The Death of Cinema?

This month, cinema threw a massive curve-ball right at my face.  It hit me in the face, gave me a bloody nose and then rolled on down the street.  Filmfella comrades, Lozz, Brown and Darren all shook their heads in dismay at my giddy child-like anticipation of what I believed would be the box office slam dunk for March – John Carter.  It didn’t do as well over here or in the States as I thought it would and this opened up a plethora of dissing and “I told you so’s” from my gang.
Now, don’t get me wrong, after watching it I knew it wouldn’t be a phenomenon like others released this month, but, what happened to John Carter made me think a bit more about not only why it bombed, but why I believe the cinema itself, is beginning to bomb as well.

(Picture removed due to potential copyright infringement. Oops!)

The death of cinema has been coming for a long while now.  It’s here in fact, marauding among us like a foul unholy stench reminiscent of a stale drain or some discarded used toilet paper, utilised in a hurry and then casually thrown next to the toilet.  The excitement that once went hand in hand with the movie going experience is beginning to slip away, not because what we watch on the screen has become worse, (Though this is a matter of opinion and perspective.) generally standards are quite high when it comes to the production of the films we pay to watch at our local cinemas these days.  The experience and wonderment that the cinema used to be passionate about has been usurped by an altogether more sinister villain.  A villain determined to suck all of the joy from going to the cinema.  A villain named Profit.  Profit wears tight spandex and adorns a crown of gold.  It hides in the margins of finance and rubs its hands with glee at the prospect of growing bigger and bigger, its dreams are all conquering.  Its strength is growing, despite a world-wide recession, after all, Profit is reliant on us and we, are not amused but, we still pay.

“I cant tell which screen we need to be in John, the monitor wont work”

Been to the cinema lately?  How much did it cost?  A bloody fortune I reckon, even if you only just bought the fucking tickets.  At my local cinema, in Wales, UK, Profit is lurking.  He sits in lacklustre surroundings where care and affection have long since left.  He spies his environment and scopes out his opportunity and before you get past the barrier where some unhappy, feckless and demotivated cinema staff person stands glaring at you with contempt, waiting to ask you for your ticket, Profit has already burned a hole in your pocket.

“Tickets please.”

An adult cinema ticket, even in this very unloved, once full to capacity Mecca for cinema lovers now costs about £7 before 5pm and  more or less £8 after 5pm, per ticket.  A child ticket is similar to the price of £5.60 and family ticket, 2 adults and 2 kids, will set you back somewhere in the region of £22.50.  3D films cost like a tenner per ticket.  This is goddam fucking ridiculous.  With the money for your family ticket for one showing, you could buy a basket of DVDs off Amazon, eat well at the New Inn, Langstone or get yourself a decent shop at Aldi down the road.  For a poor African kid, £22.50 would get inoculations for his whole family and their neighbours against nasty illnesses and if you channelled the cash into a scheme, that African family could build a sewerage system or employ a teacher all for the same cost as a visit to the cinema with your kids once a month for a year.

But, it don’t stop there either folks.

Fancy a small popcorn and a small drink, typical cinema goodies, standard when I was a boy?  That shit will cost you about £3.85 for the shit popcorn and around £2.80 for the watered down slop they put in their shit paper cup.  A kids munch box will cost about £4.  In that box you might get an orange or apple drink, some popcorn and maybe a tiny bag of chocolate stars.  If you want a hot dog, get a loan first, that shit cost £4 something for a large.  This is funny because there is a Tesco and a McDonald’s on the same estate, minutes from the cinema (that we shall not name).  Funny because despite prices being dramatically lower elsewhere on the site, with better quality and choice on offer as well, the hardcore cinema management cunts (Head-Office types that sit in their Ivory Towers) or the HCMC as I like to call them, still charge their ridiculous over-the-top prices.  They don’t give a fuck that business is about healthy competition, they just assume that if the punters are there, they will either be too lazy or stupid to buy elsewhere and since they are already there, the HCMC will nevertheless charge what the fuck they like.

Tars Tarkas: “John, I got a HCMC in my sights, should I take the shot?”
John Carter: “Fire at will Tars!”

This is where my thoughts began to unravel.

First of all, buying anything in my local cinema is impossible for anyone who needs to survive day to day on either small wages or benefits.  This makes up a massive portion of people in my city.    Profit doesn’t care though, he has you right at the door, his greedy grubby hands caressing every note that makes its way to the safe they keep at the back of the building.  You can hear him whispering, “mmmmm you are my special little notes” as soon as the cash hits the register.  However, is the cinema, despite its awful prices, a fun and worthwhile place to go and watch a film?  Good experience to be had?  No.  Here’s why…

First of all, buying anything in my local cinema is impossible for anyone who needs to survive day to day on either small wages or benefits.  This makes up a massive portion of people in my city.    Profit doesn’t care though, he has you right at the door, his greedy grubby hands caressing every note that makes its way to the safe they keep at the back of the building.  You can hear him whispering, “mmmmm you are my special little notes” as soon as the cash hits the register.  However, is the cinema, despite its awful prices, a fun and worthwhile place to go and watch a film?  Good experience to be had?  No.  Here’s why…

1. It’s fairly clean, but in the dark, how clean is it actually?  Not very, I used to work in one so I got the 4/1/1 on this, trust me.  Can’t recall the last time they cleaned the seats for example, they smell and they itch.  When one considers the mountain of shit that comes off an average, clean human being when sat in one space for a short while, mites, skin, random crap, you would shudder your pants right off if you knew how many unclean folks attend the cinema, and how much shit comes off them.  Sometimes literally.  On one instance that I remember when I worked there, actual shit was smeared, all the way down the isle on every end chair all the way down to the screen.  Why?  Because that’s how some people in my city roll, that’s why.
2. The atmosphere in my local cinema is inhospitable.  Why?  Well it’s because the air conditioning system in our local is arse.  It’s either hotter than Death Valley or colder than the frozen Tundra!  Why?  Profit don’t like sharing.  Why invest in a pleasant experience for your customers when you can charge £10 for a scoop of Ben and Jerry’s?
3. Assholes.

You know what I am talking about when I say, assholes right?  They sit behind you, kicking your seat or talking loud enough for everyone to hear.  They love the sound of their own voices/phones and think what they have to say is either really funny, which it’s not or really important, which it’s not.  They come in late, make a fuss about choosing a seat getting in everyone’s way.  Assholes cant arrive on time and on the odd occasion they get the film wrong altogether, either wandering in 10 minutes before the end or half-way through thinking it was hilarious that they did so, laughing their stupid asses off as they leave, creating the same fuss as they did when they came in 10 minutes earlier.  If you get there before the film begins and assholes are there, you sit in anticipation, waiting for them to observe decent cinema etiquette no more than 10 minutes into the start of the film.  But, they don’t care about you, how foolish, they are like Profit, our villain, they are assholes, so they wont shut the fuck up and you will get more distracted and annoyed the further into the film you go.  You might not even know what’s going on in the film, but, you do know that Beth’s mate fucked some bloke outside the club last Friday and gave her crabs, that much you will know.  Why do assholes choose to go to the cinema at all, shouldn’t they just download the film illegally and watch it on their stolen plasma?  Nah, why be assholes in your own home when you can be a complete asshole in public?  That’s the asshole way, way of the asshole.  Assholes.  I once threw an unopened can of coke at an assholes head and I was warned.  I’m like, “I warned them but they wouldn’t shut the fuck up.  Heads up assholes!!!”

“It’s not your fault John, It’s the assholes, they’re ruining everything!”

So, back to the beginning of the blog, my poor old John Carter didn’t stand a chance right?  Gather all of these issues together and tie them into a feature film in excess of 2 hours long and no wonder nobody went to watch it.  (That’s not exactly true either, Foreign takings have boosted the box office maths up to the £200million ballpark it cost to make.  Maybe they got a cheaper more pleasant cinema to go to in China.) For many domestically, going to watch a film neither pitched directly at kids nor adults, despite how cool it looked all the way through and it being too long means John Carter was destined to fail before you even get into the debates of the merits or the failures of Disney’s big budget flop-out.

“Goddam, I know they said prices were going up, but, this is ridiculous.”

Years ago, when prices were decent and the cinema was a cool place to go, people would have gone regardless of the critics because, if the kids got bored in the middle, you could head out to the concession stands and load up on goodies and fun shit.  Back in the day, if you didn’t like it, you could come straight out again, play some arcade games, eat some munch and then buy another ticket for something else because you would be having a good time generally anyway and back then, it didn’t cost a goddam fortune.  Nowadays, you need to make sure that your going to like what you watch first or for all of the reasons above your gonna hate yourself for spending the money to go and be potentially disappointed for reasons more numerous than just the fucking escalating cost.

“Affirmative John Carter, I see a horde of assholes in the back row.”
“Don’t panic Tars, we brought our own assholes this time.”

Cinema is dying and John Carter, for me, sums that up.  If I was 12, I would have been psyched out of my mind to watch a film like that, I still was now and I’m 32, but alas, John has tough competition these days.  Xbox, PS3 and Blu-Ray all make for more fun than going to the smelly, itchy, asshole kingdom to watch a long ass film.

The death of cinema is here and we are paying for it every step of the way.  by @filmfellajames