*Palace Cinema

Each year the Palace Cinema chain send me a free movie ticket for Christmas which is very kind of them and one that I am happy to oblige. Given my current lifestyle and responsibilities however it is not that easy to find the time to get to a cinema made harder by navigating your way through their ticket restrictions (not on Saturday evenings, not on public holidays, not No Free List movies etc) before their use by date. Last night I was there for the 6:30P session of Capote and found out it was still a No Free List film. The only movie that was showing around that time for which I was permitted to use my pass was Brokeback Mountain at 7:00P. Notwithstanding that I would like to see that movie at some stage, I took up my free option with a ticket for Brokeback and then at 6:30P, as intended, walked into the Capote screening. The cinema was barely half-full and the doorways not patrolled by officious staff. Their own cost saving measures (by employing less staff) meant they could not enforce a restriction that is plainly ridiculous in the first place. Either place No Free List on a movie in its first week only (Capote has been out for three weeks already and it is not a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings type of blockbuster) or do not put infantile restrictions on what is supposed to be a goodwill gesture. And don't be dictated to !