I was supposed to write ‘there must be a lot of flash buggers out there if they CAN afford to buy a £2.50 bag of maltesers and leave them lying on the cinema floor un-opened…’

I am not saying movie makes don’t do a lot of hard work to make their films, but staff in cinemas work hard to try and get the customers through the doors. You know while I am at it, it sometimes baffles me when folk complain about the prices in cinemas, you know why? Because I would say that of what is sold about 70% is a waste. I don’t know how many times I see bags of pop corn, trays of nachos hardly eaten, I’ve seen drinks cups with a few sips taken out of them and pic n mixs hadly touched. Shit I’ve seen half eaten hot dogs. There must be a lot of flash buggers out there who cannot afford to buy a 2.50 bag of maltesers and leave them lying on the floor un-opened.

So yes, the cinema prices are shockingly high, but half the people don’t even eat what they buy so fuck em. And even at that, you don’t actually have to buy any kind of snacks at the movies. You CHOOSE to buy them. Alternatively if you don’t like the cinema prices take in your own snacks with you. And £10.25 for a cinema ticket? That’s very steep! Where’s that? London?

I’ve never been to Vue Cinemas so really couldn’t comment on them. It’s either been Odeon or Cineworld/UGC and found them to be delightful.

So to wrap up my point…if cinemas are raping you its because the studios are raping the cinemas.

Elizabeth and I were going to go to the cinema on Saturday. We thought about how much it would cost to buy tickets and something to eat and to pay for the babysitter — then we went to HMV and bought two blu-ray discs for £25. So we really enjoyed Moon — the picture was fantastic and the sound was great too — no-one sat in front of us and there were no idiots talking on their phones. That’s a much better way of spending the cost of one cinema ticket.

Tonight I went to the cinema and when asked whether I wanted “premier or regular seats”, I immediately said “regular”. Premier-what? But then I entered the auditorium… 30% of the seats have been labelled “premier” so now I am confined to what is really ‘restricted viewing’. In this day and age I go to the cinema for the experience as much as the film (after all, I could wait a few months and get it for practically the same price on DVD) and so my seat should be “premier” anyway!

I’m still a big fan of the cinema. HOWEVER, I am NOT a fan of Vue cinemas. Either you are also a frequent visitor of Vue Islington or the entire chain is falling apart. The ticket desk at Islington is 7/10 times closed. The food prices are laughably extortionate. Luckily, I don’t think I’ve ever been witness to a poor screening (although there have been some particularly disruptive audiences) but to be honest, Vue can’t go much further down in my estimations.

In my experience the people that download illegal pirated movies are the very first in the queue to buy the DVD when it comes out and have hundreds of legally purchased DVD’s on their shelves at home.

Video piracy is just a smokescreen. The fact that it exists at all in it’s current form is testament to the way the whole movie industry is fucked up.

Greed is good my arse.