures are closing in. I think it's been a mediocre few months for film, despite the Oscar-fever, and I'm feeling the May blues coming on already after reading certain reviews on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've been too distracted in this review, mostly by breakfast I admit, so I'll deal with the films of January to April in the second installment. I'm too angry to be level-headed on such important matters. This is art man, not frisbee in the park.
Written by J. King