Today, me and a friend took a visit to your cinema to see super 8, which has been a much looked forward to film on my behalf, not so much by my friend, because she's an idiot and wouldn't know a good film if it slapped her in the face, but nonetheless, we went.

To convey the heights of my disappointment and annoyance, I feel I must start at the beginning, so here goes. I got up at around 9am (give or take a few snooze button presses), had a cup of coffee, I made it using our cool instant kettle thing, it saves time, electricity and the enviroment, so it's pretty awesome really, drank that while I had a chat with my mother, I'm a student and am back home for summer, it's a bit dull to tell the truth. After my coffee and talk with my dear mother, I went and got my jeans in off the washing line, I went with my black skinny ones, because they go well with the shirt and burgundy jumper I planned on wearing, unfortunately it had rained overnight, which I wasn't planning on, so I stuck them in the tumble dryer for a while before putting them, after that I hurriedly got my swagger together, but unfortunately missed my bus, to no fault of my own I may add, my sister decided she was going to take ages in the bathroom just before I needed to leave and I had to shave before I left as I didn't want to look like a tramp on my outing, I got to the top of my road only to see the bus departing, but never fear, for another bus would be along in one short hour. I headed back home and had another cup of coffee, again made with our cool instant kettle, seriously, the things amazing, I think it's made by tefal or some such company, but alas, I fear I am becoming sidetracked, I got my next bus in to salisbury, I listened to the new John Maus album on the way, which I highly recommend by the way, the rain came down is my personal favourite song on it, in case you were wondering, which I would hope you were.

I then alighted the bus at the bus stop, I chose to get off on a stop before the bus station, as the traffic is a pain and I like a little walk after having been sat down for the forty minute journey, I then headed over to reeves the baker to meet my friend Hannah, and got myself a chicken and mushroom pasty, a bit leaked out onto my jumper, which was a bit of a bummer, but I wiped it off and got on with my day, as I knew in a few hours time, I would get to watch Super 8 in the cinema, though I did not then know how disappointed I was going to be, and in good time dear reader, I will explain how that disappointment came about.

We went for some coffee in costa after my pasty, costa is my personal favourite of the high street coffee shops, I much prefer it to starbucks and cafe nero, I had a large mocha and a piece of lemon cake, and Hannah had a red berry frappuccino and a slice of carrot cake, which she seemed to enjoy, every second I was eating my lemon cake (which, I might add, was very good, I highly recommend you try a piece if you find yourself in a costa store and at a loss as to what you should purchase) the excitement in my for the film I would be seeing grew.

After costa we went and purchased some cinema tickets, I almost invested in a loyalty card thing, but decided not to in the end, I may another day, I just couldn't be bothered with the hassle of filling out forms and such on this occasion. We still had a while until the film though, so after we purchased tickets, we went to look around the shops, as I need a new pair of sunglasses, because an arm fell off my old ones, which I loved very much, they were tortoise shell wayfarer ones that weren't oversized like so many seem to be at the moment, I found a suitable replacement pair in TK maxx for £5 (bargain right?), they were similar to wayfares, but slightly squarer, but decided not to buy them until I'd looked around a few other shops, in case there were some better ones somewhere else, so I put them back, and had a look around some other high-street shops (topman, next, new look and river island) all to no avail, so decided to go back to tk maxx to get them, but, to my absolute horror, someone had gone and bought them, I was quite annoyed by this, but my disappointment was hampered by the excitement I had in anticipation to watch Super 8. We had a look around a few other shops before heading to the cinema, but nothing grabbed either of us, highstreet fashion is a bit rubbish at the moment really.

On the way to the cinema we popped in to boots to buy some drinks, as the ones you sell are massively overpriced, and come in silly big cups, and I prefer bottles, as I don't drink that much and like to save what I have left until later, which you can't really do with a big paper cup, as you'd look a tit wandering around town with one. Also, while I'm on the subject, why do you sell food? It's ridiculous, who the hell can't sit down for a few hours to watch a film without eating? What's wrong with these people? Also, the food you do sell, all seems to be really noisy food, popcorn, crisps and sweets in rustley packets, why do you do this? If you really must sell food, sell marshmallows in card boxes or something, they're probably quiet, it's distracting when you have some utter pleb sat next to/in front of/behind you crunching away on a load of popcorn while you're trying to appreciate the storyline and cinematography of whatever film you're watching. Maybe you could do one showing for idiots with low attention spans where you sell food, and one showing for normal people with IQs over 85 who have food before they go to the cinema so they're not hungry while the film is on, better yet, just make it mandatory you pass an IQ test with a score of 100 or so before entering the cinema, but that seems impractical.

Anyway, we sat down in the cinema, and the adverts came on, now, this is to be expected, but still quite annoying, we pay money to see a film, then are bombarded with what seems like an eternity of adverts before we watch it, surely if we have paid already you shouldn't need to show us adverts before the film, it is quite expensive for cinema tickets you know, how much money do you people need to make? You don't pay to go see a band and then get made to sit through 20 minutes of coca-cola and haribo adverts before you get to see them play, no-one would show up if that was the case, yet cinemas get away with it, it seems a bit mad to me, but I suspect that is something that you have no control over, maybe pass it up to whoever's in charge of odeon or something.


But anyway, we were watching the adverts, and it came to my attention that the screen was massively undersized for the room is was in, I may aswell have been sat in my living watching the film, which would, of course, have been impossible, as it is not out on dvd yet, I'm sure there's some dodgy copies up on the internet somewhere in which someone has filmed it from the back of the cinema, but I'd never watch something of such low quality, besides, I like to support film makes by going to the cinema when a good film comes out.


Screen 1 is in a lovely old room that presumably used to be a theatre, and while aesthetically pleasing, the room is not well suited for film viewing, as it was a large, high-ceilinged room with stone walls, the sound coming from the speakers reverberated around the room constantly, which was, to put it mildly, fairly irksome, I'm sure some acoustic treatment could be applied to the walls to stop this happening, but alas, it had not been performed. Now, admittedly, I am involved in the business of sound and acoustics, in the area of recording music, so it may have been more prevalent to my ears, which I have trained to pick up on such things, but I'm sure it must affect other people visiting the cinema too.

When the adverts finished, and the film started, to my utter dismay, the lights were not dimmed, I was sat in a cinema, watching a film I have been looking forward to for months, in a fully lit cinema! And what's more, the sound was not only echoing around the room, but it also seemed to quiet to hear properly in the first place! I for a minute thought that I may have accidentally come to an autism screening of the film, as I have read of such things, where the lights are left up and sound is turned down, but I never remembered seeing anything about that. I said to the friend I was with that it seemed strange that lights were up still, and she agreed, and then said she would go find a member of staff to tell, and off she went, she found one, who upon her complaint, turned the lights up, yes, that's right, turned them up, and then just turned them back down to what they were in the first place! What use is that!? I thought to myself, but I presumed it was a lost cause, and I didn't want to get up from my seat to find a member of staff, as I did not want to miss any of the all important opening scenes to the film, as I may then be lost later on in the film.

A while later, another man got up from his seat and left the cinema, before returning a while later, presumably to complain about the lights also, and after this, they were at last turned down to a normal, film watching level, but this must have been 15 or 20 minutes in to the film, I had watched the first 20 minutes of a film I had been looking forward to for months, with the lights up, needless to say, I was quite upset about this, but still I remained and tried to enjoy the rest of the film, although the sound was still echoing, as I have mentioned before, which somewhat spoiled the film for me.

As you can imagine, I left the cinema quite disappointed, and this was not due to the film, I found it to be a very enjoyable experience, sure the ending was sickly sweet, and the films were by no means perfect, but I definitely enjoyed it, I'd give it a good 7/10.

After the film we went back to costa and had some more drinks, but my Mocha frappuccino tasted a lot more bitter than it should have, due to my sub-par cinema experience (metaphorically, of course, not literally). After a few hours in costa drinking and eating, I caught my bus home, this time listening to run, WALK!, music fair bit angrier than John Maus, to reflect my mood.

Once home I had some dinner, and am now here writing this email to you, and I shall leave it at that, please take my comments into consideration.

Yours sincerely Storm Harland.