Cinema Paradiso

I vividly remember my first visit to the cinema. My Dad brought my brother and me to the movies to see a full length feature on the 1970 world cup. We had a black and white telly at the time, so the realisation that football was actually played in colour was my first shock. The second thing to hit me was the majesty of the theatre. The screen was bigger than anything my young mind could imagine and the way the sound enveloped me was strangely comforting. There was also the cushioned seats, which were a far cry from the wooden benches I was used to at home.

I started a love affair with the cinema then to which I remained faithful through the years, even though other technologies sought to entice me into their parlour. First, there was video, which killed the radio star and did it’s best to destroy the movie going experience too. I was around when the first top loaders came in and remember that space docking sound as it sucked the cassette into its inner sanctum.

One of mates had a player in the back room of his parent’s house and for a few years during my adolescence, we could think of nothing more edgy than to pool our meagre resources and rent a video to watch teen focussed American movies that might offer the prospect of a naked breast or at least a few curse words that we hadn’t heard before.

Adolescence in the Ireland I grew up in was a slow burning affair.

Video rental shops were the big craze back then and seemed to pop up everywhere. The one we frequented was in a pub, with the videos arranged against the back wall. This meant that your selection was monitored by a collection of surly drinkers huddled around the bar. “The butler did it” they’d say if you chose a thriller. “There are more tits on the bull I have at home than you’d see in that filum” would be their call if you went for something more risqué.

DVD came later and I was a late convert having built up a sizable collection of Woody Allen and moody European movies on video that I was loathe to say goodbye to. But the lure of the box set got me in the end. Who could resist the entire catalogue of The Wire for example? Particularly when you can set up subtitles to understand the gangster accents and watch 20 episodes back to back over a weekend.

But throughout the video and DVD age, I stayed loyal to the cinema. It forces you to sit in one place for two hours, without distractions. You tend not to visit the toilet or play text tennis, as you do when watching a movie at home.

During my bachelor years I noticed that my married friends had all stopped visiting the movies, except for the occasional Saturday afternoon visit to a multiplex with their kids to see the latest Shrek or Toy Story release. When I asked why they never bothered seeing a grown up film, they would shrug and say that they weren’t going to waste a baby sitting night by watching something they could rent six months later. It always seemed to be about the film and not the atmosphere for them.

But in a week or so, I’ll become a Daddy and for the next few years at least, my cinema visits will be limited. So the wife and I have been trying to catch as many movies as possible in the past few weeks. But I’ve never been a weekly attendant. I’ve only ever gone when there was something worth seeing. It’s only when I felt I needed to go urgently that I noticed how much dross is on most of the time.

In my local back in Ireland, Betty (the landlady) kindly displays the front page of the local paper above the urinals to give you something to read while carrying out your waste control. The only problem is that the paper is from 1965 and Betty hasn’t changed it since then. The cinema listings have always stayed with me because I’ve never heard of any of the films that were playing that week. Red Buttons was the star of one of them (which gives an indication of the star quality) and the rest would have fitted into the straight to video category if only video had existed back then.

I puzzled over this until last week when I checked out the new releases and found only rubbish. One is a movie called Red Dog. I read a review and it didn’t go much further than saying “It’s about a red dog”. It reminded me of my mother’s last cinema visit, which was to see George Clooney’s “The Perfect Storm”. I asked her how it was which she took as a question as to the movie’s plot. “It was about a fishing boat that went out in a storm and then it sunk”. I watched it two weeks later and she’d pretty much nailed it. Most films aren’t about much except pretty scenery and boy meets girl. Red Dog falls into this category although dog meets bitch would probably better summarise the ending.

The other films on offer were “We need to talk about Kevin” (which is not the sort of movie expectant parents should see) and “The Orator” which is about a Samoan dwarf and has the added benefit of being in Somoan.

I’d just about given up and resigned myself to a life of Toy Story sequels when I
noticed that my old friend George Clooney had a new release out. “The Ides of March” is a political thriller and makes the West Wing look like Glee. It is magnificent and if movies like that keep coming out, I know where I’ll be spending my baby sitting nights in the next few years. My love of cinema still has a beating heart.