3-D? That’s so passé. Ruth Jamieson explores what may be the next evolution of the cinema going experience: edible movies. Highlights include:

• The Electric Cinema in London tried out a screening of Pan’s Labyrinth where each audience member was given a tray of food with numbered cups and parcels.
• At various points in the movie an usher would hold up a number to indicate that the audience should eat that item on their tray.
• For example in the opening scene the characters are travelling through a forest. Audience members are invited to eat their pine-scented popcorn which has a woody aroma to it, transporting you to the forest.
• People who would have glossed over the line “there is not a single home without fire or bread” in a standard screening of the film are unlikely to ever forget it after they ate the hot chili biscuits that accompanied the line.
• At other times though the link between the food item and the action on-screen is less clear, making the experience distracting.
• The organizers of the event admit that it’s experimental. Next time they want to focus more on aromas and less on food.
• The movie industry is trying out innovative new things to make the theater-going experience impossible to pirate.

Read many more examples of the types of things you’re expected to ingest, what the repulsive menu looked like for a film based on the book Perfume, at what point you’re asked to drink a gin-cocktail and reflections on whether or not it adds to the overall film experience or is just a pointless novelty over here.

Source: The Guardian

Via: Marginal Revolution