The Greatest Show, Man!

It is awfully remiss of modern day planners to build new Cinemas on public rights of way.

At least: I assume that's what's happening.  There seriously can't be any other reason for the constant march up and down the stairs during every single bloody screening.  Honestly, if a small train of donkeys came through heavily laden with baggage and led by Shirpa Tensing I would barely bat an eyelid.

Cinema is not how I remember it as a kid: and since the temporary hiatus of my favourite cinema (a small screen at a local university where they show what I like to call FROMAGE films - that's Foreign Road Movies About the Grimness of Existence), where you get a very cine-literate clientele who arrive before the adverts, ensure their snacks are finished before the main event and refrain from talking, snap-chatting or whispering plot-points to each other, I have been forced to go to screenings at (shudder) the multiplex.

Things were very different back in the stoneage when I was briefly young (I was old at a very early age) - there were three main cinemas in our local city centre: the ABC (one big screen, one tiny screen - queueing was down the flight of stairs outside, often in the rain, and down the street all the way to the flag-post and if you were beyond that you might as well go home), the Odeon (former theatre, a shocking three and later six screens) and the Theatre One (known locally as The Flea Pit, two screens - both slightly smaller than the ABC equivalent, with no leg space aside from those who were able to take them off and store them under their seat) - there had also briefly been the Paris (but that closed down) and another on the outside of town that I forget the name of as we only ever went there once before it was a casino....

Things started to change when the ABC was taken over by a big chain that subsequently over-stretched itself and closed down.  This was the cinema where I saw E.T., Back To The Future, Top Gun and all those Buster Keaton that I improbably also claim to have seen when first released(and that one about the moon having a face - pretty impressive when it first came out)

Then the Odeon first expanded and then moved to another location with 9-10 screens and suddenly the idea of queuing for a ticket became a thing of the past - you could book on-line (shudder).  Of the several cinemas in the area this is now the only remaining one.

These days I tend to go mid-week to see films - just because Fridays and Saturdays are still full of the aforementioned clan of wondering locals, out for a brief foray across the fens, stopping for a meal in the middle of the cinema and apparently unable to sit still for more than two reels of a movie - but I do think that cinema has lost a certain something - and it wasn't until my cat was ill that I realised what it was....

And yes, you read that right about the cat.

In the early spring of 2018 Mr Giles suddenly started going what is known in the cat world as "cracker-cat" - he was eating 3-4 times his usual amount of food, dashing about with too much energy and suddenly launching himself at me and biting - something he hadn't done previously.  This was Concerning.

We took him to the vet and they diagnosed him as having a thyroid problem - apparently something that is quite common in cats.  There were three potential options for treatment. 1) Operation - slightly risky, medium chance of success, 2) pills for the rest of his life - less risky, more upsetting for him and us and also ongoing, 3) radiation treatment - most effective, most expensive.  After a few moments of wondering what kind of super powers one might expect to get when bitten by a radioactive cat and who one's arch-nemesis might be, we went with option 3

This meant Mr Giles had to be away from us for several weeks whilst he was in almost total isolation and then, once he came home, we were to only spend up to one hour a day with him for the next 10 days.

To be honest this was quite upsetting for all three of us - Mr Giles wanted to be around us and to re-build the bonds and we wanted the same.  It also meant locking him out of most of the house - or else vacating the property for several hours.

Over the weekend was going to be the worst bit - I could go into the office the rest of the time and Herself could work around it - but I had a whole Sunday to fill - and so I went to see Avengers: Infinity War.

I have to say - I have not been following the series and there were several previous films I hadn't seen - but at 3.5 hours it filled an otherwise difficult activity shaped hole in my life...and as part one of a two part film it left me with a problem of having to see another film that I hadn't really intended to see twelve months later.

And so, this year, and with cat duly fully recovered and back to usual levels of sanity (for a cat) I found myself needing to go and see how it all ended.

As it happened: I had some training to do in London and an evening to look forward to sitting on my own in a hotel room - and so I booked a ticket for a screening of Avengers: Endgame and went along

It was the first sold-out screening I have been to in around 30 years (with the possible exception of Vampire$, which doesn't count because it only got sold out because The Blair Witch project had already sold out and people had bought tickets rather than go home (don't bother, it's terrible))

And this is where I come back to my feeling that I started off with

The problem with the multiplex, as opposed to the old fashioned ones I remember, is that they show 20-30+ screenings of the latest film per day on their 12-20 screens.  This inevitably means that most of the time the screen is half empty  (more recent example - I went to see Doctor Sleep and there was only me and one other person in the screening) - and the thing that you get from a full screen just isn't there.

Seeing films like Back To The Future, Blair Witch, Terminator - whatever, in a full screen means that you laugh harder, jump higher, cry more than you do when its half empty - and as I sat in a sold-out screening of Endgame with fans whooping, cheering and clapping in a non-code-compliant but nonetheless appropriate manner, I remembered what going to the cinema was supposed to feel like

Cinema is a great medium.  You can see all sorts of films there and I like to try and see something different from time to time (a recent trip to see a black and white film about Cornish fishermen for instance....which I still don't know whether I enjoyed or not) - but I do think that by treating it in the same casual way that we treat something on the telly, or our Ipad (other pads are available) we forget to let ourselves go for that moment and enjoy the magic.

So next time you go to the cinema get your snacks early.  Go and see the terrible adverts for over-priced snacks and films you will never see.  Don't leave until after the final credits - even when they DO bring the lights up

And if you really do feel the need to go for a walk: get it out of the way before you start....

"Oooooh I love to go a wandering...along the mountain track..."