As I take my seat in the second tier of the gods, my experience has already commenced, in the choosing of my seat. I find it quickly.. No chance of being blocked by someone in front...and probably the best one for the acoustics also..
All the seats share only one thing, they are all covered in a formerly plush red material and spring sprung. This helps in making it squeaky and seemly alive, as you wiggle to get comfortable..
So I spread out into the two seats next too me, whilst watching everyone else enter.
The film tonight is a classic, well to me it is 'Raiders of the lost ark', so the audience is quite varied, families, couples and a smattering of geeks, likes myself.
The beginning, unlike it's more commercial larger sibling, it's more of a sedate affair. There are adverts for upcoming movies, products they claim you should own, even though you don't need them and it's own set of adverts, for plays, local amateur film shows..and unusually this time, considering the audience having children in it, the previews were quite gory.. Filled with my favourite other movie thing zombies... But after this is where the usual is broken...
The lights dim, the curtains open, open the Revels and flick open the can of pop... so rather than a quick blur into the feature film, a classic Pathe news comes on screen..Straight from yesteryear, something topical and informative of the time.
I love these things, coming from an century just past, one where more discoveries and knowledge had been achieved than ever before. Having experience the pleasure of the Plaza before, I knew this was norm here.
So on screen a large than life magicians assistant appears sat on a golden chicken, looking quite saucy and alluring, winking at you just before filling your brain with something fun....
So what piece of past is share this time,
SCRAP SCRAP SCRAP!... The booming voice rings out...
'Once the pride and joy of someone, or a showroom model, they have lost their shine, no longer the gleaming brand new model...... They have taken final journey to here!...'
And so begins the information download and visual feast, images of cars burnt, broken and being crushed in big machines, with burly looking men hitting them with sledge hammers, crow bars, breaking the cars apart, all for their metal to be reused.
Reused into what the brain asks...
'possibly the metal could make these matchbox cars'.. Booms the voice..and so begins a short story on matchbox cars...
MATCHBOX CARS
Click to watch...
I've always had an connection to matchbox cars, due to my father, who has collected them for years, (possibly where I get my collecting or hoarding gene from). But back to the information.. The news carried on about the cars... Their gleaming small forms coming along the production line, but what is this, the car in front of me is the very first matchbox my father bought, he can recalled where it was and when, and no doubt will tell his grandchildren (if I ever have chance)... With my eyes and attention on firmly on the screen.. I absorb more info...
What's the next info blast?.... Look at these ...SWORDS...booms the voice...
'This is not a medieval times.. So what is this facination with these ancient weapons of war?'
Cut to a suited man admiring his shiny sword...and many more on his wall.
How did it go from toy cars to swords?... Tenuous link that both are collected as a hobby...
So now the info rolls on.. Showing how the are cast.. Shaped and made.. Now it has to go into hot molten lead.... Cut to a man, in a brown overcoat, one like I used to wear in CDT in school, and bare hands... No health and safety bollocks in back in this day... Splashing the part made sword into the boiling hot lead, his hands blackened and huge dirty finger nails clasping the blade...
Then cut to further scenes of polishing, painting and adding the ornate handle... Again the voice booms out, about the skills to finish the sword, cut back to the suited man and his armoury .. These will bring joy for years... Fade to black..
Then back to the sexy magicians assistant.. And the end of the Pathe news.. Lights on curtains close..
This is why it's so much better than a bigger cinema..the use of an old Pathe news complements the wonder and helps the excitement build, by containing something personal to me or anyone else present...along with it's use of an authorities voice and what topics it discusses and blends together..
Bringing a random piece of nostalgia into the new century..Showing when great was in front of Britain.
Is this what the bigger brother lacks?, this friendliness or sense of belonging like this show is just for you....or is it because you're not herded in with your over priced popcorn and sweaty hotdog, then left forgotten in the dark till the end?
But back to the Plaza..
So what now...
Albatross, get your albatross..
Up step a couple of the volunteers and stand at the front and selling ice cream, from a tray around their necks... And the Wurlitzer raises again...
Show tunes are given the Wurlitzer treatment again in this interval, the familiar Jurassic Park theme music fills the ears... Ironical it sounds like most John Williams compositions..
But then begins the anthem... The one my head hears when i'm ever exploring or having an adventure...The Indy Jones tune... With this the ice creams sellers disappear and the Wurlitzer signs off to a triumphant finish and disappears again to a round of applause..
Now when do things like this happen in the larger cinemas?... It did happen once in 1999.. At the premier of Starwars episode 1...
Which is probably the last time I was more than just excited to see the film, the atmosphere was charged, but the Plaza manages to do it with every film, with it's unique take... It doesn't just act like a souless big Tv screen..
From there on in I'm immersed in one of my most favourtie movies, seeing all the mistakes and gaff's (easier to see on the large screen), wanting to be this adventurer, beating and outsmarting not just all evil doers, the most evil of the lot the nazi's....and getting the girl...
Then the final shot of the ark being pushed into a large warehouse.. Not just any warehouse, a glass painting.. The painting of which is one of the amazing skills now lost to the digital age.. (I know a lot about these films and their special effects).
So after all the fun had been had, the credits roll... But one more thing at the end of the performance you have to stand for the Queen...
The national anthem plays out to the image of lots of mounted guards and then a picture of the queen in her younger days, sat admiring the guards with a smile on her young face..
And with that it' good night mam'...god bless her..!
The end... But not for the Plaza... The Shining is next.. Red rum.. Here's Johnny!
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