Last night we watched (after 40 minutes of advertising) ‘American Gangster’ at the Odeon cinema here in Edinburgh. I think Odeon’s marketing people have what Larry David would no doubt refer to as Fantical/Fruadulent confusion (see: Shy/Asshole confusion). Look- if hollywood blockbusters and Odeon cinemas are not making any money it doesn’t mean they are allowed to compensate with the revenues from more than half an hour of ads targeted at an audience who will shoosh each other for talking loudly (Over Ads!!!!!). If Hollywood want to save a buck, they should do their bit and stop wasting money on tat like ‘American Gangster’ a well shot and well dressed movie uncontaminated by any acting, worthy storyline or anything else for that matter. My absolute lack of interest in the plot made me as irritable as a damp two year old. I’ve never rearranged myself so many times in a theatre.

If Odeon shut down a few of their cinemaplexes they could cut down on the number of ads they show- perhaps even hire some people to choose a broad range of films you won’t see anywhere else, they could give me £5000 or £50,000 and I’ll let them stick their logo on the front of my script, on the intro, on the dvd, i’ll tattoo “fanatical about film” on my forehead –and they’ll be no confusion this time. Odeon are frauds, they tell us about the “cinema experience” (read: half an hour of ads and a soundtrack that dips every 10 minutes) and warn us of the poor quality downloads some evil-dooer will try and sell us on the street corner. They act as if they are an institution, the truth being Odeon cinemas are the Wallmart supermarket chain of freezedried entertainment.

Ironically I had downloaded American Gangster already- If I had taken the time to skip through the video I could have saved myself the time and effort. Well, it wasn’t my choice last night.