Every summer Melbourne’s botanical gardens are host to the moonlight cinemas and this year, thanks to my soon to be sister in law’s great chrismas gift we had the pleasure to check out the cinema and the gardens. Set on a gently sloping lawn within the heart of the botanical gardens, the area rapidly changes from rolling green manecured lawns to a patchwork of picnic rugs and people lounging as the inflatable screen slowly rises while the sun sinks below the horizon. Beyond the screen the Eureka tower and some of the tops of city buildings are siloutted by the sunset and flag flying above government house is the only other man made obstruction to the natural beauty of the botanical gardens. Sure the gardens themselves are man made, but the traquility they create makes lying on the lawns with a glass of champagne truely relaxing.

Of course, thats when you get there early as the first thing you need to know about the moonlight cinema is that to get a good spot you need to get there early and guard your patch of turf before it gets taken over by the patchwork of picnic rugs. My cousin and a few of her friends joined Cam and I, and as they were running a little later, we had to save some turf space. When I say we, I really mean Cam and I was given an entry in the Ford Fiesta competition which meant I was off chatting to fellow entrants as we waited to see if our USB sticks (the entry token) gave us an iTune voucher or mints when we instered it into the demo car. After winning a $50 iTunes voucher and being interviewed for some ford related tv show, I found that Cam had done a great job in securing our spot of turf for the group which was now at about 12.

Ironically the moonlight cinema is actually about the same price as a normal movie, but the bonus is that you get to bring your own food and drink (or in our case, a mini picnic), you get to spead out and relax and you get the movie too. There is a bar and cafe there, but I’d suggest that you birng your own as you’ll save some dosh and have many more options.

As for the movie, we saw Social Network, and althogh I don’t want to turn this into a movie review, I found it was a good flick for a summer night. Everyone said that I’d hate facebook after watching it, but alas I found my fondess for facebook didnt wane as a result of the movie. Anyway, back onto the moonlight cinema. If you find that you need to use the restrooms after the bottle of champagne, i’d recoomend you bring a torch as the trip to the toilets is a little dark. Although there seemed to be a bar or party in another section of the gardens which was pumping, yet from the moonlight lawns you couldn’t hear a thing.

Although we are not heading for the depths of winter, to sum it up, next time it’s a summer night and you want to see a movie then skip the mainstream cinema’s, pack a hot bbq chicken, tub of colslaw, a few bread rolls and a few bottles of bubbly, spread out over a picnic rug and watch a movie under the stars instead of on top of someones left over popcorn.

Basic Details:

Moonlight cinemas are available in most capital cities. Check out www.moonlight.com.au for details.