Invited audiences were present for a morning performance of 'Avatar' and an evening one of 'Sherlock Holmes'.
I write as an occasional cinema-goer, who nonetheless firmly believes that the only way to get full value from a film is to see it on 'Th
e Big Screen'. The film I saw, the Robert Downey Jr 'Sherlock Holmes', is the kind of movie that needs to be seen full scale.
Its massive visual effects include scenes during the construction of Tower Bridge, a Victorian shipyard, and street and rooftop scenes over Victorian London.
Holmes and Watson are very different characters from the Basil Rathbone days, although things that Conan Doyle has hinted at are played out, for example, Holmes' love of the London underworld.
Seats were comfortable (which I knew anyway), the minor sound hiccup at the start was no more than that (probably just to remind us of the cinema in our schooldays!), and the whole experience was thoroughly enjoyable.
Given the choice of a journey to Dundee to a cinema where one has to take out a mortgage to buy cardboard-based popcorn, or a short journey which can be undertaken on the spur of the moment - I know which I prefer.
The plan is to start regular Sunday film shows when the theatre is not otherwise booked, and it is a safe bet that I'll be back.
G.W.C.