Well after not getting to use my Limitless card for nearly 5 months, I’ve now been to my newly reopened local Odeon 3 nights in a row
I watched Russell Crowe’s Unhinged On Monday and there was only about a dozen people in the 99 seat auditorium, which made for a nice reintroduction to socially distanced cinemagoing. Bit of a faff that Odeon still don’t provide QR codes for online bookings so one still has to queue up to print off a ticket but aside from my spectacles misting up slightly at the start of trailers I soon felt at home again and forgot that I was wearing a mask.
Caught the 10th Anniversary re-release of Inception in the ISENSE screen last night and there were maybe 30 people spread across the 165 seat auditorium, so it once again felt almost like a private screening!
However tonight’s showing of Tenet in that same ISENSE was packed pretty much to COVID capacity; fortunately my local had a Luxe upgrade in the spring so the rows are already 2 metres wide to accommodate the recliners and it’s only single seats between adjacent groups which are having to go empty.
I’m guessing the other showings of Tenet must’ve been packed too, as we had to queue up just to get into the multiplex and again for the Cola Freestyle; doesn’t help that half the machines are out of use due to social distancing rules.
However we still were in our seats in plenty of time to catch trailers and aside from the slight faff of putting my mask back on after every a slurp of my drink the only other difference to regular cinemagoing was that we had to wait for an usher to let each row exit the auditorium at the end of the film.