Posts Tagged ‘cinema’

This year, we did a cinema party for Venla’s birthday. We watched Trolls followed by pizza. Trying to manage 14 children was not something I was particularly looking forward to but thankfully a few other parents stuck around to help out and nobody died so I think we can count that as a success.

Looking for things to do over the Easter weekend, Elina found that View Cinemas were running a film called Peppa Pig: My First Cinema Experience. This seemed a great chance to introduce Venla to the cinema, although why we would want to do that I am not sure.

We purchased some refreshments before going in. I asked for a Coke, but all they had was cherry flavour, and what I was actually sold was a Coke Zero, without being asked to consent to the substitute product. This and some sweets was about £5.

We arrived when the film was due to start. We were the only people there. Eventually, two other families turned up, and one man who looked to be in his 50s who was alone. He was just a huge aficionado of Peppa Pig, I’m sure.

I foolishly thought that given it was a “first cinema experience”, they wouldn’t make young children sit through loads of adverts. But I was wrong. There were 19 minutes of them.

It turns out that an hour of Peppa Pig is too much Peppa Pig, even for a toddler who loves Peppa Pig.

And finally home, stopping by the toilets to admire the broken hand driers.

It’s hard to understand why cinemas are losing ground to iTunes and piracy. Why would I want to watch it on my large Apple TV with my Sonos soundbar and clean bathroom, when I can spend a morning watching adverts, dodging paedophiles and paying over-the-odds for substitute drinks?

32 years. They have had 32 years to work out what comes after Return of the Jedi. What did they come up with? A third Death Star. The greatest minds of Disney came together to brainstorm, and came up with absolutely nothing.

When Return of the Jedi ended there was a feeling of hope in the galaxy. The Empire had been defeated. Happy times were ahead. However, it turns out that it just pops up again. This time it seems even more serious. I guess this is how people feel every time the Conservatives are turfed out of Number 10.

Han Solo’s re-appearance felt a bit like the return of Red Dwarf as old characters were shamelessly wheeled out to remind us of the good old days. No Carrie Fisher is an gold bikini though. I seem to be the only person disappointed about that.

Elina says she enjoyed the film. She is effectively a new fan: I did make her watch episode IV but she fell asleep (we were watching it in bed). So perhaps it will inspire a new generation of fans. I think NewsThump accurately captured the atmosphere:

George Lucas blasts new Star Wars film for being ‘enjoyable’ and ‘popular’

We went to Everyman Cinema, which was a rubbish. The milkshakes were small and watery and the food was complete shit. The hot dogs were £8, for which you would expect a really nice hot dog, but you don’t get one. The cinema has gone downhill in my opinion.

Watching Star Trek Into Darkness was also my first experience at Everyman Cinema. I’m sold.

I thought the improvement in the experience over your traditional cinema was well worth the extra money. We dropped by for dinner first and the food was good, the sundaes were even better. Unfortunately the restaurant is separate to the cinema bit so we couldn’t pay our bill and buy our glasses at the same time.

Having a bar and being able to take proper drinks into the cinema is great. Everyone was very friendly too – several of the staff commented in detail on how good the movie was (without giving any spoilers) and the ushers show you to your seat when you arrive in the cinema.

The sofas are probably the best bit – it was far more comfortable than regular seating and allowed me and Elina to cuddle up together like we would if we were watching a film at home. There was also plenty of isle room and a ledge and enough room to put your feet up without reaching the row in front.

It isn’t quite how I first imagined it – a sprawling mess of mix match sofas – they are all the same, fairly small for a sofa and in rows like a traditional cinema, but still far better than your usual experience.

They also had carpeted floors that somehow weren’t sticky and unisex bathrooms in which every cubicle had it’s own sink and hand dryer. It was clean and even had rolls of toilet paper out.

All in all, for the amount I go to the cinema (not often) I think it is well worth paying a few pounds extra for the Everyman experience.

Watching Star Trek Into Darkness was my first experience of 3D cinema.

On the whole, I’m not totally sold on the idea. Comfort-wise, it was fine. It was uncomfortable at first, but that was probably because I was expecting it to be and once I settled into the movie, it was fine.

I found the 3D pretty tacky though. It reminded me of pop up books where there are just certain things that pop up – one character would be further forward than another but everything else still felt rather 2D. I also didn’t like the way they would constantly only have one character in focus at a time.

A few of the effects worked quite well though, I think I probably ducked a few times when things came flying out the screen. It was good, but I can’t say I was amazed.

I don’t normally go to the cinema – it involved sitting still for two, maybe even three hours. But this summer I’ll be making an exception. Why, in one sentence? A Seth MacFarlane film, featuring Mila Kunis!

If the video isn’t embedding properly, you can also see it here.

If for some reason you’re not already 100% convinced then a) there is something wrong with you and b) here is a different trailer, this one voiced by Patrick Stewart. Enough said.

Given we were all a big fan of the original Johnny English film, myself, Elina and Norm headed out to the cinema to see Johnny English Reborn.

The film was good, not great. It was entertaining, I didn’t find myself clock watching, which I often do at the cinema, and presented quite a few laugh out loud moments, but it was always going to get compared to the original and in the end, wasn’t quite as funny.

More of a concern though was the fact that my ticket into the cinema was £9.25! I’m sure when I was a kid it was like £4 to go to the cinema, now it’s more expensive than being a DVD to own :S.

I also got an earful off the guy checking out tickets in on the way in because I had bought Elina a student ticket but she didn’t have her student card on her. I understand they need to check it occasionally, but given we had bought full price tickets for myself and Norm, it seems pretty obvious that we were being honest – if we were trying to scam them we would have just bought three student tickets.