LOVING the recent story of the woman who was missing going to the cinema so much she built her own in her garden shed.
Using items gathered from eBay, including plush red vintage cinema seats and a surround sound system, she built it from scratch. As lockdown projects go, that is one of my favourite.
We’re missing the cinema too - staging our own movie nights with popcorn and hotdogs has been fun, but it does not compare to the thrill of a visit to the big screen.
Ever since I was a child I have loved going to the movies. I have many happy memories of Indiana Jones movies and, later, in the Difficult Teenage Years, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, at the cinema in my home town of East Kilbride. There, the queues snaked around the block and the fog of cigarette smoke floated in the slant of light from the projector’s window.
I spent a happy few years as the ‘film critic’ for the local newspaper. Wednesday mornings, me in the posh seats with tea and biscuits, getting the chance to watch the blockbusters-to-be just before they were released – Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shawshank Redemption, Apollo 13….
Read more: Ann Fotheringham: The weirdness of shopping in a locked down world
At the GFT in Glasgow, I felt arty and grown-up watching French cinema, and I started a love affair with Baz Luhrmann which has lasted ever since: Romeo and Juliet, Moulin Rouge and, of course, the best film ever made, Strictly Ballroom.
I do not remember any of Glasgow’s old picture halls, but they were brought to life for me recently as part of my research for a feature on the city’s reign as cinema capital of Europe.
By the 1930s, there were around 130 cinemas here, more per head of population than any other city in the world outside America. What I love most are the names. The Astoria, Lyric, La Scala, Vogue – they were romantic and exotic. More than plain old cinemas, they were electric theatres, picture palaces. They were proud and important - Grand, Majestic, Premier, Star.
As lockdown restrictions ease and cinemas work their socks off to enable social distancing on a level that means it will be safe for us to return to the movies, part of me wishes some of the old names could come back too.
Read more: Ann Fotheringham: Let's all go back to Malory Towers
Bigger chains, more screens, state-of-the-art technology – all good, of course. But it is a shame that all that striving for brand awareness comes at the expense of poetry and imagination.
Give me a Cinerama or a Theatre de Luxe any day.
Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel