The Cinema Experience

Since films are so massively available nowadays, with pretty much any  film you want available wherever and wherever you want it if you’ve  got all the technology that the cool kids have, it’s surprising that people go to the cinema at all.  But they do.  It continues to be a popular form of entertainment, a

It's My Favorite Cartoon. The Kids Like it O.K.

traditional date activity, for some a once a week or so ritual.

Especially with ticket prices at an absurd and  extortionate level.  Really, is any film that good?  You’re going to watch it at home in a couple of months anyway.  But, people say, it’s different.  There’s just something about sitting in a darkened theater, eyes glued to the big screen, a big box of popcorn in hand….I call bullshit.

What is it about actually going into a movie theater that is better than watching at home.

Is  it the seats?  I’m not complaining about the comfort of seats in the cinemas, they are plenty comfortable, no worries, but I like my couch at home just fine.

Is it the popcorn?  Oh, come on.  The microwave stuff in a sack is just as good as what you get at the snack  bar, and a whole hell of a lot cheaper.  If you watch films at home, you  control the menu.  You can have a proper, elegant meal with  a period drama, popcorn and whiskey with a Bruce Willis orgy of violence, or reefer and donuts   with  a comedy.

Is it the size of the screen?  Well, that might be a factor, but with people watching films on their bloody mobile phones, I doubt that it’s the whole answer.

I figured it out today,  while we were watching “Phineas and Ferb Across the 2nd Dimension.”  It’s just a two hour cartoon.  I shouldn’t have expected anything different, but…    In the cinema, everybody sits down and shuts up.  For the duration of the film.  Nobody talks, much less talks incessantly about things entirely unrelated to the film, in another language, on a mobile phone that they can’t be bothered to take into another room and close the door.  In the cinema, nobody’s going to  walk in front of you with a ladder  to move a plant.

In the cinema, you get to actually watch the damned movie.