The auditoriums can be noisy, distracting and irksome. But in a few essential respects nothing is better than going to see a film
Cinemas are getting a bit smug, aren’t they? I mean, Hollywood always has been – hosting half a dozen lavish awards ceremonies a year, making a steady stream of love letters to itself, paving an entire street with names such as Kermit the Frog and Hoot Gibson (once a big name in cowboy films, to save you Googling) – but now it’s the turn of the modern multiplex, reinvented in ads and ident film sequences as a sort of hallowed, liminal space of infinite possibilities.
“We come to this place … to be reborn,” murmurs Nicole Kidman, staring beatifically up at a slow-mo scene from Wonder Woman in an ad for the popular US chain AMC. “Heartbreak feels good in a place like this.” Elsewhere, there’s endless talk of surrendering yourself to the wonder and illusion of cinema, with the Odeon nudging the whole thing to its natural conclusion by having a fully behatted magician in its marketing. As far as I can work out, he’s advertising comfy seats.
