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Does anyone on OTF still go to the cinema?

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    Agree - and that 'captive audience'-syndrome is never more starkly illustrated than in the dear old motorway service station - where the purchased product is not only often 50% dearer than on the high street, but in many cases 50% smaller.

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      Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
      Well, all right, I can see that entering the premises with (what some people somehow consider) a full, hot meal is tempting providence a bit, but I can't imagine many would do that and hope to get away with it.

      This attitude that it's their gaff and they have the right to charge what they want is, I'm sure, accurate - but customers feeling ripped off also have an equal right to protest it. 'If you don't like it, don't go' isn't a viable argument, I'm afraid - consumers have rights. So, if that protest manifests itself in folk bringing in their own snacks - and I'm talking small-scale stuff here, not 12-inch pepperoni pizzas - then that, I'm afraid, is the fall-out from cinemas/multiplexes taking the piss, whatever they might believe they can get away with (which is what's going on here, let's be honest). Seeing kids being charged astronomical prices for junk rather boils 'mine', for a number of reasons.
      It’s a perfectly viable argument. If it weren’t, then somebody would have successfully sued a movie theater for the right to bring in their own food. This hasn’t happened, as far as I know.

      The junkfood is optional. And yet people keep paying for it willingly. The prices are only astronomical compared to shops operating under a completely different set of constraints and costs.

      The larger question is why the tickets are so expensive given that the theater gets almost none of that money in the first few weeks the film is in the theater and why there really isn’t any competition among theaters in a given area.

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        Surely the second half of that question answers the first.

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          Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
          It’s a perfectly viable argument. If it weren’t, then somebody would have successfully sued a movie theater for the right to bring in their own food. This hasn’t happened, as far as I know.
          Obviously what I meant was that it's 'not a viable argument' in the sense that it's completely open to abuse (if you wish to call it that). If you charge stupid prices for concessions, then expect folk to smuggle in their own - certainly don't be complaining about it if they do.

          I see people doing this pretty much every time I visit the cinema, which strikes me as a fairly obvious business flaw. I mean, what are you going to do? Cavity-search everyone at the door?

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            I go, generally to see superhero movies with my wife, or I take my daughter. The latter involves serious pick and mix. Moana and Teen Titans Go! To The Movies have been the daddy and daughter excursions thus far, so I've been well pleased with that.

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              Just tried to buy tickets for tomorrows EfNY screening in Northampton. Not content with trying to get me to buy an online pass type thing, they even put a 70p booking fee on.

              Fuck right off, it's not going to be sold out.

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                Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                Surely the second half of that question answers the first.
                Yes it does.

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                  Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
                  Obviously what I meant was that it's 'not a viable argument' in the sense that it's completely open to abuse (if you wish to call it that). If you charge stupid prices for concessions, then expect folk to smuggle in their own - certainly don't be complaining about it if they do.

                  I see people doing this pretty much every time I visit the cinema, which strikes me as a fairly obvious business flaw. I mean, what are you going to do? Cavity-search everyone at the door?
                  I see your point.

                  I’ve never seen movie theater staff make much of an effort to stop contraband. The general attitude seems to be that as long as you don’t flaunt it - like bringing in a pizza - than it isn’t worth the trouble of the kids making $7.50/hour to stop you.

                  But dont bring in snacks in plain sight, because if an officious manager is around, then the $7.50/hour kid has no choice but to try to stop you. Just an awkward moment all around. Put it under your jacket.


                  Actually, at the one and only film I saw in London, a security guy did search my friend’s bad and didn’t seem to mind that it was carrying candy and Diet Coke that we had just bought next door.

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                    We used to get stopped all the time when my hometown still had a fleapit. Couldn’t have been too thorough but, as the sweetshop next door did a roaring trade (and closed almost immediately following the cinema’s demise in 93. Those were also the days of fearsome usherettes and tubs of ice cream on trays sellers though (who still exist in the council run theatre).

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                      I'm just not sure what the powers that be could legitimately do, to be honest.

                      I often attend matinees, and on at least one occasion went after a spot of (non-perishable) food shopping - not to sneak a ton of food into the cinema, but to save time afterward. There were only a couple of other people at the 2pm screening and nobody questioned what I had in my carrier. Had they tried to confiscate it, I'd have walked out (or demanded a refund and then walked out).

                      ($7.50 an hour? So it would take the average movie-theatre-worker roughly sixty minutes to earn himself the medium Coke and small popcorn he's having to peddle?)

                      Edit: Lang - I'm guessing that was 'pre-extortion' though?
                      Last edited by Jah Womble; 21-11-2018, 21:03.

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                        Was still damn sight more expensive than a can of Coke and a bag of sweets from a normal shop. Especially for Depressed 80s Fife. Don’t think the pictures had Irn Bru either, Odeon savages.

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                          In answer to the OP, I just went to see Stan and Ollie, but it was sold out. So, yes and no, in a way.

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                            Have been to Gateshead Vue twice this week- £5 for any screening apart from 3D

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                              Probably going this week to see The Favourite, assuming I have any free tickets left on my membership.

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                                Originally posted by johnr View Post
                                In answer to the OP, I just went to see Stan and Ollie, but it was sold out. So, yes and no, in a way.
                                Going to see that this week - probably a matinee, possibly at the Clapham Picture House. Might even take my own lunch.

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                                  A new Vue has just (finally) opened in Bromley. £7.50 a ticket and every seat in every screen is a giant recliner seat like a la-z-boy. Previously it was the utterly grotty (and now shut) flea pit in the centre or a drive to a decrepit Odeon in Beckenham.
                                  I'm so happy.
                                  Took the boy to see both The Grinch and Bumblebee over Christmas. He loved it, especially the seats.

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                                    The switch to comfy, big chairs and places to put drinks and beer being sold in the foyer has made all the difference to the cinema-going experience for me. It's no longer putting up with the discomfort in order to see something you really want to see. It's actually a fairly pleasant and relaxing experience in itself, even if the film turns out to be pretty shit.

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                                      Word

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                                        I'm going tonight, to the incongruously-named Empire Sutton as you ask.

                                        My wife books cinema tickets with her Meerkat Movies 2-for-1 facility or whatever it's called

                                        I said to my her that I quite fancied either "The Favourite" or "Stan & Ollie" but that it was her choice as to which one of the two we go to. No, you choose, she said. OK, I said,"Stan & Ollie".

                                        The 7.20pm showing of "The Favourite" it is then.

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                                          The picture went 10 minutes from the end, which was a first for me. We sat around in the dark for about five minutes then another fifteen as they tried to fix it. Eventually we decamped to another screen to watch the ending (spoiler - hardly worth it) and then secured a couple of complimentary tickets as compensation.

                                          Thought the film was OK - interesting to look at but all a bit unsubstantial. Wife very unimpressed. Reading the reviews it seems like one of those films which the critics rate much more highly than joe public.

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                                            I went to the Regent St cinema last night to see a film about Library Music - the music made for TV and film that is the passion of collectors, such as Jonny Trunk, who presents a weekly show, OST, on Resonance. He featured in the film and was in the Q&A.

                                            Its a very interesting film film if you are interested in that sort of thing. I can’t get into being obsessive about it but it’s a whole world.

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                                              Going to the pictures tonight to see "stan and ollie ".first time since Ron Howard's Beatles film two years ago, most of the time there's nothing I'm interested in seeing, not being a superhero fan.

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                                                Went to the flicks for the first time in ages on Sunday to see Stan And Ollie. Would thoroughly recommend it.

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                                                  Going to the cinema, Sunday, or Stan and Ollie?

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                                                    Went to Mary, Queen of Scots last night. Some good actors in it, some interesting sequences, but became increasingly irritated by it. Not surprised to find it's a theatre director who made it.

                                                    Act 4, scene 1: a glen in Scotland. labelled as 'the border' (!)

                                                    Not that I'm a pedantic stickler for historical or geographical accuracy, but John Knox is a raving charicature (David Tennant!) and it now seems all historical women, especially queens, are by default feminist icons. I look forward to the film where Marie Antoinette, feminist icon, is beheaded by a mob of ugly, jealous men (I laugh, but it's probably in development)

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