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- Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold, Reviewed: Cryoburn is the latest Miles Vorkosigan novel, the thirteenth in a series stretching back a quarter of a century. Miles is now an Imperial Auditor with responsibility for investigating a company specializing in cryogenic storage that are planning on opening branches on Komarr. Miles becomes suspicious and travels to Kibou-daini, a world dominated by a populace who
- Sales: Cover for Damage Time by Chris Moore You can tell the authors at conventions. You just have to listen in. While the fans are likely as not to be talking what brilliant book they’ve read, or what film they’ve seen; the writers will be talking about money.* Because their incomes can be so precarious, and like any
- Magma: I’ve said many times –in many places– that I don’t write because I want to, I write because I have to. It’s a compulsion, which if it’s blocked off, leads to something close to clinical depression (my name is Colin, and I am a creative junkie….) Ever since I ended a particularly brutal bout of writing
- Black Static 23 Reviewed: Black Static for June / July 2011 contains the usual reviews and commentary, while the stories are mostly by returning regulars. V. H. Leslie appears for the second time in three issues, and already looks to be the magazine’s most prominent newcomer of the year. In ‘Time Keeping’ Howard believes that he keeps time running smoothly.
- End Games: People are always talking about the openings of stories. It’s an often quoted truism -especially by me!- that the first dozen lines of a story are critical. They are the unsolicited writer’s escape from the slush pile, or the path to a sometimes bewildered rejection. For the story that has been sold, a poor opening
Colin Harvey at Suite101
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When does a multiplex become a multiplex? I’ve been at films where I was the only person in the audience at the Odeon (3 screens) and also, before their demise, the ABC Whiteladies Road and the Frogmore. Again they both had 3 screens. The trick to getting the cinema to yourself is to go to see a film that has been out for a week or so, and pick an early afternoon showing on a weekday!
Also, I’ve been leaping for joy since the De Lux multiplex opened in the city centre, so that I can walk there. Not everyone owns a car!!! And the Odious was rubbish at getting in the films I wanted to see. Some wretched blockbuster would clog up their screens for weeks, and the ‘not quite as popular as Harry Potter/DaVinci Code/Lord of the Rings’ movies wouldn’t get a look in. To add insult to injury sometimes they’d even trailer the ones I wanted to see and then not bother to actually get them in…
I agree that it’s nice to get an empty cinema to oneself. But from the perspective of enlightened self-interest, if multiplexes haemorrage money, who pays for it in the end?
My thoughts were that there should be scope for more flexibility in programming. They have six daily showings of A&D on, and other things being shown once a day — if at all. Maybe if they develop the facility to discount if they ask you to wait an hour (for the next showing on the alternate screen) – and have a ‘back-up’ film for alternate screening.
OK, these are blue-sky thoughts, but you have twenty-first century technology underpinned by nineteenth century organization.
And I know, they’re not alone in that…
…sadly, as I get older and grumpier I see more and more the gap between what is and what could be.
It would be an impressive juggling act to be able to both schedule film times in advance (to let people pre-book) and to swap out one film for another if hardly anyone wanted to see it. Getting the mix wrong would result in oodles of annoyed punters. They’d almost have to have an official “overspill” screen to quickly shove on another showing of whatever was in demand that day…
On the money side, I suspect that the packed cinema for Summer Blockbuster 2 rakes in more than enough profit to make up for the fact that only two people a night went to see Obscure Arthouse.
The De Lux, of course, charges a premium to see Obscure Arthouse, by putting it on in the “Director’s Hall”! If me, you and Mrs Miggins from the pie shop fork out an extra £5 to see that we’ve probably paid the minimum wage for the usher who let us in and hoovered up the popcorn after we’ve gone.