Cinemas in Madrid are not very unlike those found in Canada. There are newer ones and older ones. Newer ones have the steeper seating and more comfortable chairs. The older ones have much flatter seating (the kind where a tall person can obscure the view for a shorter person sitting behind them).

The two principal differences are: (1) when you buy a ticket, you have a seat number (you can choose from available seats). In Canada, you purchase an admission and seating is first come, first serve.

(2) Cinemas show either show dubbed versions or original language versions with subtitles (V.O.S – Version Original Subtitulado). The V.O.S. movies are shown in the older cinemas (such as Cinema Ideal – i.e the seating is flatter). In Canada, very few foreign language films get any major distribution and, generally, tend to play in smaller speciality cinemas (such as the ByTowne in Ottawa).

What I find surprising is how many of the movies shown hear are Hollywood movies. While there are other films shown, easily 95% are the Hollywood ones. A bit disappointing, actually.

Comments

mattbg

0

 

 

Hmmm...well, other than "Pan's Labyrinth", "[Rec]"....and I guess "[Rec] 2" :)... and maybe one or two indie horror movies that turned out to be better than you'd expect considering they were Spanish and low-budget, I can't really think of many Spanish movies!

And it's the same in Canada, right? Most movies shown in Canada are foreign movies, just not foreign-language. We can be thankful for that, I think, because Canadian movies are mostly bad and it is difficult to find one of substance that doesn't have some strange sexual perversion in it.

Are you "back" yet?

Monday 26 July 2010, 08:21

richard

0

 

 

In Canada, I assumed that we were swamped with US movies simply because of our proximity to the US and that we share a common language. I always assumed that other nations produced their own films (certainly if you go to The Bytowne Cinema in Ottawa, all they really play are foreign and Indie).

I never imagined that 95% (or so it seems) of the films playing here would be American. I was expecting (perhaps naively) that there would be more diversity.

Yeah, for some reason, Canadian movies seem to be a bit wierd.

Not sur eif I am back. Trying to force myself to write entries. Mind you, we are going to be on holiday the first 3 weeks of August, so I am not likely to be near any computers.

Tuesday 27 July 2010, 14:17

Please login to post comments or replies.