Off to the movies? Click before you go!

PHUKET: Movie-goers in Thailand are familiar with the vagaries of screening schedules; the phenomenon of sudden, unannounced cancellations; and the difficulties in getting through to box office telephone recordings. For foreigners, these problems are often compounded by communication difficulties.

It was against this background that the SFX Coliseum cinema at Central Festival and the Phuket Gazette teamed up two months ago to build a set of movie schedules into the Gazette‘s website. The pages, launched last week, can be found at thethaiger.com/movies.

Each listing contains a classification (Action, Comedy, etc); a summary of the plot; a rating (General Audience, Restricted, etc); a list of lead performers; and the sound track language. Screening times are posted into the listings daily, at noon. These times remain in effect for 24 hours only, so movie-goers are advised to check the schedule at, or after, noon on the day they wish to go.

Commenting on the effort to bring the movie details to a wider audience, Theatre Manager Nitima Nithattamathan said, “It’s good for Phuket residents to know the movie schedules with certainty now – and to be able to dovetail their schedules with ours.

“And by the way,” she said, “we at SFX love Phuket, too. So we’ll be handing out the Gazette‘s new [We love Phuket] bumper stickers to all of our customers who want one, as they exit our theatres.”

Visitors to the Gazette Online‘s movie schedules are asked to note that the listings are for the SFX Coliseum cinema at Central Festival Phuket, and not for the Coliseum Paradise Multiplex next to Robinsons.