James turns 7 tomorrow, so today we picked up his best friend from school and headed off to see Wallace & Gromit – The Curse of the Were-Rabbit for a second time.
We got ourselves great seats and watched several other young families wander in to watch the plasticine pair.
Before too long the lights dimmed and it was on with the show. We watched a couple of cinema ads and then on came the previews. We were quite annoyed that they showed a preview for an M rated film. It’s not only bad taste to show an M rated preview at a kids flick, it’s also illegal. Some kids near us turned around and buried their faces in the backs of their chairs. The movie they were advertising was quite scary and violent.
After something a little lighter they showed an MA rated preview. Very bad form. “Should I go tell them off now?” I wondered. After another M rated preview we all thought the nastiness was over. That was until they started showing the full version of The 40 Year Old Virgin.
I was up and out of the cinema fairly quickly and tried telling the girl at the candy bar that they had the wrong film on in Cinema 2. “Oh no. It’s just a feature before the film.” I disagreed and she asked me to speak to the usher who had just arrived back on the scene. I hurridly told him my tale and he was about to set things right when another parent burst out through the doors. He was saying something about the wrong film being on too. Apparently he wasn’t keen on his very young daughters watching a middle aged man wake up and take a leak, larger than life, up on the big, silver screen.
About a minute later the film slowed down and ground to a halt.
Two or so minutes later the usher appeared in the cinema to apologise and to tell us that there had been a problem with the projector. Not quite how I saw it. I’m sorry but it would appear to me that the problem was not the projector but the projectionist putting the wrong reels on and then having a late morning nap.
Finally, some 5 minutes after that, the big screen lit up again with some G and PG rated previews. We finally started watching our 11:00 a.m. movie at about 11:37 a.m.
I thought they’d at least give us all some popcorn for the inconvenience.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
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That’s terrible – both the actual occurance and the customer service (or lack thereof) afterwards.
I hope James and his friend enjoyed the movie by the time they actually got to see it!
Gosh. That’s so irresponsible. Was no apology given? Someone should get fired over a mistake like that.
I think I would have been pushing for a full refund on the tickets!
A month or so back my son and I went to watch a kid’s movie at our local cinema, only to be confronted by a preview for a horror movie before-hand! The cinema is trying to attract those who like that genre by having at least one flick a month, but it was hardly appropriate to a room full of kids! My son, who has seen most-of-it-all, had to “not look” through the preview, and even an elderly lady next to me hid her face in her hands….
One wonders What Are These People Thinking! sometimes….
Oh my gosh. That is just plain awful.
I complained to the cinema manager when the cinema was really littered from popcorn and they gave us two free tickets. It is unfortunate that you have to push the effort which should really be basic customer service.