Going to the cinema on ones own is good. I believe that. Some hate it, but I like it, I think it’s romantic, cool, and there’s less people you know to distract you.
I like to get properly engrossed in a film, and any nudges of “can you pass me the…”, or “isn’t that him from…” piss me off no end.
Of course, being on your own in a room full of strangers isn’t a bundle of laughs either, statistically most strangers are cunts.
I went to see Children of Men at the Islington vue cinema on a saturday night and got so annoyed I ended up shouting at some kids and calling them cunts, which somehow made me the bad guy, even though they were throwing popcorn and giggling. And there was a man explaining everything to his girlfriend in Russian and someone else seemingly needing to illuminate his popcorn with his ridiculously bright phone display (so bright that normally I’d be jealous) before he could eat any, having not mastered the incredibly hard skill of touch/feel/grab/eat. I swore I’d never go to a cinema on a Saturday night again.
But, another day on the road, another hotel and a night to myself I thought I’d go and watch The Wrestler. I used google to locate the nearest cinema – it was an odeon in a place called the Printworks and the film started a 9:15 – that gave me a couple of hours to have a bath, chill out and imagine what a lovely cool place the printworks must be, I’ll probably sit next to a poet and be surrounded by windswept and interesting people and then get invited to a house party in a warehouse conversion where someone with a beard tells me about a play he wrote. (actually, I’d fucking hate that, pretentious cunts, but the reality was so far worse)
One problem with our google led internet lives is that the googlemaps didn’t say “watch out, the printworks is a soulless place with lots of chain food stops and lots of hen parties and men selling glowing necklaces in the street.
I nipped to a shop on the way and bought some cans of beer to sneak into my big coat pockets to sup during the film.
But when I got to the printworks I had a vision of what my £8.50 ticket would be buying me. A cunt filled auditorium with lots of chatter and I’d feel horribly self conscious that a man in this environment drinking beer on his own whilst watching Micky Rourke hit people with chairs (I think that’s what the film is about) would make me a target for, at the very least, odd looks).
So I aborted, went back to hotel, intending to maybe catch a late night viewing at a less cunty place, but instead ended up watching some shit woody allen film on the telly (no freeview here) and twittering about it.
Then found the Gomorra was on at a cooler cinema earlier that evening – and I really want to see that, in fact that would have made my night. Instead I nipped out for a subway that was next door this bleak hotel (so bleak that they wouldn’t look twice if you walked in with two prostitutes) and then this morning found a condom wrapper under the bed.
It summed up the bleakness, I’m sure lot’s of hotel rooms get condoms used in them, but I bet at the Ritz the cleaners get rid of them.
Road Trip!!!!
gah