Phones ban is the right call
ONE of the joys of film reviewing is seeing a movie a little earlier than most moviegoers, by arriving at a cold cinema at 9am for a light frisking by security, then surrendering your mobile phone to a box outside the screening room until the final credits have rolled.
Film distributors are nervous about film critics having phones, in case someone is tempted to record the movie and upload it onto the internet. This says all kinds of flattering things about our technical expertise, none of them justified if you ever see us trying to record an interview.
If the red light doesn’t go on when we press ‘record’, the scene rapidly devolves into that bit from 2001: A Space Odyssey when the monkeys get rattled by an unyielding black slab of do-nothing.
Now bands and musicians are starting to rebel against people using phones to record, film and take pictures of their concerts.
Stand-up comedian Chris Rock banned them from the Hydro last week, partly because of piracy issues, but mostly because of the weirdness of paying for a live event then reducing it to a tiny video that you will never get round to watching anyway.
Good call, Chris.