The first film I went to see was ‘The Muppet’s Christmas Carol’, but I was so young I hardly remember anything about it, I’ve a few other ones, though, that might be useful. Personal highlights over the years have been going to see the first Harry Potter film with my class in school and firing spit bombs at the screen every time Daniel Radcliffe’s face appeared; watching that awful Tom Cruise / Cameron Diaz vehicle “Day and Night” in a cinema in Lima, where every single person in the theatre seemed to be on the same wavelength as each other and found it, incomparably, the most ridiculous thing to ever been commissioned to film. It was one of those moments where everyone knew what a waste of their life it was, but we found some solidarity in everyone looking around the cinema giving each other “we’re all in on this, right?” looks. My personal favourite was when we took my younger cousin – he was seven then – to a ramshackle little cinema in Cork to see the Shrek film. The cinema was literally the darkest place in the world, from the moemnt we walked in. It had one shitty light that gave off less light than a small candle, and every patron, without the assistance of the staff, literally had to grope their way to their seats. It was a mass of people almost hunched over with their hands in front of them trying (vainly) not to grope each other and find their way to their seats. My cousin proceeded to go wild for the pre-film Pixar short that they played, with repeated cries of GO SNAKEY! (in a Cork accent [there was a snake character who was obviously more impressive than the feature film apparently])!
I think a vast majoroty of the way I now think about culture and society, and indeed, what is influencing a lot of my interests and work, is The Truman Show!
