Going to the movies is an experience like no other. There's a romantic element to it, that process of sitting before the giant, glowing screen, the one with the power to transport you to other worlds, to burn imagery forever into your mind. In the cinema, when the lights go down, there's nothing but you and the screen, and the story unfolding. No other art form has the power to immerse you like that. Even so, the experience could do with some improvements, and those improvements begin with banning things. It certainly isn't my intention to seem fascistic. However, if that's the way this list comes across, then it's only because that's the way it needs to be. Here are ten things that ought to be outright banned from cinemas - for all time - for the greater good of the cinemagoing experience.
10. HFR/48 FPS
A pre-emptive strike, this one. While it hasn't quite caught on yet, you can bet the popularity of Peter Jackson's tedious first Hobbit movie, and its $1 billion-and-counting haul, will encourage other filmmakers to employ higher frame rate technology in their films. They'll try and convince you and themselves that it's purely for artistic purposes, but a quick look at the technology itself reveals that to be unfortunate bullshine. There are those who say 48 FPS isn't so bad, that it looks relatively OK. But there are many more who think it transforms the cinematic image into something infuriatingly shoddy, with characters jerkily bandying about the screen like someone shot the film with an oven. The HFR argument rages on, but any way you look at it, it's being used - simply - as a cynical moneymaking gimmick akin to the high-priced pointlessness of 3D. That 48 FPS also makes sets look like cardboard, makes CGI look video game cut-sceney, makes the outdoors look fake and glazes the film image in the tacky sheen of TV soap opera is irrelevant, though it shouldn't be.