While oth­er mem­bers of the Welling­ton­ista debate triv­ial issues such as road­ing, the non car-own­ing amongst us think it’s time to address the more impor­tant things in life, such as the Para­mount ren­o­va­tions. This isn’t a post to talk about the two new the­atres (one with couch­es), or the glo­ri­ous big bal­coney, oh no. It’s not about the wider selec­tion of movies that they can now offer either. It’s about pop­corn — or rather, the lack of it.

The Para­mount always used to sell pop­corn, in very classy brown paper bags at a cost of $2 for a small and $4 for a large. They’d been doing it like that for as long as I can remem­ber (read: since 1996), and it was fan­tas­tic. In a world where mul­ti­plex­es make most of their prof­it at the Can­dy Bar, and price their pop­corn accord­ing­ly, the Para­mount was an oasis of bohemi­an sophis­ti­ca­tion.

But not now. On Tues­day night, the night where all the oth­er movie the­atres in town offer reduced tick­et prices, hav­ing indulged in a glass or two of bub­bly along with the Mel­bourne Cup, we went to the Para­mount to see Mys­te­ri­ous Skin, and thought that some tasty salt­ed snacks would go down a treat with the onscreen pae­dophil­ia and ex child- stars. We were informed by the counter staff that they weren’t serv­ing pop­corn any­more. Huh? How can it be going to the movies if there is no pop­corn? How will peo­ple at the 24 Hour Movie Marathon sur­vive?

If any­one with any expla­na­tion for this trav­es­ty, please let the Welling­ton­ista know. We’re hop­ing it was just a one day thing and that we were just too drunk to under­stand that. But in the mean­time, we’re still going to be rec­om­mend­ing that oth­ers go to The Empire in Island Bay and get their fab­u­lous gela­to instead .