Cinematically Challenged

With Ramadan and Eid well and truly over, it seems it's back to normal for naughty behaviour in the cinema.

I've mentioned before that there are intervals during films here in Cairo. Not only are they completely unnecessary, but they are never actually long enough for those who jump out their seats to actually do anything useful like smoke a cigarette, go for a piss, or buy some more popcorn. Not that that stops them. You then have to suffer them coming back in when the film restarts, clumsily trying to find their seats

During the interval for The Other Guys (very funny in parts), the eight-strong group of loud young Egyptian gents didn't actually leave the auditorium. Instead, they ran down to the front of the cinema and started taking pictures of each other. The only other audience member just sat with his headphones on blocking it out. That's the last time we slum it in the cheap seats.

The second film was the excellent Despicable Me, showing in one of the cheaper malls and therefore automatically attracting (on top of it being an animation) an absolutely dreadful audience. In fact, it was one of the very worst I've ever experienced. Late-comers were arriving half an hour into the film, conversations were constantly taking place, mobiles were ringing and texts were being sent all the way through. Oh, and of course the interval was misjudged by everyone who tried to take advantage of it.

Grrrrr.