The film industry is wondering why there is a decline in cinema-goers and an increase in piracy. Now I'm taking the wild assumption that any of the big wigs at the major film corporations around the world have not been to a cinema themselves in the recent years. I'll tell you why...

To begin with you arrive and the sales office asks you to empty your wallet, hand over your card and pay an anormous amount of money to get into a film. I mean... £6.50 for an adult these days. You can rent the film for that much! And if there's a group of, say, 6 of you going, that's almost £40! You can fly to Hollywood and watch the movie being filmed for that! Christ!

You attempt to enter the screen and are foricibly stopepd from taking a bottle of mineral water into the cinema. Instead you, of course, are allowed to get a cup of tap water for free from the concessions stand. Someone, please dear God, explain the logic of this to me. Of all the pain and suffering around the world and all the things that matter, some pathetic fool in a non-descript managerial role decided that "No, let's not allow our patrons to provide their own alternatives to our free refreshments." It just makes no bloody sense what so ever.

But you reluctantly agree to leave your bottle of water at the ticket checking person - who by the way, is always grumpy and never greets you with a warm welcome - and you enter the cinema room and take your seat. You are now subjected to 30 incredibly drawn out minutes of advertising - beginning at the scheduled start time of the film itself! If I wanted to waste half an hour of my life watching adverts that offer nothing of use to me, I'd sit infront of a cable TV channel at home - not pay through my teeth for the priviledge of doing so infront of a big screen.

Then just before the film starts, you're subjected to a short propaganda piece about how piracy is bad, how you will go to jail if you record or download movies illeagally and how you will become a lower class citizen. Fine, protect your intellectual property by asking people to kindly refrain from activities such as those, but you don't do it through fear and paranoia that "they're out to catch you". And you also, whilst we're talking about it, don't lie. The claim that pirated films have low quality shound is just bullshit to be honest. Anyone with an ounce of sense can find DVD quality picture and sound quality film downloads!

So, you get over your frustration at being told you're going to jail and you sit happily watching the film. That is, until 10 minutes in and someone is bored and has lost interest. Those arses that start talking, or crunching on popcorn, or fidgeting or pushing the back of your chair. Then a little later into the film, having forces those noises into the background, someone stands up to go to the toilet and blocks the screen during that vital plot scene. All the while you're struggling to keep the blood flowing through your legs and prevent DVT as you have less leg room than if you were on an international flight.

And if you get a backache or you need the toilet yourself, you're in a cinema and can't, of course, pause the film. Nor can you alter the volume from some defening level, or adjust the air conditioning so that you don't shiver.

So, pray tell me, what on earth is the benefit to watching a film in the cinema. Large televisions are cheap nowadays and films come to rent within weeks of release (rather than months back in the 90s). You can eat cheap pop corn and take your own water, you get to sit in a huge comfy arm chair, start the film when you want, pause it and go to the pub half way though, rewind bits if you don't quite get what happened or want to see that amazing explosion once more. All the advantages to film watching are at home!

And disregarding all of this, surely the top dogs at the film companies can see that the quality and enjoyment factor of the films they're throwing out these days is sub-par. People just aren't interested in the crap that they're releasing. I ask you... think of your favourite film in the world, ever. I bet you it wasn't made in the past 5 years.

[Edit: By the way, Cars isn't the best Pixar film. It's too long but does have a few funny bits. It's most certainly not a genre progressing or changing film.]