Re: Re: Lighthouse

They’ll never recreate the daytime atmosphere of the original Lighthouse. That was pre-IFC (or IFI?) and pre-internet DVD. The only other source of interesting film then was on video through the Metropole on Baggot St. Alternatively, if you didn’t have a video player and if you’d two quid you could go to Abbey St. for the weekday matinee and experience the bored but friendly staff and the cinema occupied by not much more than a handful of patrons – either the unemployed or students. Smoking was allowed back then. The likes of a Greenaway movie was considered unmissable and couldn’t be seen anywhere else.

I remember killing time watching some awful French arthouse shite when some exasperated and bored patron started flicking peanuts or sweets at the screen. The wave pattern which spread from the point of impact was sufficiently more interesting than the film itself to prevent any vocal complaints from the rest of the audience. We watched and when a particularly well struck peanut hit there was a small cheer. It’s just not going to work nowadays.