Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Screen 4, Odeon George Street, Oxford

(Cinema Screen)



NEILL says:

Screen 4 at the George Street Odeon is, apparently, the dumping ground for the not-quite-blockbusters, the movies that are fated to garner neither record-breaking opening weekends nor awards-ceremony glory, but which will probably pull in a few punters on a Saturday night. The ‘Van Helsings’ of this world, basically. The general atmosphere is of squalor and disappointment; the whole place smells like a male locker room, you can hear the ‘click-click-click’ of the projector over any quieter scenes in the film, half the seats are broken and worst of all, the ultimate degradation: there are no cup-holders. I’m sorry, I have to hold my own cup? If I wanted to hold my own cup I’d go to the Phoenix and watch an artistically challenging Algerian movie about Lesbians being stoned to death. I’m here to see a big explosive Hollywood piece of crap, and by God I want a place to set down my absurdly large beverage! The whole place sends a message to the cinemagoer that says “you wanted to see this piece of shit, this is all you deserve”. Which is fair enough I suppose, but dash it all, surely paying seven quid to watch ‘Hellboy’ is a harsh enough moral lesson for one evening.

3.6/10