Whilst sitting outside eating my sandwiches this lunchtime, I started thinking that I should make a personal commitment to never eating crappy supermarket cheese ever again. This inevitably led to me thinking about other ethical decisions I could also make if I had any moral fibre/will power whatsoever.
What I would really like to do is to swear that I will never step foot in another Odeon, Vue or similar chain cinema in my life. We saw the new Harry Potter movie a few weeks back and whilst the movie was good, it certainly had its work cut out to lift the misery of seeing it at Islington Vue. What a completely soul destroying dump that place is – hidden, almost embarrassed like in a shopping centre, a machine selling you tickets rather than a person, harsh strip lighting illuminating heavy duty flooring, all roads leading to the overpriced crappy junk food.
It’s hard to believe that once upon a time movie theatres were built as fantastic temples to escapism where the whole experience of going out was special and exciting. Somewhile ago we went to see Sunset Boulevard at Finsbury Park Astoria (ironically once an Odeon, now an evangelical church run by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God) and even the hideous rows of bibles and religious scaremongering paraphernalia in the foyer couldn’t detract from the excitement and thrill engendered by the building. Now most cinemas don’t even try to pretend that screening films is anything more than a way of fleecing as much cash out of you as possible.
Sadly, I’ve got to hand it to religion on this one - they understand the importance of good design and how architecture can raise your spirits and change your perceptions – in a way that the real palaces of our dreams do not.
