There’s something hits different about Cineworld’s current slogan. Being told that I can “feel more again” by watching an animated movie about anthropomorphised mallard ducks migrating haphazardly to Jamaica isn’t quite what I’m going to the cinema with my kids for on a Saturday afternoon. We just wanted to do something and it was raining heavily. Somewhere, I imagine, Cineworlds advertising consultants are leaning heavily on the Poetics as a marketing tool to convince us that the way to cut through post-Covid desensitisatised ennui is by sitting in front of a giant screen, drinking a slurpy and munching through a tub of popcorn. The therapy is the cost of admission (and the shockingly overpriced sweets). Of course, the slogan falls down when the supposed mimetic function is meant to happen in SF, superhero or animated animal adventures. I can’t say I had a cathartic experience – but the kids thought the animated duck movie was ok. It did leave me the impression I was sitting in some darkened, half-filled place in Oceania being told how to react, though.