What better way to celebrate the completion of my thesis than... go watch a movie! Me and my girlfriend went to Cineleisure in Damansara to watch Cars, the latest animation movie by Pixar. Well the movie was of course very entertaining (..it's Pixar!). I really enjoyed the racing scenes in the movie although it was animated. Watching Cars, you tend to forget that there is no human character in the movie, because the filmmakers managed to create humanlike characters through those talking cars. Somehow it's believable. Go watch it.. and don't forget to watch the cameo of a very famous Formula One driver towards the end of the movie. It's damn funny..
Enough about the movie, what I really wanted to write about is the new cinema in town, Cathay Cineplex at Cineleisure, Damansara. I first heard about it last month, and I just had to check it out. The building is owned by Cathay organization and it promises to be a complete entertainment centre. Well, by the look of it, it is far from complete but the cinema halls are excellent and so far the best in the country, in my opinion. The concourse area is well-designed and quite spacious. The tickets counters are cleverly placed at the centre complete with monitors on every counters so that cinema patrons can easily picked their seats. The concession area sells everything from the usual popcorn and coke and even kacang puteh. Cathay definitely wanted the patrons to reminisce those early days of cinema with kacang puteh and asam boi. Thank god there's no kuaci though.
There's 10 cinema halls that come equipped with DOLBY DIGITAL SURROUND, DTS and SRD. The sound system for me is excellent. It really justifies the ambience of the cinema hall. While watching Cars, the sound of the car engines roars from the front and side speakers and you could feel the crisp quality digital sound. Full marks for the audio department. The widescreen is very large and the picture quality is very good. What I really, really like about the cinema hall is the seats. It is very ergonomic and plush. The distance between your seat and the front seat is 1.1 metre, that means more legroom and comfort. My constant problem of numb, dead legs while sitting through a 2 and a half hour movie is now finally gone. It certainly makes movie watching a more comfortable experience.
The online booking system is excellent (..I tried) and you could book your ticket 21 days in advance. Now that's good. There's also this little hall called The Picture House that shows independent award winning movie, and you can host a little movie party there complete with food and beverages at the Preview Lounge. And I read somewhere they even broadcast World Cup matches inside the cinema halls but I don't know if that's true.. Awesome.
There's still a lot of empty floors and shoplots inside Cineleisure and although the place is yet to be completed, I expect Cineleisure to be a favourite place for moviegoers to hang out in the near future. In the Cineleisure website the 'coming soon' attractions include retail outlets, fast food chain, service outlets, bowling and the biggest, most sophisticated gaming facility with over 150 PCs and gaming consoles in a place called E2MAX where you can fight one-on-one on the big screen where the whole mall can see you battling it out with your friends. Can't wait for that one!
Go catch a movie there and tell me what you think..
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