Challenge within a challenge: No lights, camera, action in 2016

Everyone remembers one of their first trips to the cinema, what was yours? Mine was The Little Mermaid, and I remember having a mars bar on that trip. Now my mum says I have a habit of making up my childhood so you may need to double check this is correct with my mum.

Going to the cinema is one of my favourite things to do, and in 2015 I went to the cinema around 17 times. This along with adverts equals roughly to 2 sold days sitting in a dark room. It also roughly cost over £100.

People have asked me in the past why I don’t have a Cineworld card (because I love films so much) and the truth is a) from working out how much I spent on the cinema in 2015, and how much a card would cost for the year, I would actually lose money (around £75.) I don’t really want to see bad films just to make up the cost and overtime knowing I would see them for free. And b) my favourite cinema is my beloved Broadway in Letchworth. It’s a great independent cinema, you can’t hear another film in the screen you’re in (unlike Cineworld) and the snacks are pretty cheap. The staff are friendly and the place has character thanks to its art deco design.

I was watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was a great film and a question thought in my head. What if I didn’t go to the cinema? Would I miss the rustling of the popcorn, or the half an hour of trailers before a film starts? Or the impact a big screen could have on a film? I guess there’s only one way to find out and that would be to not go to the cinema. Which is what I’m going to do in 2016. And with Star Wars being the last film I see for a year, it’s a pretty good film to finish on the big screen.

There’s only going to be one time I’m going to go and that’s to go to a movie marathon or all-nighter at the Prince Charles Cinema. I said to my friend Rachel for her 30th I would take her to one of these things. I don’t like going against my word, so I'm going to go through with that trip, but apart from that I won’t be making any trips to the cinema.

I guess I’ll just have to think of other things to do with my friends apart from going to the cinema and that can only be a good thing. With every film I want to see but won’t in the cinema I’ll read an autobiography. The reason being is I’ll still get to experience a story, just a real one instead which may contain more twists and turns then a film may have.

So here’s to 2016, a year with no stories on the big screen, just stories on the small screen or on a page.