Gaumont Coquelles (formerly Gaumont Cité Europe)

Films: Ensemble, c'est tout (2007), Camping 2 (2010), La princesse de Montpensier (2010), Largo Winch 2 (2011), Les Lyonnais (2011), Astérix et Obélix: Au service de Sa Majesté (2012), Populaire (2012), Gibraltar (2013), La belle et la bête (2014), En équilibre (2015), Finding Dory (2016), Brice 3 (2016), Demain tout commence (2016), Jour J (2017), Cherchez la femme (2017), The Jungle Bunch (2017), Dilili in Paris (2018), The Emperor of Paris (2018), La vérité si je mens! Les débuts (2019), Hors normes (2019), Le prince oublié (2020), 10 jours sans maman (2020)

Screens: 12  Ticket price: 10.90€

Yeah, OK, I've been to Gaumont cinemas, which I'm guessing leads you to think of me as being a bit like those people who spend their lives moaning about Tesco yet you almost never catch them buying milk from their corner shop (or if they do, they then complain that it costs more than in the supermarket).  And yep, I've lined The Man's pocket.  I really don't know what to tell you.
The Gaumont at Cité Europe is a huge aircraft hangar-type building that's right next to the restaurant end of the mall (in which there's a remote ticket machine -- which actually works, unlike those ones at Bluewater your mileage may vary) and a very short walk across the grass (but don't do this at the Eiffel Tower, kids) from a cluster of hotels (Ibis, Etap etc.).

With 3 times as many screens as the nearby Alhambra and films that are always in French (more on that later), it's the warehouse of choice for the yoof of Calais and its environs.  A huge foyer has several ticket desks, plenty of food/drink options, and a few handy queue-busting ticket machines, which not only save a bit of time (and it's usually pretty busy at peak hours -- when I went to see Largo Winch 2 I had to wait more than 15 minutes just for one of these machines) but are attractive to misanthropic types like myself who usually can't be bothered dealing with people.  Oh, and if that sounds like you, there's also a Coke machine on the other side of the ticket-tearer.  But really, your bag/pockets/hat/dog's neckerchief should be obscenely stuffed with all types of continental contraband from the nearby Carrefour hypermarket -- at these ticket prices, you've given Gaumont enough of your hard-earned.  Although, come to think of it, Carrefour are also The Man.

The auditoriums themselves are quite good.  Every time I've been there I've had a fairly enjoyable time, but on each occasion there's been a clearly audible burble of conversation rippling around the cinema, which really grinds my gears; for Largo Winch 2 I wearily moved to the other side of the auditorium to elude a gaggle of noisy latecomers.  The first trip there featured some girls stage whispering throughout the film, and provided me with the sad realisation that France wasn't impervious to inconsiderate cinemagoing types.  The film on that occasion was Ensemble, c'est tout -- a serviceable but curiously low-key affair with good-looking Audrey Tautou entering into predictably complicated romantic shenanigans with good-looking Guillaume Canet.  It's billed as being a Claude Berri (RIP) film, although while watching it I really wasn't sure as to how much of it he'd actually directed.  Sure enough, scrutiny of the credits revealed that François Dupeyron (The Officer's Ward) was given a shifty-sounding "technical advisor" credit, and it indeed turned out that Dupeyron had taken over from the ailing Berri.  Finely-tuned auteur radar or what?  I think Berri's final film -- canine caper Trésor -- actually gave Dupeyron a proper co-director credit.

On another occasion, my wife and I made an unscheduled visit there.  This was on a Saturday day trip where we'd gone over for a bit of shopping, walk along the seafront, cone of coffee, cup of chips, etc.  However, on arriving in Calais we noticed there was no-one around, and no shops open (although the latter is not at all unusual for lunchtime there).  We soon twigged it was a public holiday, and if you've never experienced a public holiday in France then you haven't experienced one at all.  Everything is closed, and there's nary a soul on the streets.  It makes those early scenes in 28 Days Later look like New Year in Times Square.  We felt kind of silly, but at least a couple of friends from home we'd arranged to meet had made the same mistake.  So more like We Are Legend.  Cue a screeching of tyres as we all headed out of town in search of wine stores, clutch and exhaust fitters, shoe shops, builders' merchants... basically anywhere we could fumble with our Euros and be involved in transactions.

We decided to head for Cité Europe where we caught Camping 2 -- we hadn't seen the first one, but somehow it didn't look as if that was going to be too critical.  Plus, it re-teamed the star and director of the great Disco, so that was a good start.  The cinema was mobbed, and I realised that this must be where those who weren't enduring visits from relatives (and perhaps some who were supposed to be -- naughty, naughty) must be taking shelter.  The film was good, ridiculous fun with Franck Dubosc (there's one for Corrie fans -- Mum???) on fine clown prince form.  Afterwards we had a meal at the nearby 3 Brewers (despite the shops at Cité Europe being shut, most/all of the restaurants by the cinema were open), and from a day that could so easily have been a write-off we had managed to fashion a fun time.  Although we've often been to Cité Europe, it's usually on a busy day trip where either a film or a proper sit-down meal is hard to fit in, let alone both.

One thing I really don't get about this place is that, despite it being just a few metres from the channel tunnel and therefore the closest French cinema to the UK, they only ever show films in French.  In all the years I've known about this place I've only ever been aware of one film that screened in something other than French (a preview of Ray).  Haven't they noticed that the mall next door is teeming with British day-trippers?  They have 12 screens FFS -- why not ghettoise one of them into a place where English language films can play with French subs?  They could even organise post-screening pitched battles between the locals and Les Rosbifs. I'm guessing they know more about it than I do and have done their homework on this (and may even have tried it out -- the screenings, not the pitched battles -- and found it not to be worthwhile), but I'm sure that as you're reading this there's many a poor soul reluctantly schlepping round Cité Europe with their other half, consequently annoying said other half, while the schlepper would much prefer to be parked up in the cinema for a couple of hours thus leaving the shopper to carry on unencumbered.  It really does seem like a missed opportunity.  If The Man is reading this (through Google Translate or whatever), have a good long think about this.  I know you like money.  Hell, I'll even help program it for you -- for the right fee, of course.  I know you're good for it.

Update:  As of 3/13, the cinema has now been given a major makeover; when I was last there it was in the midst of its redesign, with the large foyer representing a building site.  The local paper ran a page on the new-look cinema, with the manageress waxing lyrical and patrons mouthing off for and against the revamp.  I'll have to sit on the fence on this one until I can sample it for myself... 

Update:  And now I have, folks!  Not sure if they've done anything to the actual screens, but it was indeed a very comfortable seat which I took for Gibraltar (on its opening night, it was the only French film showing there).  A very solid thriller, but I doubt if stars Gilles Lellouche and Tahar Rahim would be too impressed with a mere six of us taking in the first main evening performance.  The foyer now seems to have switched over to the Vista ticketing system, but I had no real need to investigate as I'd booked online to get my smartphone ticket and, far more importantly, a saving of 3.70€ as part of some promotion.

Update:  So as to avoid rewriting/deleting all the nonsense towards the end of the initial post, let it be said that it's now not unheard of for films in their original language (w/ French subs) to pop up here -- usually such films get one show a day in VO, with the rest of the screenings hosting the expected dubbed version.  I first noticed this with Star Wars: The Force Awakens in late 2015.  While such screenings are still very much in the minority, it's nonetheless encouraging to see...

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Majestic

Rue de la Mairie, Douai

Film: Quand j'étais chanteur (2006)

Screens: 10  Ticket price: 10€

In September 2006 we took a much-needed trip to Douai -- a place we'd never been to before, but it was a reasonably easy place to get to to catch living legend Johnny Hallyday on his superb Flashback tour (tickets purchased about 18 months ahead of the show), thus joining the masses who've seen this megastar perform (a staggering 1 in 3 French people have seen him in concert).  The day after the show we had a full day in which to explore Douai before heading back to the channel tunnel, and after doing the town centre and the excellent market in the morning we still had the afternoon at our disposal.

We headed over to the Majestic to catch the first screening of the day, and were met with the sight of a sizeable crowd milling around as they waited for the cinema to open.  In the meantime we still had enough time to get some lunch, so went to the Subway that's right next to (and might even be joined onto) the cinema.  Lucky we did, as they had a "menu ciné" (or similar) offer which, for little more than the cost of a cinema ticket on its own, gave you your typical Subway meal deal of sandwich/crisps/drink, plus a ticket for a screening at the Majestic.  A great deal, especially when it negates the need to visit the food kiosk in the cinema as you smuggle your oh-so-messy sandwich into the auditorium.  I'm kidding here -- we did actually eat our meal like well-adjusted members of society at one of Subway's tables.  Ideally, Subway sandwiches should be eaten while standing in your sink or wearing a poncho (or both?); as nice as they usually taste, stuff that you generally don't remember ordering tends to come oozing freely out of them.

The cinema itself was pretty nice -- the screening was fuss-free, although there was a potentially worrying moment when a rather noisy couple came in, only to realise they were in the wrong auditorium.  But the film was great -- a moving, subtle and classy tale that signed off in the most bittersweet of manners.  And what's not to like in a film that features Depardieu, de France and Amalric?  Almost inspired me to go out and buy a Mike Brant album -- or at least a poster (you might have to see the film to fully appreciate that one).

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Les Stars

Films: The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Le renard et l'enfant (2007), Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (2008), Disco (2008), Arthur et la vengeance de Maltazard (2009), Avatar (2009), Le concert (2009), De rouille et d'os (2012), Möbius (2013), Les beaux jours (2013)

Screens: 7  Ticket price: 8€

Although it's a French cinema I've visited the most often, the Stars definitely isn't my favourite.  Essentially, it's not a bad cinema which, for some unfathomable reason, names its auditoriums after signs of the zodiac (ah! it's the "stars" link, yes?) and always has a nice range of films showing (often including a film that's not in French, so points for that).  I've had some really great experiences there, but also some average ones and a solitary wretched, miserable visit.

Assuming you're the half-empty type, let's start with that: Arthur 2 had just been released (a full three years after the first entry), so we decided it would be a good film to catch before Christmas -- albeit in somewhere a bit less palatial than the Grand Rex.  So, we're about 20 mins or so into Luc Besson's latest eye-popping adventure when a fifty-something couple come in with what is presumably their grandkids.  The kids are alright (or all right -- depending on whether you favour the Who song or the Julianne Moore film) but, in an uncanny parallel with the Oscar-nominated movie, it's the adults who are messed up; they continue to talk loudly for the rest of the film and Granddad gets up every 10 minutes to nip out for a smoke, letting the fire door bang loudly.

So, the experience was completely killed as far as I was concerned, and any illusions I had about France being the last bastion of the serious (or at least civilised) cinemagoer were shattered.  I wouldn't have blamed any right-thinking person in the cinema if they'd gone home and downloaded a snide copy of the film from the interweb -- they'd bought their ticket, after all, helping the film's box office totals, and were thus entitled to view and enjoy the film.  It's pretty hard to sell a cinema "experience" like this (which are pretty commonplace in the UK) -- they actually serve as fantastic adverts for piracy.  For the record, like a good soldier I bought Arthur 2 on BD and enjoyed the 80% of it I'd previously missed, but the Stars debacle remains vividly in memory as one of those sour experiences where you're going to be royally screwed whatever you do -- put up with it (as I did) and the film's ruined; get into an argument over it and the film's still ruined; even if you go out to get a member of staff (who really won't want to deal with it), you'll miss some of the film -- which, paradoxically, you're unable to enjoy anyway.

And from the ridiculous to the sublime: Dany Boon's phenomenonally successful Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (the most successful French film ever at the domestic box office) is one of our favourite films of recent years.  Like Chris Nolan's Inception, it's that rare beast: a blockbuster that genuinely deserves its success.  Watching it in the Stars has to go down as one of my favourite cinema experiences ever.  Although Boulogne isn't at the heart of Ch'ti country it is nonetheless in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and close enough to the parts where people ceaselessly bark hein!  Stories about the film's runaway success were common in the local media, and I recall the region's paper La Voix du Nord running some pretty excitable articles about it.  Besides the film being a ton of fun, what made the screening so special was the simple act of seeing the film in the region in which it was set; there was a constant ripple of excitement/recognition in the auditorium -- nothing too intrusive, but you could see people smile and nudge their neighbour when they spotted that street where their brother-in-law used to work, or the roundabout where they lost their hubcap.  There was something very inclusive about it all -- it didn't matter that we weren't from there, all that seemed to matter was that we were there.  Good times.

There have been other notable trips to the Stars, such as watching a 9pm (and therefore very quiet) screening of Luc Jacquet's excellent Le renard et l'enfant -- for my money better than his much-lauded penguin film, although the foxy tale does contain some pretty upsetting scenes for adults -- and kids.  Plus, the original cut includes a closing scene that was lopped off of the Kate Winslet-narrated version that eventually opened in the Anglophone world, so the completist in me enjoyed that aspect.  The Le Havre-set Disco was also another fine film we caught there, although I would have dearly loved to have seen it in Havre to see if something similar to the Ch'ti effect was in place.  Disco was very unlucky in some ways, as although it was a sizeable hit its release date meant it was somewhat eclipsed by the Ch'ti film, although I'm guessing it did a nice sideline in picking up those who couldn't get in to see Dany Boon's comedy.

I was also present on the inaugural day of the cinema's 3D system, which appropriately enough was for James Cameron's word-of-mouth, minor arthouse success Avatar.  The proud manager (I think) even came out to chat to the bespectacled masses before the film began.  Not sure whatever happened to that film -- maybe someone could start a petition to get it released on DVD?

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Update: For quite some time the cinema has been under new ownership, having been bought by the Megarama chain.  Megarama are currently constructing a 14-screener in Boulogne, so I imagine the Stars will close once this new cinema is completed.  The new Megarama was due to open in time for Christmas 2019, but an Easter 2020 opening now looks much more likely.  So you should still have a few months (from 11/19) if you'd like to get along to the current cinema...