Usually when people watch a Colin Farrell movie, the only bad smells caused are by the shoddy overacting and bad accents on display. But Japanese scientists are about to fix that good and proper.
Anyone going to watch new Colin Farrell movie The New World in Japan will go through a brand new cinematic experience – smellovision. During the film, all sorts of different fragrances will drift through the theatre, either enhancing the searing cinematography and crystelline storytelling on display, or providing a welcome distraction from all the guff on the screen. One or the other.
As good as cinema is – or however close to 'good' you can get from forking over a week's wages in order to watch a crappy overlong piece of product placement on a sticky chair in the dark surrounded by numbskulls – you never get the full-on experience. Like when Robert Duvall says "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," in Apocalypse Now, who knows what napalm actually smells like – in the morning or at any other time? Wouldn't it be better to just blast out a load of napalm into the cinema so that audiences understand? Wouldn't it?
That's what Japanese scientists are planning to do with new Colin Farrell movie The New World, more or less. Cinemas all over Japan will be pumping out various fragrances to coincide with key scenes in The New World. When Colin Farrell feels love, audiences will smell flowers. When Colin Farrell feels sad, audiences will smell peppermint and rosemary – all pumped out of machines under the back-row seats.
If the smellovision scheme works well with The New World, Japanese cinemas will also be able to download programs triggering the smells of several other new releases. A home version of the machine is apparently available for £510. Whether or not you'll be able to smell arses and bollocks during Everybody Loves Raymond is another matter entirely.
And, yes, we agree with you. It's a good job the Colin Farrell sex tape doesn't come with smellovision.
Read more:
'Smellovision' for Japanese cinemas – BBC
[story by Stuart Heritage]