The Leicester Square Odeon, home for decades to premieres and Royal views and the place with more red carpet than Ikea, is to reopen its doors next month after a ‘refurb’. Another one. Usual thing; needed a ‘lick’a paint’ and 47 billion quid later it looks fab. But all that paint and red carpet doesn’t grow on trees. So when it opens it charge £40.25 for the ‘best seats’. These are the Emirates First Class of cinema seating. Reclining, obvs, massive, in case you’re fat, and with ‘three times the leg room of normal seats!!!’ Which is about twice what you probably need really. Normal cinema seats aren’t cramped, another 2 feet would be nice. You don’t need a basketball court in front of you. I don’t think the 40 quid includes either a butler or masseuse but that can probably be arranged.

As an avid and regular movie-goer (and movie buff sometimes, though movies in the buff rarely) I have my cinemas of choice. I like sitting on a 2-seater sofa. With Mel. And I like sufficient leg-room to stretch my very long (32” inside leg) legs. I rarely get the urge to ‘walk around’ during a movie. If I do, then the director’s got something wrong.

And more leg room means less seats.

Yet just this Sunday I was prematurely mourning the demise of the cinema. When a mate told me that Saturday night he saw ‘Disobedience’, which I saw that very night. I saw it at the Phoenix, he saw it in his lounge. On some Curzon Movies stick that hooks up to the intraweb via Amazon and, blah, blah, blah, you get brand new releases, on your own tv. All the sofa you want. Snacks in the kitchen. Pause button! Movies in the buff if you wish, and if you’re wife can stand it. But brand new, first weekend releases, at home and legal, not pirated.

So not only do movies have to compete with tv, with Netflix, with Sky Movies, with Amazon, with all manner of competitive shit, they now would appear to have lost their only ‘edge’, the ‘first view’.

You can watch it at home for a tenner or fork out 80 quid to see it at Leicester Square. Plus travel. Plus 30 quid for popcorn. I like popcorn and its not going to be cheap there, is it?

So if you go to town to watch the movies, the back rows (where we have to sit, one of Mel’s many ‘rules’) its only a tenner each. Bargain. And if you get sneered at by the wide boys in their fold-down, duck-down, hyperseats, just tell them you feel sorry for them because they obviously don’t have a cinema at home. Like wot we don’t.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx