Do you feel relaxed at Kuwait Cinema?
It really felt silly when I saw this picture on Kuwait cinema Cinescape website.
Cinescape is using a study made by FAME (Film Audience Measurement and Evaluation), based in UK, which claims 96% of the movie-goers are not distracted, and happy with the movie visit. I tried to reach this study but this is the closest I got. The study as Cinescape puts it means that out of every 100 people I ask, only 4 should say they get distracted. I’m not sure how the case is in UK, and , but I’m sure it’s a totally different story here, and Cinescape is trying to fool advertisers with such numbers for the following reasons:
1- In the UK, people are usually more considerate to others watching the movie. If they don’t like it, or if they need to go out for something, they would do it quietly and try to bend low to avoid distracting others. They won’t at least stand up to clean their popcorn leftovers from their shirts during the film. Not to mention also how many people insist on coming late, and then taking all time they need to set down.
2- They enforce age limits there. Why does it matter so much? Cause here after they strip you of any food item before you go in, and then you pay triple the price or more for some snacks, you go inside to a +18 movie, and in the middle of the movie, a few months old baby starts to cry! Why on earth was this baby allowed inside anyways? You can keep out my bottle of water but you failed to see this baby going in?
3- Films here are censored (badly): Not only for porn and offensive scenes, but its reaching blood scenes in a vampire movie, and lately a friend of mine told me how a major political scene about the US immigration was censored. This doesn’t make any sense, and I doubt any movie-goer would be ok about it.
4- Quality of the movie: I’ve been to Flags of our Father, great war movie, and the sound was distorted. How disappointing? Other movies part of the screen was eaten from bottom and top a little.
I for one had cinema as a weekly thing. Now, I only go once every few months for the sake of change, or when there is a big hit movie I dont wanna miss or have spoiled. In those cases, I have to take great care in avoiding noisy and distracting audience. Most often than not, I can’t avoid distractions. I know many many people who also stopped or cut-short they cinema visits for the same reasons. So is the 96% satisfaction even close to real in Kuwait? Or is it just that people have no where else to go?
UPDATE: If we are to do as Cinescape does, and based on my analysis and Kuwait Cinema Viewer surveys (even though pretty small I know), we would say from the post and comments that only one out of each seven people does not get distracted during the movie in Kuwait cinema. That’s more than 85% dissatisfaction rate. And I’m not counting here the verbal opinions I got, which would only make it worse.
What others say: Global Voices Online have put a nice collection of the recent posts about Cinescape, and here are two other posts. Notice the close in date of the posts, all in May, different topics, all (dis)satisfied.
Z District: KNCC Confectionery & Seating
3erzala: About the outdated, and the below 3.0 rated movies.
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Comments
Excellent post! I have to agree with most of the points. There are things they can beheld accountable for, but one part is the Kuwaiti population in a whole is extremely discourteous to the other people in the cinema and I see this in any large theater, in the VIP you can get away with things.
Solo: Thanks for sharing this. Laughing crowd in a comedy movie is a definite plus. being among crowd watching the movie closely is also better feeling, but laughing in a horror movie, or making comments during an action movie, thats what distracting. People going in and out to refill their pepsi and popcorn supplies, little kids bored at Pursuit if Happyness film, this is +18 film not for kids!
And yes, I do admit i get easily distracted when watching a movie I love. But hey, isnt that why people pay to go to cinema… to enjoy it without distractions? It’s responsibility of the cinema company to ensure it. crowd comments are hard to stop, but babies in +18 movies… that can’t be explained!
Marzouq: Thanks. Yes you’re right about crowd. But it still affects the claimed 96%. Does the VIP really gets you away? Maybe I should try it for big movies. My only fear is, I will pay 10-20 KD to watch it, and one guy is enough to ruin it all!
Well said…
Also one of the most disappointing factors about cinemas in Kuwait is that they’re ridiculously overpriced compared to other places such as the US and Canada.
man you dont know . in kuwait they take the other figure . ya3ni satisfaction is 6% . so they say its 94% :P . no one can handle the truth maaaaaaaaaaan .
MacaholiQ8: Thanks for the price tip. I dont know about the ticket price honestly, but the snacks… 400 fils for Maltesers! ripoff!
Ofcourse they say technically door is open for competition… but in reality, is it?
momo: LOL… yeah, 6% is kinda believable. And now that we’re at it, I can say from a STUDY i made by asking public opinion, 75% of Kuwait Cinema visitors are distracted during movie, and that’s excluding my self. OUCH!!!
Cinescape can go to hell for all I care, along with the noisy morons that go to it, too.
I stopped going a few years back, except once or twice for a cartoon.
In fact, I stopped going right after going to the movie “Van Hellsing” — they cut most of the fight scenes, and even the talk scene where the two main characters are talking about the plot of the movie!!!
I think Cinescape cuts some movies that are displayed after 12AM to reduce the time.
My current policy:
Friend: DUDE! YOU HAVE TO SEE MOVIE XYZ!
Me: Oh? Was it that good? Great! I’ll wait for the DVD.
If everyone boycotts the movies for a week to show a point, then MAYBE they’d change.
—
They cut a political scene? Seriously? The movie is uncut in the US, and is cut here? ROFL!!!
MBH: Yeah, that’s what I do. I just tend to cant wait to see cartoons (I like ur thinking :). Like today kids wanted to spoil Coraline for instance. UP might be an exception for me as well.
Political movie, yes. it was about illegal immigrants to US. One muslim girl with hjab, her two brothers are kind free type. So later on, US decides to deport her only. When she asks why her only while her brothers are staying, and immigrant lady wants to answer, this whole part is censored.
Film my friend told me was like 3 stories in one film, so they kinda trimmed 1/3 of it. I can get you movie name if you like.
WTF !! 96%
i went to “Angles & Demons ” yesterday
there was a group of 6 people laughing all the time !
talk about no distraction !
x3
Hashimoto: Thanks for your feedback. My friend also told me the movie was shredded to pieces… so he was not happy!
Counting ppl opinion here so far, it’s 7 unhappy vs 1 happy.
So it’s like 12.5% of movie-goers are no-distracted at Kuwait movies. Thats without counting people I spoke to about it, which would add 2 unhappy at least. So it would be like, 90% of Kuwait movie-goers are already distracted at movies, so why not disturb them with ads as well :P
It does work in Kuwait and I think anywhere else. In any Cinema, when a movie is about to start, look around you at the people in the theatre and look how concentrated on the screen, so the point is valid, meaning everyone (or actually 96%)are not distracted when watching a movie. Now if u see that people are distracted DURING the movie, that is something else and here the analysis do not apply.
I have a question to you though, where did you get that image from?
Patrick Semaan: Thanks for your comment. If it was an analysis that would be correct, but it’s a study based on viewers review made from UK website. So mostly UK voters. This surely doesn’t count here.
About the image, it was from the link posted at top of article: http://webserver2.kncc.com/onscreenads.php?rec=5 but it seems to have been taken off or something now.
I usually sit on with family in the middle of the few last lines. To be honist distractions are minimum, but may be this is related to how I personally perceive it. I’m usually distracted at home much more, and even if I do, I still enjoy the film. It’s one out of a hundred films that the film is so intense and fast that I have to be alert on every second to understand every thing. After all, do we really understand every thing until the we see it for the second time.
In some cases distraction can be a plus, such as crowd laughing in a comedy film, believe it or not can make us more excited and tempted to laugh. After all part of the pleasure of going to cinema, is just being among the crowd. As silly and du*b as It sounds, I find it true!!