2012 Challenge: Remember.

This is my latest entry for Blast's 2012 Challenge - Remember.

This beautiful building holds many memories for me.
This building used to be the ODEON cinema on Oxford Road in Manchester city centre. A proper cinema in a proper building.
The building itself has been a theatre and then a cinema on Oxford Road since the 1930s, I believe.

It never felt like you were visiting a multiplex: it just felt like a proper cinema.
The ODEON chain has since relocated across the city (to The Printworks), to homogenised, "look like every other cinema" multiplex hell.

A few years ago, I found out that when ODEON vacated the premises, part of the deal they made with Manchester city council was that the building couldn't be used for entertainment purposes - probably to reduce competition against them.
But the flipside of this is that this building has been empty since they moved in 2004, and has been scheduled for demolition for a few years, to make way for a fourteen storey monstrosity of an office block.

These are just some of the films I remember seeing there (in no particular order):
Leon, Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, Speed, Candyman, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Only The Strong, The Lion King, True Lies, The Shawshank Redemption, Enemy Of The State, Star Wars The Phantom Menace, Planet of the Apes (remake), Heat, Casino, The Full Monty, The Truman Show, Congo, The Avengers, Money Train, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, True Romance, Velvet Goldmine, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Exit Wounds, Sudden Death, Universal Soldier.
Many others I don't remember but I'll doubtless remember at another time.

I remember waiting to watch Forrest Gump with an ex-girlfriend of mine, who had a "disagreement" with the actress Anna Friel (at the time she was dating a certain Darren Day) and Darren Day was rude to my girlfriend, so I...I explained...what would happen if he was rude to her again. He wasn't rude to her again.
(Other people waiting for the same film applauded us when the...situation....was over.)

Sometimes I watched movies there with friends; sometimes, girlfriends; and sometimes, I'd go on my own.

This beautiful building holds many memories for me.
Some day sooner rather than later, this beautiful building will be gone.

And if you're still reading.....thanks for reading.
I've not written quite so much for a while; thought it was time for a change.

(368)