FEAR AND LOATHIAN ROAD

Edinburgh has a lot going for it, being possibly one of the most attractive cities in the UK. But I guess if I lived in Niddrie I wouldn't be so quick to say this. So this may not sound like much of a gripe but I have to ask. Why isn't there a half decent arthouse cinema? Me I'm more of a multiplex girl. Cineworld (ex UGC) at Fountainbridge suits me fine, you get to park, the seats are comfy, the projection's good and you can eat yourself obese on the overpriced concessions. But even with 13 screens Cineworld doesn't always deliver the goods. There's usually the odd film that slips through the net - like the Dardenne Brothers Palme D'Or winner 'L'Enfant'.

To see it, I was forced to go to The Filmhouse, an experience less like a night at the pictures than a lecture from some vinegar-veined, finger-wagging old crone. There's something deeply unwelcoming about this grim grey building, puffed up with itself because it's a main venue for the Edinburgh Film Festival. God knows why. It charges more than Cineworld for a start. The staff are snooty as fuck, with an air of genteel poverty about them, like they resent having to deal with the punters but they have to because that mortgage in Stockbridge is killing them. But who can blame them when you check out the clientele - the kind of people who don't go to the flicks for entertainment, oh no, they're cinephiles. The kind of people who wear sensible shoes, subscribe to Sight and Sound (the world's most earnest filmzine) and think what Peter Bradshaw writes is gospel.

Then there's the theatres - clapped out, with the world's most arse-numbing seats this side of a bus shelter. But The Filmhouse, for all its arty pretensions isn't averse to a dose of corporatism. Their adverts run longer than Cineworld's and their trailers - usually for some slice of French guff - are about as enticing as Charlotte Rampling's oxters (look it up). The projection's not much chop either.

There's also the ongoing rivalry with the Cameo up the road, Edinburgh's alternative arthouse cinema, under threat by its owners who want to turn it into a pub. The Filmhouse has long looked down its nose at the Cameo - a fleapit admittedly, but a far friendlier venue. In the recent campaign to save the Cameo, the chill wind of schadenfreude was felt in Lothian Road as The Filmhouse, rather than side with its wee cousin, issued statements about its own position as the pre-eminent arthouse cinema of the city.

So there, glad I've got it off my tits. Oh, and no popcorn either.