Earlier this week I was ranting about how much I fucking hate Cineworld, and my visit to the NFT (only my third ever) came as such a refreshing change that it was like walking barefoot across a dewey meadow after a 10 mile hike in heavy walking boots. It's great!
They have proper cafes outside by the river, they have a fantastic filmstore full of interesting books, magazines and DVDs (they even have an SF film section!), there are no adverts or trailers and the films start on time and they have an interesting selection of films I genuinely want to see including a season devoted to postwar japanese cinema and comic book films.
Why can't all cinemas be like this?
The only downside is that it's a little bit expensive, but given the terrible local choice of films I think I'd be saving money by cancelling my cineworld card and going to the NFT instead. Hurrah!
I tend to find the lighting levels a bit high at the NFT, I went there a fair bit a couple of years back when the London Film Festival had a lot of interesting stuff on (as it does from time to time) and the light levels were quite distracting (though it's a complaint I have of many cinemas, still they were noticeably bad then).
Also, one chap attended all the same screenings I did, and had an odour that could kill sheep from several rows distance (and did, though really one shouldn't bring sheep to the cinema as a rule) albeit I grant that's not the NFT's fault.
Posted by: Max Cairnduff | July 10, 2008 at 05:45 PM
You must be quite sensitive to lighting as both times I've been to the NFT I was quite happy with the lighting levels. I suspect you just harken back to those days after the wart when you could snog in the backrow in complete darkness ;-)
As for the smelly people, dude we're into roleplaying and science fiction. Kettle, Pot, Black ;-)
Posted by: Jonathan M | July 10, 2008 at 09:11 PM