I used to go to the pictures in the UK too. A huge advantage that we Britons have, in relation to film viewing, is that we speak English. This means that the films produced by the US film makers aren't seen as being foreign, even though they are. Italian and French and Iranian films, those that come with subtitles are foreign. I don't think I ever saw a dubbed film in a cinema in the UK, foreign films always came with subs. Not so in Spain. Here nearly all foreign language films (which obviously embraces Hollywood product) are dubbed. Historically films in Spain were dubbed because of high illiteracy rates, because of the work it provided and because it allowed what was said on screen to be controlled and censored. Now it's just a sort of tradition or expectation.
Dubbing and subtitling still change the words in foreign films (and TV series). It's no longer a political or church censorship but words are sometimes changed to reflect a Spanish worldview - a BLT becomes a cheese sandwich for example. Hearing Colin O'Farrell or Margot Robbie speak with a Spanish accent is unnerving: even more so when the voice is a particularly recognisable one like Samuel L. Jackson or Morgan Freeman. The same dubbing artist usually sticks with the same star for the whole of their career and some dubbing artists are quite famous. The same voice artist may do more than one actor. The Spanish voice of Cillian Murphy, Ethan Hawke and Leonardo di Caprio is David Robles for instance. One of the strangest things is when a Spanish actor makes an English language film because, when the film is shown in Spain, their Spanish voices will be dubbed back into Spanish by a voice actor. It is quite surreal to hear well known actors, like Antonio Banderas, Javier Bardem or Penelope Cruz, speaking Spanish but with someone else's voice.
My film count in 2023 was 59 films in cinemas: 31 of them in English and 28 in Spanish. Seven so far this year. For me the films dubbed into Spanish, from say English or Norwegian, tend to be easier to understand than a film shot originally in Spanish. Equally some sorts of Spanish language films are easier to understand than others - anything with low life criminals is going to be, for me, much harder than a family comedy. Films with Latin American roots, particularly from the deep South, like Uruguay and Argentina, I find particularly difficult.
There is no cinema to speak of in Pinoso. In summer there are a couple of outdoor films and on most of the first Fridays of the month the Pinoso Platform Against Gender Violence shows a film in the Local Associations' building, the old Casa de Cultura, but if you want to see a film that is doing the rounds then you are going to have to travel.
The closest cinema is probably the Cine PYA in Yecla but the PYA, interesting cinema though it is, isn't really what you'd call a modern cinema experience. For that the nearest cinema is the ten screen Yelmo Vinalopó, next door to the Carrefour supermarket. There was another cinema in Petrer but the pandemic did for it. The Vinalopó seems to have stopped getting anything but the potentially most profitable films and recently it hasn't even been getting the mid range Spanish films. Prices vary a lot from day to day and depend on whether you can get any form of discount. I usually pay around 6.50€ but I get pensioner rates. Even at its most expensive I don't think the Vinalopó gets over 9€ for a ticket. On Tuesdays the Vinalopó, like all cinemas in the Yelmo chain, shows films in Versión Original Subtitulado en Español (VOSE) - original language with Spanish subtitles. Usually that means English with subs but not always. Bear in mind that the Italians and Koreans make films too and they usually make them in their home language. One of the, often unexpected, difficulties with VOSE films is that if even if it's basically an English language film there may be sections in, say, German or Arapaho, and the subtitles for that will be in Spanish for a Spanish audience.
There's another Yelmo on the outskirts of Alicante, on the Pinoso side, at the very "white elephant" Puerta de Alicante shopping centre. That Yelmo does get most of the Spanish films that are doing the rounds but it gets almost none of the even vaguely arty Spanish films. To be honest though if I'm going to go a bit further to see a film I'd go to the ABC, in the L'Aljub shopping Centre in Elche, simply because it has a better selection of films. Prices at the ABC are a bit higher than at the Yelmo, partly because they are in a successful shopping centre, but there are offers. Their "day of the viewer" tickets, on Wednesday, are just over 6€ but their regular price is nearly 9€. The ABC has it's VOSE films on Thursday. All of the cinema chains have websites where you can buy online so you can check prices. Sometimes, often, web prices are better than the box office prices.
There are a couple of single screen cinemas in Alicante city, in the Centre, the most reliable being aAna which tends to the non blockbuster films that are doing well. In Elche there's an arthouse cinema, the Odeon, which is dead cheap.
There are plenty more cinemas which are a bit further from Pinoso and I'm not going to try and list them all but I will mention the ones we occasionally go to. Kinepolis in Plaza Mar 2 is on the wrong side of Alicante for us but it has a pretty full programme and they have English language stuff on several days of the week. Going the other way there are cinemas in the shopping centres outside Murcia - The Thader - next to IKEA - has a Neocine which is a local Murcian chain. Neocine leans towards popular rather than arty films as does the Cinesa in the much more popular Nueva Condomina - the one with Primark - shopping centre. There are a couple more Neocines in Murcia City and there is also an arthouse cinema, the Filmoteca, quite near the Cathedral.
Plenty to go at even if they are a little way away.
