Cineworld

Today during Italian when, for the second day in a row the sub for our professor did not show up, I found myself daydreaming about Scotland once again. (May I note that it's especially weird in college when subs don't show up? Technically students are allowed to leave after 15 minutes if no instructor arrives but if you do this, often you will get yelled at later. Yesterday, we did take advantage of this, but today, we found the film we were supposed to watch on Netflix and watched about 30 minutes of it. We should get extra credit for that, I think :D Especially as the film was quite odd). Anyway, I was sitting there, watching the odd film, thinking about this movie theater we went to on the last day in Scotland (I mentioned it in the post on Captain America, thus it's recently been in my thoughts).

It's called Cineworld City Center and it is apparently the world's tallest cinema (12 stories, baby!). I wish I could find pictures of the inside of this theater because fellow Yanks like myself will be utterly blown away. IT'S INCREDIBLE.

Maybe I've just never been to a really fancy movie theater. I mean, I'm looking up photos online and I keep getting images of Gerard Butler and Ewan McGregor at film premieres. Clearly, this place is kind of a big deal. Now I'm wondering how the likes of me got in there :P

Let me try to explain how incredible this theater is. For one thing, their ticket area takes up a good chunk of the first floor... er, ground floor for you Europeans. None of this pathetic tiny box office area like we have in some American theaters, where you're standing on each other's hair if there's a long line. No, Brits seem to understand that there needs to be ROOM for queuing. Then, there's the fact that they have a STUDENT DISCOUNT. FOR MOVIES. I can't even get a student discount for some museums and theatrical productions in the States, let alone movie theaters! Then there's the floors - there are a million escalators taking you up to each floor, which was a bit baffling for us because there's only two theaters or so per floor (sorry, sorry, American theaters put everything on one level so then our theaters stretch out like a shopping mall. Kudos for you guys for making it classier and more compact, even if the long elevator ride is somewhat dizzying). But once you reach the floor you need, you begin to understand why there's only two theaters per floor. Because the concession areas are BRILLIANT.

It's like... a giant popcorn/soda area along with an candy shop. On each floor. Along with other eatables like pretzels and such. Seriously, if I hadn't been running out of cash and had no idea how much cab fare to the airport was going to cost the next morning, I probably would have splurged on British sweets. I was totally blown away by what the theater was like. Seriously, going to the movies in America is usually not this cool. Maybe because we do it all the time.

I think this is a different theater, but you get the idea of the basic layout and design.

Even watching the movie itself was different. The previews at the beginning were different from American previews (seriously, the ad for Bridesmaids was nothing like the one shown in America). The disclaimers about pirating movies and not letting kids in for adult films were shown more and much more... I don't know, government-y, official sounding. More forceful. And it was different just to hear everything said with a British accent (seemingly minor, but really... for an American, who hears American voices all day long - except when watching British TV - it's kind of weird. Although it does get to the point that when you hear American voices THAT sounds weird).

So, if you're in Glasgow and you have nothing better to do, spend 10 quid or so and enjoy a memorable cinematic experience. And if you don't mind, bring me back some of that candy, please :)