i went to see ‘the dark knight’ yesterday evening, a special advance preview at my local cinema – a day before the official release tonight.

the film impressed me, it was as good as the first – if not better, and christopher nolan has again raised the bar for superhero films.

but what impressed me more was the the experience at my local cinema, one that i’d been going to for over 20 years. firstly, the screen and cinema is huge – a lot bigger than any of the screens at a near by mutliplex. the sound system was recently upgraded and is as good as you will find in an odeon, a uci or whatever and it’s also a lot cheaper. last night’s ticket was √Ǭ£5.50, the last time i went to a big chain cinema is was nearly √Ǭ£8.00 for the ticket!
one thing that i didn’t expect in the middle of a 152 minute film was an intermission, but an intermission we got and it was a chance to dehydrate ourselves with an ice cream. i always thought that intermissions were forced on the cinema if the film was too long and the roll needed changing – this may or may not be true. i think the reason in this case was to sell a few more ice creams and drinks and i don’t mind that at all – independent cinema needs all the help it can get on the financial front.

the best thing about last nights cinema were the adverts, the screening was at 7:30 and i wasn’t prepared for the film to start for at least 20 minutes after that – but the adverts started at 7:15, there was only one trailer and the actual film got under way at a couple of minutes past 7:30pm. i’ve been saying for ages they should show the adverts on loop before the actual screening time – but i know advertisers would never go for it, because it would miss out on the greatest possible amount of viewers for that screening.

so the film was great and the experience was a memoriable one and that has a lot to do with our local, 2 screen independent cinema. well done flicks

photograph by microbi

i’m having a bit of a movie weekend, and it was rounded off with watching this cute little song and dance penguin film which also has a strong environmental theme. sounds like it is trying to do too many things – and that does hurt the story telling. it does make you smile and chuckle out loud, but the one thing that did it for me was the animation – it really was stunning, the makers went for photographic realism and it works. the water scenes are especially realistic, it’s a shame the dvd extras didn’t go very far into the geeky side of the film making process as it would of been interesting to see what the makers process was.

night watch was probably the best Russian film i’ve ever seen… OK, it was the first and only Russian film i’ve ever seen! But it was an inspired piece of film making from highly acclaimed director / writer Timur Bekmambetov.

the sequel’s trailer has just been released on the apple trailers website and it looks stunning – check out the high def trailer here.

Oh, and the third installment is in production at the moment, imaginatively called ‘Dusk Watch‘ and it’s being filmed in English unlike the previous two as this one is being co-financed by Fox.