Amalgamated Holdings Limited (AHL) is "one of Australia's premier entertainment, hospitality, and tourism and leisure companies", according to the Web site. They own, among other things, the Greater Union chain of cinemas. My closest complex, at Burwood, has 11 cinemas and is convenient because the Westfield carpark in the building is open late. It takes about ten minutes to drive there.

As a rule, I prefer the Dendy at Newtown, but they don't offer the range plus it's further to go.

Tonight I went to Burwood to watch The Bourne Ultimatum but left the cinema and got a refund. The commercials and trailers were still running 25 minutes after I took my seat. In 25 minutes, I can achieve a lot. It's about the time needed to do a blog post, including a graphic. Or read the hard news section of a broadsheet. Or read five or so pages of a text book.

The only ads that showed any originality were one for Bundy Rum and one for a Japanese-made home entertainment unit, the name of which I forget. The former displays, however, rather disturbing messages about ethnicity and class. In it, to the tune of Jupiter, from the Planets Suite by Holst, various English 'types' sing a song with the refrain "we wish England was Australia".

It's amusing because it quotes every available stereotype about England: bad weather, small houses, unhealthy punters. And about Australia: relaxed, healthy. (Of course, we could add: anti-intellectual, proudly uncultured, conservative.)

The disturbing element is from a similarity to a book I got on AbeBooks but didn't read (due to study commitments): Body Culture by Isobel Crombie. I got through half-a-dozen pages and found the writing a bit of a chore. It's not tight and because it derived from a thesis, the style is a bit ass-backwards. Instead of starting with the juicy bits, Crombie starts with an abstract and then gets down to making points, from the beginning.

The Japanese commercial was good. In it, on a dark set with silvery light, a mass of drum kits sits on a stagey platform. Then a series of out-of-date cars starts falling from the sky. The retro theme is fun and while the relationship of the visuals to the product is thin, there is a certain appeal here.

But I left the cinema, got a refund, and drove home. I wrote a letter to AHL, with a copy going to Choice magazine (a consumer-oriented vehicle of long standing, with offices in Marrickville).

What really pissed me off was the appearance, on the screen, about twenty minutes into the ads, of a message telling viewers they still had time to go to the snack bar for more high-calorie junk food.

I guess this experience echoes the big Angus and Robertson debacle I posted about last month, and which made the news here (SMH, ABC etc.). This is because both the bookstore and the movie chain are owned by holding companies with priorities that are not necessarily the same as those of customers on the street. Here's some blurb from AHL's 'about' page:

By working closely together, the businesses of AHL are able to share opportunities for revenue growth and rationalise operational processes across the Group. The effective application of this strategy is achieving the synergies required to underpin our profitability going forward.

(When I hear the expression 'going forward' I reach for my gun...)

Here's some from Pacific Equity Partners, which owns A&R: "Pacific Equity Partners strives to deliver superior returns to our investors."

I've bolded the words that seem to epitomise both my dissatisfaction and that of commenters on the Undercover blog post about the A&R scandal, which caused the company to offer an apology of sorts.