Back To The Future


I have a long memory. The third memory I have is aged 3 : sitting on a green canvas lounger with my brother, and hearing a knock at the door. My grandmother, a beloved woman with a heart of gold and steel, was bringing presents for us. We were twins : and at that age, we were dressed identically. It surprises me, to this day, that our parents did this. I look at photographs of us when we were younger, and I have no idea which one of us is which.

The present? A Star Wars T-shirt from the local market on Cotteridge High Street. (It was white, with a print that looked like this). All the kids had one.

My love of cinema began when I was very young. These days a cinema is a very different thing : a movie factory. The small, family run theatres and cinemas, the labours of love, have disappeared. I could walk a mile from my house growing up and find three cinemas : all of which are now either demolished, or bingo halls (Kings Norton, Stirchley and a now demolished one in Northfield. I saw Herbie Goes Bananas and Pete's Dragon at Kings Norton, Star Trek The Motion Picture at Kings Heath, Return Of The Jedi at the Queensway, Star Trek II at Harborne. Big Trouble In Little China at the Tivoli (pictured here in 2005), Back To The Future at what is now a McDonalds, and queued for ET down the alley at the side of The Futurist which is now a Spearmint Rhino. I wore my dad's brown leather jacket to get into Beverly Hills Cop II. I pleaded to borrow Terminator when I was 14. I wrote my own, BASIC computer games for Spectrum 48's - though the sprites were a bitch to get right.



If you want to see what they look like now try Kings Heath, or Kingsway. My school was in the old Cadbury's grounds being Bourneville Infants, and every summer, the whole school would go to the local cinema - which was on the factory grounds and used for the Cadburys employees. I remember watching a bad documentary about Birmingham and pigeons there, in 1983.

All these cinemas have been closed now. These wonderful, art deco palaces converted to bingo halls, churches, luxury apartments. The last time I visited a classic cinema was the Streatham Odeon in 2003. I think that was to see the thoroughly underwhelming Matrix Rehashed. I miss the romance of a cinema, entering a beautiful building, with ornate staircases, and with a gift shop selling plastic Terminators and posters, a programme at the screening or a four page booklet with photographs and a cast list to take home, and a choice of no more than two films on two screens. (As opposed to two films on fourteen different screens).

But most of all, I miss the days of going to a cinema with a personality, that didn't just feel like a TescoAsdaHyperMegaPlexMarket delivering noise and light to sell popcorn. I miss sitting in a 2,284 seat cinema with an organ, seeing The Living Daylights with 1 other person, and having a whole floor to myself. (here's a picture of the interior, in minature). It's not nostalgia, some things were better then, and many things were much worse. But one should never forget where you came from - if you do you forget why you are where you are today.


- posted by Mark @ 9:36 pm