It will be no great shock to hear that living in London has both advantages and disadvantages. It is true that the cost of a 200 yd train journey may be the equivalent of a small flat in Hull, and rather like rats in New York it is said that you are never more than 100 metres away from a Premiership footballer or someone “in media”, but the capital does have one thing in its favour: a vast range of unique cultural opportunities, among them some of the best independent cinemas in the country. It is true that many other cities, too, offer a wonderful alternative to the looming multiplex (Brighton, Oxford, Manchester, Bristol, to name just four that I have experienced myself) but merely by virtue of geographical and population size, London is unrivalled. At anything up to £15 they can be expensive, but for the chance to see a treasured classic on the big screen, in the format for which it was originally intended, the price is very often worth paying. In this sense Londoners are spoilt. Yet scanning the listings this weekend I noticed that this sacred turf for independent, art house, grind house, B movie and foreign language films is being infiltrated by the Hollywood behemoths. More and more of the independents are now showing first- and second-run blockbusters. The motivations are, understandably, financial - in these economic times autonomous, small businesses are going under at an alarming rate and survival is, and must be, the priority. But is it churlish to ask at what cost to culture?

Whatever the doomsayers may say about the decline of the West Coast film industry and the creaking precipice on which it supposedly totters, as financiers reportedly withdraw millions in studio funding, it will still be here tomorrow. Hollywood is not, nor has it ever been, completely immune to subtlety, credibility or cultural sensitivity, but as long as its most recent obsession with cash-cow sequels continues it remains big, bad and hairy enough to bludgeon us over the head with the latest multi-million dollar franchise, this year, next year and for many more to come. Financial crisis or not. So it is sad, but easy to see why smaller cinemas are turning west to boost revenues. Quite simply, it’s bums-on-seats.

So, whether you live in London or another town or city in the UK, if they are being squeezed out of the very places that were created to support them, where might one now be able to see classic films, reruns and hidden gems? DVDs, for sure, but is there not, too, an obligation on public service broadcasters? Do they not have a responsibility to provide a broad range of culture and entertainment for all? And does film not fall under that concern? The BBC public service remit opens with the declaration that the first of three primary obligations is to, “Stimulate informal learning across a full range of subjects and issues for all audiences - The BBC should enable people to learn about many different topics in ways they will find accessible, entertaining and challenging.” With regards to film, I struggle to see this clause being lived out. Often it is hard to distinguish the BBC’s film programming (such as it is) from the local Odeon or branch of Blockbusters. There will be reasons, of course, and many of them valid if no less disappointing, but I draw attention to what I perceive as a negligence of duty it is only because I remember with great fondness a time in the not to distant past when the BBC did seem willing to fulfill this pledge.

 Moviedrome, hosted by writer/director Alex Cox, ran on Sunday nights on BBC2 from 1988 until 1994 and was my first introduction to cult film. With a short, idiosyncratic preamble to each screening, by Cox himself, it was informative, intelligent and as far removed from the local Cineplex as was possible. As a child and young teenager, like millions of others, I loved Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Batman and Die Hard. I even went to see Air America. But Moviedrome was, frankly, weird. And brilliant. It was weird because, like the BBC, it too had a remit: to bring cult films in the homes of Britain. And I didn’t know what kind of films they were. In the first ever broadcast (to be found on YouTube) Cox described what he regarded as cult cinema and thus where the programme’s heart lay:

“What is a cult film? A cult film is one that has a passionate following, but does not appeal to everyone. James Bond movies are not cult films, but chainsaw movies are. Just because a film has become a cult movie does not automatically guarantee quality. Some are very bad; others are very, very good. Some make an awful lot of money at the box office; others make no money at all. Some are considered quality films; others are exploitation movies.

One thing cult movies do have in common is that they are all genre films - for example gangster films or westerns. They also have a tendency to slosh over from one genre into another, so that a science fiction film might also be a detective movie, or vice versa. They share common themes as well, themes that are found in all drama: love, murder and greed.”

This is a wonderfully democratic and liberating counter-cultural commitment and it feels remarkable, in the era of Humberside’s Wackiest Police Chases, Celebrity Grouting and Hole in the Wall, that it was once given a platform on terrestrial television. But where else other than a programme like this would it have been possible to see films as diverse and uniquely beautiful as The Wicker Man, Westworld, The Harder They Come, Hells Angels on Wheels, Sunset Boulevard, THX 113, The Fly, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Alphaville among many, many others? In truth, nowhere.

Despite offering an inimitable window on to a rare cinematic world Moviedrome seems to be the kind of TV that is, sadly, no longer deemed relevant or important. Ironically, however, it is now, when the overarching impetus to “progress” seems to be financial, and underpinned by broad stroke and passive homogeneity, that we need it the most. Its abence is our loss.