I think you'll find that the cost of the cinema is killing off the big screen experience.

Few weeks ago, took the family to an Odeon cinema (we were on the mainland). I was flabergasted at the price I paid (not wanting to dissapoint the kids, I paid).

Basically, it was enough to rent several films, put part payment toward a dvd player and home cinema system and enough left over for a bag of popcorn or two.

Agreed Dave (Morning Btw + best wishes to all....
Mainland....you wild and reckless devil you ;-).
I went to the cinema over here.
Got a posh seat for the simpsons movie - in English - 2 x dunkin doughnuts, popcorn and a diet coke for €7.50 !

I know, just chucking my money around in wild abandon! Mind you, we still do the mobile cinema when it comes. You seen it? amazing pantecnica lorry thing that unfolds into a pretty fine cinema!

#1 and #2 Spot on! Add in the expensive ice cream and sweets ... and you've just spent the equivalent of going out for a meal to an expensive restaurant, which you thought you'd eschew in favour of Spiderman 3!!

DfB....I knew you was a mad beggar!
The Screen Machine :-) Yup, never been to it.usually see it parked up in Kyleakin in the carpark near the Hakkon bar. Wife and I usually go to the Aros Centre in Portree. Herself has a couple of tickets to go to a mobile theatre that is around in the next few weeks. I'm not home until 1st week of Oct though so she is off there with one of the BnB landlady crowd that she socialises with. That was about 8 quid a ticket I think she said! Still, I don't mind, I only let her out once every few months ;-)

SS

Hahahaha! Excellent mate! Keep em on thier toes, eh? (he said, looking over his shoulder....)

We call it the Scream Machine. Amazing thing, travels all over Europe for the troops and for the occupied territories.

However, as Masque has pointed out, have you seen the price of a poke o sweeties and some iced up flat juice at the cinema?? It's a joke!

There is no doubt that downloading and illegal copying is denting the trade, but that doesnt change the fact that the Hollywood product is mostly rehashed remakes and pointless sequels.

Dave from Barra

You are spot on. I very rarely go to the cinema because all the movies come out on DVD in about six months or so and you can enjoy the "blockbusters" at home with friends and family and a good bottle of wine or six, healthy snacks such as crudites, go to the loo without missing one second of the movie, and see the rest of the movie the next day if you have "over-refreshed" yourself and the last half of the movie is a vague blur.

Or even home cinema?...projecter connected to the laptop...big screen suspended from the ceiling...whehey...popcorn at the ready!

The movies I will see on the big screen are the IMAX 3D ones, especially the latest Harry Potter movie. You cannot get that experience at home.

More and more movies are being re-released in IMAX and modern digital technology has really given a second-life to some of the classics from the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Cinemas are basically glorified sweetie shops. The distributors squeeze so much percentage out of exhibition, that the only thing left to make a profit on is popcorn and ice cream.

Both Cousins and Scott show a clear lack of understanding in how cinemas operate. Satellite digital cinema will decimate distribution costs making cinemas cheaper to operate and hopefully create larger audiences.

BTW Screen Machines are brilliant. I attended the launch of the first one on Islay and it broke down ten minutes after arrival. They're much better today.

Can you manage to send one of those Pantechnica mobile cinema thingies up to Shetland? We have a proper cinema due to arrive in 2011 if we get all the plans approved and grants that are promised, but then there's a luddite tendency who want us to put up with a once per month screening of kiddie fodder in the Garrison Theatre, home of the most uncomfortable seats anywhere in the world. Of course the technology Ridley Scott was so quick to condemn means we can get to see the latest releases on the overnight Aberdeen-Shetland ferry, but £37 just to get on board, plus another £5.99 for admission to an on-board cinema screening does add up; especially if they happen to have three good films on back to back..... Still, this weekend we have REELPLAY the first ever Shetland film festival to look forward to - wall to wall Ken Russell, though the man himself has had to cry off a personal appearance last minute, due to illness. Maybe he has heard that the passage can get a bit rough in the one and nines.

Windy try and get him to do a webcam appearance.

Never visited the New New Phoenix in Kirkwall?

FLASH, All movie theatres in UK, N America to be closed the month of november. They have to install the giant ass seats for the extra well nourished, who just can't resisted the goody bar!

Slim..Endangered species

Well it certainly isn't the TV is it?

Cinema should be a pleasant experience, not like those newly designed badly built cinemas where people are crushed into glitzy, brightly light modern tacky halls. The old style cinemas are the best such as The GFT, one of the few remaining gem. Also the Bloomsbury cinema.

I'd strongly recommend people leave the keyboards and internet behind for Julie Delpy. What a wonderful talented person. A great laugh too. http://www.2daysinparisthefilm.com/

Mr & Mrs Iyer is also a great film at the cinema or at home.

Who buys CD films? Rent maybe but buying them is really quite silly unless the person is so dull and boring that they want to watch the same film to death.

I adore the cinema experience. I attend frequently. But over the past couple of years I've had Moulin Rouge with crap sound - a musical really aught to have good sound: Birth projected at the ceiling and not at the screen: The Departed at the wrong aspect ratio - and after the third complaint I had to leave. The modern multiplex is not a nice place to see films. The death of cinema is often predicted, but its the incompetence of projectionists which is a threat. And rubbishy stories. And films being exhibited by companies who clearly don't love the medium but just see a way of hawking popcorn and nachos at top dollar.

Driveins are great, with the right company the car windows always fog up. Probably rains too much for you to have them. "Summer and the living is easy" Ouch, who threw that

no for me its ignorant folk behind you sticking their feet up on the back of your seat or the one next to you.I got sick of it and dont go now.

Our whole family absolutely LOVE cinema. We also like most genres of film; the only big exception we don't like is horror.
We also live within reach of 2 main multiple cinemas in Newport, a handful in Cardiff and another 3 or 4 in Bristol, plus various small local ones. That's a choice of around 10 cinemas.
Trouble is it's no choice at all. They all show almost exactly the same list of films, and the list at the multiple cinemas stays the same week after week after week.
We search for ages on the websites trying to find the odd film we a) haven't seen already b) isn't purely for children c) isn't totally mindless violence. It's surprisingly difficult.

But the main problem is the same 10 or so films being shown out of which we moight want to see 3. So after 3 weeks we have to wait another 3 or 4 weeks for something to appear worth watching.

Surely there must be more than 10 films available for cinemas to put on at any one time?

I have not been to a movie is years - the showing of commercials and paying $8.00 for 30 cents worth of product did it for me. It really wasn't the cost of entry.
I removed my TV also. It is amazing how much one can get done when you don't sit like a vegetable in front of the TV - or spend way too much money on movies!
Hollywood can go bankrupt - it would serve them right to do so.

Besides price the fact that (at least here) most theaters are really shabby doesn't help. In the old days movie theaters were large works of art for the most part. It used to be a mystical experience. Now it's just big bucks to sit in a dark room.

They hate the internet because the MSM (and their hollywood ilk) no longer control entertainment. However, censorship is still America's favorite past-time. The US gov't (and their corporate friends), already detain protesters, ban books like "America Deceived" from Amazon and Wikipedia, shut down Imus and fire 21-year tenured, BYU physics professor Steven Jones because he proved explosives, thermite in particular, took down the WTC buildings. Free Speech forever (especially for the internet). Bye, bye Hollywood.
Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&i...

I went to a movie this last weekend, "Balls of Fury". There were some obvious downsides to the experience, ticket price, and the 4 teenagers behind me who wanted everyone to know about their pathetic, useless existence. On the positive however, the movie was digitally projected for a good picture. Certainly not Hi-Def, but close.

But it's because of the lack of supervision in these theaters that I will not go again. I'm much more happy to wait for the HD-DVD and enjoy it in my home.

People have forgotten how to enjoy themselves in the public square. Rudeness and crudeness seem to be the rules of the day - from tossed popcorn to feet on your head from the person in back of you, to screaming kids, unruly teenagers with their XBoxes fully running and their cellphones ringing - what sort of enjoyment could one get in a place such as the modern day cinema? I wouldn't mind paying their exorbitant prices. I wouldn't even mind their highway robbery acts with their concession prices. But the filth of these places, the stench from the bathrooms and the diseases that fester in these enclosed systems where the air is worse than airplane recycled air? Who needs all these aggravations? Cinema? No thanks. I will watch from that smaller screen but I will be able to follow the story and be entertained.

Ridley Scott is correct. No one is going to invest $200 million in an epic production if the main playback platforms are tiny cell phone screens, laptop computers, and video-garbage-can sites like YouTube.

The experiences of the Music business should be instructive to studios, distributors,and other companies: ubiquity on cheap media devalues the product to the point where very few people think any of it is worth paying for.

The internet is like a flea market: the main appeal is that every thing sold is cheap. By using the interenet as a primary marketing-target and distribution platform, the entertainment business is effectively declaring its product classes to be flea-market values; junk in short. There is no way to build value (or profit margin) into the product anymore.

Music is mainly produced and marketed by independent artists because the internet has made artist-development, catalog/repetroire maintenance, and high-quality production unprofitable in corporate contexts.

The rapidly falling costs of adequate recording equipment has masked the decay of the industry because it is possible to generate a lot of product. But in the age of the internet, selling product (except at give-away prioces) is nearly impossible.

Television has suffered too, though to a lesser degree. But the proliferation of junk game shows, inane 'reality shows' and infomercials are all serving to dilute and diminish the quality and predictability of TV audiences, and thues lowering the value of TV to advertisers.

That business model will effectively end traditional movie making if implemented: the costs of movie production are not falling, and seem unlikely to do so.

Bottom Line: HOLLYWOOD should pay attention to Ridley Scott's words here.

Hollywood is killing itself. Sequels, sequels of sequels, talent has taken second place to agenda ala Sean Penn and that ilk. Gone are the great genius of the industry, John Huston, Robert Wise, Wells, RKO, Warner etc. No originality, no talent, all computer generation.

I am a huge movie fan but this is why I don't go to the theater much -

- Movies suck. Who is going to spend the money for a prequel or a equal? Hollywood lacks any new ideas to justify the cost of a movie these days. There are always a few gems, but most of them are just plain crap.

- It's expensive, almost a rip off even. I am married, without children, have a decent disposable income...but paying that much for a movie is the last thing I think about.

- Rude/annoying people. Instead of getting arrested for assault and battery getting someone to shut the *** up I can just get the DVD.

- Netflix, Tivo, big LCD surround sound entertainment at a much lower cost compared to a few years back all contribute.

- Movie screens, with the exception of IMAX are darker, and I cannot see a darn thing, whereas things are brighter on DVD. Celluloid, maybe it's bigger, but that doesn't always mean the picture of better. Pixel technology has gotten very sophisticated in the past several years.

All of these...why see a movie?

Mr. Scott says "the best way to experience great film was still in a cinema with a big screen and state-of-the art acoustics," and he's exactly right.
But what's the best way to experience mediocre film? For my part, I think it's in the comfort of my own home, at a third of the price.
It's not the internet that's killing cinema, it's crappy films.
Make something worth paying $10 to see, and I'll come. Otherwise, I'll find other things to do.

Yes the best place to see a film is on the big screen. But Hollywood is killing itself. Supply and demand . $10 movie ticke, $10 popcorn and drink. $25m paychecks for mediocre actors..Think about it.

The guy who invented the 8-Track tape player cried all the way into new the technological age too!

Most of the movies are complete crap these days- so people are leaning toward the internet. People have shown what they want to see, but the studios and several independents just keep giving us crap and ripping us off at the theater and the video store.

Now the shoe is on the other foot?

And does it feel good, baby Scott? Does it feel good Riddles?

Stop crying and whining like a little beatch!!!!!!

Cinema is killing cinema. When you keep on putting out junk the numbers will go down. Stupid plots, terrible writing, profanity and violence and sexuality without context, actors chosen for their "look" rather than talent, all these will eventually drive anyone with half a brain out of the theater. Artists thinking that being a celebrity gives them the license to lecture us on any topic because they're famous hardly endears them to the folks who'd normally fill the seats. The cultural, intellectual, and moral isolation and inbreeding of Hollywood adds to it all because the product has no connection with the larger world. Hollywood is like an aging rock star slowly dying by choking on its own vomit.

Another thing to consider. The actors themselves. Tom Cruise recently went looney tunes, I don’t want to see Mission: Impossible III at all. Lindsay Lohan is a crack whore, I could care less about Georgia Rule or I Know Who Killed Me.

Here in the USA we have a lot of megaplex movie houses, so finding a movie isn't hard. We are also have independent movie chains such as Landmark which bring us independent films. But they are almost always "left leaning" such as the recently released "Redacted". So, all in all, we still don't have much to chose from.

If it means that that Richard Gere, George Clooney, Barbara Streisand, Dixie Chics, Alec Baldwin, Jean Garafola and all the other LIBERAL
movie stars that are so stupid as to think that most people want them to make their political choices for them, make alot less money, I am all for it. Let them get a real job and, hopefully, find obscurity.

I've found going to the movies here unplesant (rude people, talking), pricey and then with the cost for bad popcorn and weak soft drinks astronomical that the wide screen experience is not a cost effective use of my discretionary money.

Rent a DVD, put it on the TV or computer screen, multi-task, stop it, go to the bathroom, start it. Entertainment as I want it, when I want, at my price.

Simple: pricey rude theaters vs the comfort of home
Ray

Some very good comments, a lot of good points have been made, bad movies, bad actors, prices, agendas. Hollywood thinks that their fame is OWED to them, we are mear plebians to them, after all we don't live there. Only rich people, with talent (self imposed) live there. I refuse to watch films starred in, dirceted/produced by, or supported by certian actors. The agendas are maddening, the movies are pointless, theaters are rude/expensive, etc it all has been stated. Hollywood will continue to whine and complain, raise prices, award themselves, act as if they are gods and tell us we are not understanding them. That we are the idiots and will continue, as they think is the rightful order, to be plebs.

Mr. Scott better wake up and smell the coffee.....it's not the internet that's hurting movies...it's the wacko- liberal view that the "stars", producers, directors and writers that are turning people away from going to the movies!

Yes, horrendous parking, uncomfortable theater seating, babbling inconsiderate audience, cell phone maniacal ring tones, commercials, advertisements, prices, it all adds up to a dying industry. Can't watch them on commercial television, too many commercial interruptions, satellite is better but you have to record them if the schedule doesn't match, purchasing the DVD is cheaper. If I purchase the DVD from Amazon, I don't even have to leave the keyboard.

Better yet, my wife and I have rediscovered books! Stacks and stacks of novels, inexpensive, stimulating for the mind's eye, they work even when the power goes out. Completely portable. Gee, some things are just so simple.

I am relieved to see that it is not just me that thinks that going to a movie is a waste of my time and money. Though I do wonder if I am the only one who thinks that the theater is always to cold.

No need to speculate here, I know what killed the cinema experience for me ... hateful, venom spewing leftists in Hollywood constantly trying to cram their elisted BS down my throat with their shoddy products.

There's a whole list of actors, writers and directors that I absolutely will not ever pay to see in a theater because they're unable to leave their sledge-hammer approach to their stupid politics outside the theater.

OK...if the internet is killing the cinema, which I have heard lots of Hollywood and Indie producers and directors say, why is it that we have a record summer box office?

Maybe what was killing the industry wasn't the internet. Maybe it has been the total lack of anything new for the last few years. Everything has been a remake or at best a retelling of previous works.

Films shown out-of-focus because there's no longer a projectionist, scratchy prints that get worse each time the film is shown, people who talk incessantly whilst watching the film...why should I pay money to go to the bloody cinema when I can watch films at home and pause it when I have to go to the loo? Film shown in the cinema needs to die and now! Cinema is a throwback to the days when the only way to see a movie was to go to a theatre and watch it along with an organist. That was almost 100 years ago. Nothing stays the same, it's time to close down the cinemas.

Negro heroes, homosexuality shoved down our throat, noisy kids (who don't seem to even want to see the movie), outlandish, stupid CGI special effects, little to no character development, bad plots... need I go on? Like someone else said, Hollywood can go down the tubes and no one would really miss it.

No Mr. Scott, its not people sitting at their PC or watching a movie on a mobile phone, or even big screen TVs that's hurting Hollywood...it's Hollywood making tons of crap and expecting the public to shell out $9.50 a ticket. We'll still pay that price I guess, but we will do it for ONLY select films and
maybe twice a month...what happens? Lots of films will lose money, the studios will make less films, people in the industry will have less work. If Hollywood was not a license to steal once you had the green light maybe the economics would make more sense and the industry would grow.

perhaps Mr Scott wouldn't have to whine about the net if he made more films like Bladerunner instead of this warmed over piece of c...., Jesse James remake.

Good God, do something original, Jesse James movies and TV shows have been made maybe close to 50 times over the last 50 yrs,

put out a good product and the public will spend the $.

later

Here in the states one of the problems with going to the movies is that people have become so rude and they think nothing of talking to each other or talking on their cells during the movie. And groups of young people put their feet on the back of your seat. When I was young they had people who's job it was to tell these people to be quiet, etc. or leave. But no more. And if you're in a large metropolitan area some of them just might shoot you, and at the least tell you to go f*** yourself. So I have NetFlix and am perfectly content to watch the movie three months after release on my 32" HD TV. I think there will still be a market for movies, just not in theaters. And yes, the cost of refreshments is a real put-off; I never buy them. We sneak in candy bars. They don't search you yet but you never know! Ha.

People want good stories, NOT big names. Hollywood thinks that we will be driven to go see ANYTHING if it's got this person, or that person starring in it. I never understood this. We've all learned that our favorite celebs can't save a poor story.

I don't think the public cares nearly as much about seeing "A NAME" as H'wood thinks we are. Some of my favorite movies star actors H'wood would consider nobodies. Who was the cast of the first Starwars? All nobodies at the time. The public didn't care. They wanted to see the story. The lead character NEVER even became a big name, but the franchise is still one of the most successfull with the public.

I won't go see a movie because of who is in it, but I will however, NOT go to certain movies because of who is in them. ANY movie starring certain individuals who I just can't stand will never get a cent from me. Russel Crowe for one. I will NOT go see ANYTHING with Mr. Crowe. Ever! If he's in it, I won't have anything to do with it. Off screen, the man shows himself to be complete, textbook, a**hole! That's the same way I feel about Mel Gibson. (Could it be an Australian thing?)

I also can't stand Sean Penn (Obnoxious with his inflated sense of self importance), and I'm a flaming liberal.

I will also most likely not see...

Anything with Charlie Sheen, Kate Hudson, or Gwenyth Paltrow, as ALL of these people only got where they are due to family connections. Stardom through nepotism, please don't support it. Sheen isn't even capable of acting well enough for a run of the mill sitcom. Sheen is the George W. Bush of Hollywood. If he wasn't a Sheen, this guy would be working in a cubicle somewhere today.

I also will not see...

Any American movie that stars mostly Australian, British, or Irish actors. Don't we have enough undiscovered actors toiling away in obscurity right here in America? Do we realy need to search the globe, to give some of our best paying jobs t

Interesting ideas...so how was the final cut of Bladerunner?

The movie industry suffers from what Peter Drucker characterizes as one of the Five Deadly Sins of business: It premium prices its product. And when an industry premium prices its product, it gives opportunity to its competition. It lets in its competition.

Theaters in the states make no money from the film they're showing but rather concessions selling trans-fatted junk food and super sized drinks at extra super sized prices.

If a movie were $5 instead of $7 or $7 instead of $10 more warm bodies would occupy the seats. If the cost of a Coke were $1 instead of $3.50, and popcorn $2 instead of $5, etc. etc., etc., people would buy more at the theater concession stand (as opposed to sneaking in their own snacks). It comes down to higher volumes and lower markups.

Otherwise, all sorts of other media will compete with the big screen. Maybe the Motion Picture Association of America should focus on the eloquence and elegance of Peter Drucker's thought process.

I cannot remember when I last visited a movie theater. With a family of four, the minimum cost would be $60.00, excluding the cost of transportation.
So, we purchased a large screen HDTV, and simply wait for the movie to come out on DVD. We then either purchase it (under $20.00) or rent it (under $4.00).

What's so difficult to understand about the mathematics of the situation? (Not to mention the convenience, comfort and social interaction experienced in the comfort of one's home!)

Ridley needs to take a pill and relax!
Yes, it is true that the internet is probably changing movies. But since when is change a bad thing? Change leads to inventiveness, new ideas spawn now markets and bring new ideas and people into the feild.

Those who say the internet is a problem, need to either don't use it or learn to understand it! Ridley and Elton really need to look beyond their own little worlds, and they really are little. They are entertainers, they provide music and movies! I respect the opinions of a scientist or someone who produces an actual product more than them!