Vue Cinema, Harrow
The Vue Cinema in Harrow is my local at university. It is situated inside a shopping centre, with shops below and around it and fairly nice restaurants either side of it. I have frequented this cinema many times, having either come straight from home to see a film, or come from a meal with my family, or the pub with friends. All these different kind of journeys in their own way add to the experience of the film. Making the cinema more of a ‘night out’ when dealing with a multiplex chain such as Vue is necessary, because when you get to the cinema itself there is a small chance that the cinema itself will make any effort to offer an ‘event’.
Going to this mutiplex reminds me of an article I read on The Telegraph website by Bernadette McNulty, who writes in a modern multiplex “unmanned machines spew out tickets and chemically enhanced snacks while elevators transport you to hi-tech black caves where digital films leap out in 3D.”[1] It is interesting that she refers to the cinema screens themselves as ‘caves’ as it demonstrates how sparse and uninteresting the room itself is in the modern multiplex. This certain is the case in this particular Vue where the foyer consisted of huge arrows directing us to ticket sales, and signs informing us of the price of popcorn and ice-cream (but, actually, nowhere that tells us the price of the cinema tickets – which were an astonishing £9.60 at this cinema, over double what I paid at each of the last cinemas I visited).
No, I wasn’t going to get any kind of grand experience in the foyer. And I didn’t expect much of the screening room itself.
The screen I was in (7, for anyone whose interested) was in fact the same one I had been in when I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. When I saw it, the screen projection was stretched so that it appeared to be widescreen 16:9, rather than anamorphic 2.40:1. This went on through the adverts and I assumed someone would correct it before the film started. Alas, the projectionist (actually, there probably wasn’t a projectionist in this now digital screen as they press ‘play’ on the projector and leave us to it) was not paying attention, nor any other employee, and no-one else in the screening either seemed to notice or could be bothered to get up to sort it out. It wasn’t until someone from my group got up and asked someone in the foyer that the film was projected properly.
As as you may have been able to see where I was going with that story, we also had problems during last night’s screening of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The right-hand speaker was peaking at a far lower volume than it’s left counterpart, and as such whenever the sound got to a certain level or a specific note was hit in music, it burnt the sound horribly. It happened once during the adverts which I had hoped was a horrible copy of the trailer but unfortunately it also happened during the screening which did, of course, take you out of the screening someone (as did someone’s phone going off half way through the screening, do people just not watch the Orange: Turn it Off ads anymore??)
So yes, this may have not been the best cinema experience one could hope for. This being said, the digital projection did give a good, crystal clear image that could not be complained about. But the thing about these multiplex chains is that they are simply there to make money, not to offer the customer any kind of cinematic experience. I remember speaking to Rob Younger, the manager of the independent Parkway Cinema in Barnsley and he said that there is an employee in the screenings at all times to ensure that things such as projection issues are avoided, and people making noise on phones or talking is prohibited. It is this kind of customer care that makes a trip to an independent that much more enjoyable than a multiplex such as this. And I know I mentioned this already, but £9.60! It’s extortion.
Lets hope that other venues in London and nearby prove to provide a more pleasurable time than this cinema has.
18 January: 3/50 cinemas.
[1] McNulty, Bernardette, ‘Old cinemas: it’s a kind of magic’, The Telegraph (22 September 2010)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-blog/8009518/Old-cinemas-It-is-a-kind-of-magic.html
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50 Cinemas 