I have a policy.

Actually I have a number of policies… in fact too many some would say… these Saturday policies allow me to comfortably navigate through my life…

Some policy areas are Saturday-rich and often require a number of support policies to be put into play depending on the circumstances and my own evolving mindset. The Cinema Policy is a good example of this.

There was always one prime Cinema policy but two other policies have come to life as it relates to the optimum Cinema experience. The first two are relatively straight forward. The third is kinda muddy and evolving.

Cinema Policy 1.0 relates to the consumption of foodstuffs within the cinema.

My position is that I am forking out good money for a premium audiovisual experience difficult to replicate at home AND not to have a meal of popcorn in the dark. It’s about the movie it’s not about the popcorn. Forget the popcorn. It’ll ruin your gums, requires a huge amount of soft drink to cleanse the palate and its loud and annoying. If you wanted to sit in the dark eating a massive superbucket of popcorn – I suggest sitting in the garage late at night. Your garage not mine.

Of course popcorn is not the worst of it, the worst of it is ice creams and chocolate that invariably fall across the front of people’s clothes or into the seats for the next session’s bottoms to swipe clean. And the bag of chips and lollies that always seem to involve very loud crinkly packaging and idiots who can’t open them quietly and access the bags without a huge amount of racket. For the love of Grod – open the bloody packets before the feature starts and tear the side open for better fist access you pack of knuckles… or better still. Just skip it and having something pre or post film.

And it’s not just the stuff sold at the cinema counter… I’ve sat in cinemas while people open up a box of KFC chicken, another time some drippy kebabs, a bow of wonton soup, even a packet of grapes… sheeesh. Actually the grapes were not so bad, at least they were quiet. It was the tossing them high and into the mouth that tired me out.

Cinema Policy 2.0 – Placement and positioning.
I like to sit 1/3 up from the screen within the seating block and 2/3 down from the back row and dead center. I am flexible on the exact placement but like it as central as possible. If it comes to it, I will accept an aisle seat but for me to be happy I’d need to be closer to the back for this to be acceptable. And the aisle would need to come off the central seating block and not the small side blocks found in most cinema configurations. I also prefer my seating partner to sit on my right-hand side rather than my left… I like to cross my legs away from them and favour right over left.

Cinema Policy 3.0 This in-support policy relates specifically to films previewed at the cinema by Murray@Midnight, my mother – The ‘Googie’ and the ‘Madd Wrabbit’ before I have had a chance to see them.

If a film has already been viewed by Murray@Midnight in the cinema, as a general rule, that film will only ever be viewed by me as a DVD rental. It’s a policy in formulation but currently I would find it extremely difficult to even contemplate viewing this Midnight-ed film during its actual cinema release window. It kinda drives me a little crazy. Like mad feet and excessive head scratching around the ears.

There are a number of reasons for this. A number. It’s important to note at this juncture however that it’ not personal and certainly Midnight should in know way feel that it is. At all. It’s just a thing… a policy thing. I don’t always agree or like, or even fully under some of these policies but there you have it. It’s policy.

Any previewed and strongly recommended film by ‘The Googie’ is dismissed out of hand straight up and unlike the Murray@Midnight previewed films, I am almost never going to be in anyway tempted to rented, purchase and view a ‘Googiefied’ film.

Her cinematic tastes are almost always terrible… and made worse by her habit of zoning out during the film. She misses whole key narrative elements within the film and blissfully makes up alternate stories in her own mind to fill the blank gaps. This is most disturbing when, in recounting a film, she’ll make mention of characters, locations, or scenes that either never ever happened at all or featured in an entirely different film altogether. Her cinematic tastes are not unlike an old hardened cinnamon roll looking for some thick chunky custard to make sweet sweet love to. Horrible. With a strange after taste. And a sense of shame. And fear.

Let’s face it, films viewed without me by the ‘Madd Wrabbit’ are most likely to be either convoluted period films, light weight rom-coms, or serious chick-flicks with more rom than com and I just couldn’t stand two hours in the dark wishing myself away… far far away where the whiney Bronte sisters will never ever find me.

Of course I don’t get much of an input in terms of revisiting these films at home. They appear as if by magic in the bedroom and are watched again and again and under duress. I plead for mercy but there is none. Just a question and answer session to test my attentativeness as it equates to my care factor and in turn determines how my weekend will unfold.
Curse you Jane Austen. Curse you Lee Majors.

The exception to this is of course any film that may have been written by or in some way touched by the genius that is Richard Curtis. His sense of the human condition is very English and very wonderful. In fact I have a policy about the human condition as it relates to the English… and another concerning the colour green as employed in live theatre and…don’t start me on sushi…