Growing up in the late 60s – early70s, one of the major highlights of the week was the weekend trip to the local cinema. Ours like most of them around the country had a kids club on Saturday mornings.
It was one big adventure from start to finish. Firstly your parents allowed you to walk there - unsupervised - with your mates and secondly you were never sure until you got there what two films you were actually going to see. The management never disclosed it until that very morning - they understood that kids loved the suspense and it all became part of the attraction.
Town center cinemas were impressive, ornate showpieces, with their art-deco design and stained glass domes with neon lit canopies and signage. Ours was no exception.
Once inside, the huge dimly lit arenas had a unique atmosphere all of their own.
By the late seventies, however, it had all gone badly wrong. Those once beautiful buildings were now in a severe state of dis-repair. In fact my girlfriend at that time much preferred to sit in the park with me on a Saturday night and share a bottle of strongbow than visit our local Odeon which was completely boarded up one day in 1980.
Things were set to change, of course. Along with the trendy eighties retail parks came the all new air conditioned American style multiplex …..
Built about ten miles away from your original town center cinema these super new 10 screen places were a totally different ball game. Huge glass and chrome entrance areas leading to a massive retail type foyer more like an indoor market than a route to see a movie. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally decided to venture into one.
Ok, so I had a comfortable reclining chair, and the fiber optic, color-changing illuminated stairwell kept me amused for a while but it didn’t make up for the low ceiling height and general uneasy, cramped atmosphere of the place. I´m sorry, but these places are faceless monstrosities and pocket money prices no longer apply either. I quickly decided against the popcorn, nothing short or extortion to be honest.
Cinema operators should never have been allowed to let those beautiful town center art-deco buildings fall into dis-repair and simply abandon them.
As if that weren’t bad enough apparently they completely stripped the interiors out of many of them under the banner of “health and safety”-(nothing to do with possible competition for their multiplexes of course)
Lets be honest, even if these so called “cinemas” were within walking distance for todays kids, how many parents could afford to send them every Saturday now?
So its over to you then…………….
Is ten screens, ten miles away an acceptable state of affairs?
Or should funds be made available to restore local town center cinemas?
Its all about the affordable and accessible local option in my opinion.
Lets put an end to this “out of town” mentality once and for all.
SoapBoxTwo Over and Out...................
My Two Cents...........by SB1
Fair points made by SB2. With home cinema now so popular you´d think going from one small room to watch a movie to another, further away and much more expensive would not have the appeal of a night in a lovely old building with a huge screen and tonnes of height for the sound to reverberate around. There was defiantly something magical about it, a magic that already has been lost on a couple of generations. What a shame! I suppose a cup of Kiora is also a thing of the past as well.
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2 comments:
Never been to a multiplex and never will, the old cinema's were magical buildings, like going to gig at the city hall, not these cattle sheds they use now..........those sort of venues made the film or concert something to remember forever.
Last time I went to the cinema was in my courting days in 1979 to see "Saturday Night Fever"(the lasses idea)bag of shite!
They had just split the cinema into a duel jobby, and the other half was showing some war film, anyway couldn't hear the talking bits for bombs going off next door.
Waste of money, and those were in the days when you paid for your lass, and more to the point a waste of valuable supping time.
The memories of the Gaumont, Rex and all the other good old flea pits bring back happy thoughts, and I've not tasted a hot dog the same since, or a Kiora.
As far as I'm concerned, you can stick your Multiplex up your Multi ring piece.
Old Bloke.
i'm sorry but you people need to catch up with modern times. all you do is moan about how great things were in the past and how all the modern stuff these days is rubbish. let me just say i'm lucky enough to have experienced both styles of cinema, the old style stuffy old theatre where the seats springs stuck up your behind and the designer obviously never thought the person in front of you could ever be over 5 foot tall. INTERMISSIONS! if i wanted to watch adverts in the middle of my film i'd wait the 7 years it took to come on itv. these days you book your ticket online just pick it up at the cinema. if the weathers bad no need to stand outside in line getting soaked to the bone as there is a large foyer wher i can purchase sweets and drinks ready for my movie. even have a bottle of lager and chat with friends about upcoming films that are being shown on the tvs above. due to the many screens available i know have a greater choice time to watch my film apart from 3 showings a day i now have 12. my seats are comfy i experience the movie in dolby surround sound and everything is perfect. yes back when you were young and the flicker of chaplin on the screen was like witnessing a miracle, or seeing moving pictures in technicolor was like seeing the mona lisa for the first time. everything was all new and wondorous. but move with the times buddy for gods sake you've got an internet site let us have our youthful experiences enjoy our big budget cgi films we are willing to pay that little extra for all of this so let us live now in th present and not in the past
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