Last month Cineworld held their sixth secret screening for their Unlimited Card members – an exclusive movie club for those who can afford a fee that seems like it goes up every month but still hasn’t reached the “ooh that’s a bit steep” £20 mark.
British cinema goers often get shafted with film releases. Yes, Marvel movies come out like 3 days earlier than in the US, but Pixar’s Coco won’t come out until January and smaller, more prestige films can be up to 6 months tardy – the wait for le hidden action genre saving gem John Wick felt like forever. So Cineworld’s semi-regular preview screenings for their subscribers are a welcome treat. The current line-up for next month is: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Downsizing; and The Commuter. An eclectic mix of genres and critical acclaim.
The only previous secret screening I had been to was 2 years ago, mere days before the last Episode numbered Star Wars film. The hype was palpable that night. Until the opening credits to the fantastically average In the Heart of the Sea started. Walkouts ensued. It seems that Cineworld learnt their lesson this time by timing the screening a safe distance from The Last Jedi.
On a whim, I sacked off work and socialising to go and watch a film by myself with a load of other film geeks.
They say film is about the journey. Well, the journey to the outskirts of Sheffield was not fun. It started out fine enough. I felt like a boss, sitting at the back of the Supertram with my AirPods® in, listening to ma boi J Hus. The rowdy teenagers that got on did not bother me (honestly!), no matter how much they were showing off to the girls with them (okay mate, we get it, you used to be on the Blades’ books) or how much they were suspiciously eyeing up my wanky Apple© look. But the tram inexplicably kicking out all the passengers to move us on to a following tram did bother me. We had to wait in the brutal Northern cold for over 5 minutes before boarding crammed carriages and apologising profusely to our fellow public transport plebs.
Arriving at the cinema, the allure of overpriced diabetes in a tub tried to herd us towards the concession stand – but my dad and Peter Kay trained me well, I won’t be paying those prices, I came with my own £1 bottle of pop.
My Holy Bible
A few of us secret-screeners were a tad early so we had to wait for the previous showing of Paddington 2 to finish while we tersely discussed what film we thought we might be seeing while all secretly not minding if it were that marmalade loving bear.
We were inside soon enough and patiently waited for the trailers for The Rock’s latest shite to play – and without any ads, yay preview screening! And in a brisk 140 minutes, the whole affair was over.
Much like Christmas, the anticipation was more exciting than the event, but at least there weren’t any vaguely xenophobic arguments with your Uncle Paul. If the film had been better it could have been quite the night to remember, who knows? But maybe that’s why these thoroughly average films are hyped behind a veil of secrecy, to get bums in seats.
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