Topic: The Death Of The Cinema?
My lifelong love affair with the cinema began, my parents told me, in 1961, when aged 5, I was taken to see Disney’s 101 Dalmatians. I remember nothing of that experience, but we went every Friday night to the cinema and I do remember, vaguely, seeing Dr. No in 1962. Throughout the 60’s, Friday nights couldn’t come quick enough and those weekly trips hold fond memories, the Bond movies of course, Fu Manchu and all those 60’s spy rip-offs, Planet Of The Apes, Where Eagles Dare and scores more. In those days, two movies were shown in one performance, and a short movie labelled Look At Life or Pathe News, depending on the cinema, was shown during the intermission, where we would queue up for a rock hard vanilla ice cream in a tub or a Kia-Ora orange drink from the usherette. I collected the movie posters and stuck some of them on my bedroom walls. I took my first girlfriend to see Half A Sixpence on a Saturday afternoon matinee.
Into the next decade and those lovely cinemas with the stalls (downstairs) and circle (upstairs) were converted into twin cinemas, enabling more films to be shown and for the popular ones to have extended runs. By the mid70’s I had left home and had my own flat but Friday night at the cinema was usually on the agenda, going with some mates or the current girlfriend. Roger Moore was the new Bond, and I liked the exploitation films of that era like Race With The Devil and also the “disaster” films and Clint Eastwood. I also went to a couple of all-night showings where 5 horror movies were shown although I dozed off several times during the night.
During the 80’s and 90’s I chose my films more selectively rather than just seeing anything but was still a big fan of the cinema even though I saw a lot of movies on VHS from the local video store.
By the new century cinemas were now multiplexes with some only holding a small number of people. My attendance to the cinema became less and less as the films on offer became less attractive to me, I suppose only a dozen or so films a year would make me want to pay an entrance fee. Some of this reluctance would be to escape from the constant chatter and munching of the patrons who didn’t seem that interested in the movie in the first place. Also, cinemas were no longer pitch black during the screenings which affected the enjoyment for me.
The last film I took my dad to was Casino Royale in 2006, it was only after a few years had gone by that I realised that the first movie I could remember was Dr.No and the last movie I saw with my dad was Casino Royale, it was kind of warming to think that Bond had connected us during the years.
When I moved to the Philippines in 2013, after I took early retirement, I have continued to see a few films in the cinema but to be honest very little is of interest to me now, I am tired of superhero movies and the constant woke lecturing of the acting community have put me off most other movies. And with COVID making cinema going a very uncomfortable experience I feel the cinema is dead.
Will I see NTTD in the cinema? The only reason would be to keep my record of seeing every Bond movie in the cinema upon release. It’s been delayed for so long, and the length between Bond releases are huge anyway, I really don’t care if I see it at all at the moment. Before the COVID situation I had begun to build a home cinema in the upstairs living room, when things are back to normal I will complete it. I think my future movie watching will be at home.
I feel the popularity of on-demand screenings on TV will make the cinema unviable and I foresee the cinema being dead before the end of the 20’s.
My love affair with the cinema is, I think, over, with the only possibility of me seeing future Bond’s. But like all love affairs the memories will last forever.
