23.07.2007 15:14

There are two cinemas in Wuppertal, which is very few for a city of more than 300'000 inhabitants. (Both have more than one screen but still..) One is the usual Cinemaxx, the other one is called "Cinema" and is what they call a "Programmkino". This one just changed owner and is apparently still having huge economical problems.
Me I don't wonder. I love to go to the cinema, the rich movie scene is one of the things I miss most about Berlin. I am sorry to say that "Cinema" is not a real alternative. Their program is quite bad, too less independent just those movies I went to see in Berlin, when there was nothing better, is to say, this kind of movies which are just a second away from mainstream. Or even not that much, this week they show (among others) "Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix", but that one is screened also at Cinemaxx of course. How stupid is this? (This has happened several times in the last weeks/months, their program is so close to mainstream that they show often movies which are also shown at the Cinemaxx) And then on top of it: movies arrive there later than for instance in Düsseldorf. So if I really want to see one, and I don't know whether it's going to be streamed at "Cinema" (The program is online for the actual week only). And then finally, they almost never show subtitled versions. And I hate to see French, Spanish, Italian and even Chinese movies in German, another a reason in favour of DVDs, or a trip to Düsseldorf.
Maybe Wuppertal is so rotten a place that even with an explicit commitment to real cine-arts and original language you cannot survive (there is a good chance for this to be true, unfortunately), but maybe it is worth trying?