The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues. Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures.
The late great Terry P got it right, and I think he helps explain why we still embrace 'moving pictures' as an entertainment form. Stories have always been there to help make sense of life - to provide structure where none might otherwise exist. And cinema supplies us with those tales in a neat two-ish-hour format, so we can swallow them in a single sitting and digest them at our leisure. (I explore cinema's virtues in the age of Netflix a bit more fully... HERE.)
It's been precisely two years since I brought this blog into being with the words 'Let there be a blog called Ed's Filmic Forays'. To celebrate, here are ten memorable cinema experiences I've had in ten different cinemas - nights in the dark with friends and strangers (steady!) that socked me with one of those great, life-enhancing stories. These are not necessarily my all-time favourite movies, although some here might make it onto that list. Nor does it include home viewing. I'm sticking to examples where I remember the theatre, who I was with, whether or not I bought pick'n'mix - the whole deal, along with the film itself. Let's get started.
1. Superman - Iveagh Cinema, Banbridge, Northern Ireland.
The Iveagh was the local cinema of my childhood, only it wasn't particularly local for non-drivers. (Opposite is what it looked like in the 1970s/80s.) Cinema trips were occasional and this was one of the first. The ticket lady there was crabby enough to feature in a Roald Dahl novel and the guy who ran the concessions stall was borderline catatonic. It had sticky carpets and the letters in the electronic sign outside never worked all at the same time. (At one stage the 'I' and the 'V' crapped out, so that it read 'EAGH' in the dark, which was actually quite descriptive of the interior.) I loved it nonetheless, because it was my local fleapit, and because I saw films there like the original Christopher Reeve Superman.
Now that was an enthralling night at the pictures. I remember one of the reels was knackered, so that the planet Krypton became all crackly and blotchy for a while. However the storytelling was magnificent, Reeve and Margot Kidder were engaging, and I did believe a man could fly - or even reverse time by flying fast enough around Earth to reverse its orbit, when his human girlfriend had shockingly died in an earthquake. That's the power of cinema - to make us accept the unutterably ludicrous and have us smiling as we do it.
2. King Kong (1933) - Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast.
The entrance featured in the photograph here is that of the new, lavishly renovated Queen's Film Theatre. During my student days it was a rather dingy establishment, one you had to approach via a badly-lit alleyway, prior to queueing outside in the rain. There were two screens, one of which was in a university lecture theatre complete with writing desks - useful if you're a reviewer I suppose, but not otherwise conducive to a great cinematic experience. However I was introduced to many great films there, including the original King Kong.
It was screened during a Friday late-night season of classics sponsored by Guinness - black and white movies, accompanied by a black and white drink. See? I was exhausted after a long week of... studying, and to my shame fell asleep during the climactic sequence at the top of the Empire State Building. When I awoke Kong was falling to ground, having been shot by those damn fighter pilots. I blame my blacking-out on the main theatre's gorgeously comfy seats, one of its better features even back then. Today's QFT is an all-round pleasant movie-going experience, one which I strongly recommend when you're in Belfast. I saw The Shape of Water there earlier this year and it was splendid being back.
3. Se7en - Curzon Cinema, Belfast.
The Curzon was a family-run independent cinema on Belfast's Ormeau Road - no longer in existence, but remembered fondly by a generation of Ormeau cinema-goers. I only ever visited a handful of times and can't quite picture the interior. However I do recall watching Se7en there in early 1995, the film that had so completely ensnared public imagination. Few crime thrillers achieve such depths of dread or leave its audience so helplessly reeling.
Se7en steeps its audience in murk and grime from the beginning. It establishes its premise with some very squalid crime-scenes and then sets about undermining everything we might expect from a police procedural story. Several times it wrong-foots us wickedly, so that by the time it reaches that dreadful final act, we have an uneasy sense that any horror, however grim, is possible. I can't speak for the rest of the audience that night, but I had to go to the nearby Errigle Inn afterwards for a shot of single malt, I was so unnerved. 'What's in the box?' Dear God, will we ever forget? A sublimely hellish night at the movies.
4. The Lord of the Rings trilogy - Movie House Yorkgate, Belfast.
My dear old dad surprised me over Christmas 2001 by saying that he'd be interested in find out what all the fuss was regarding this new Tolkien film. Over three consecutive Decembers we went to the cinema at Yorkgate, to watch the Middle Earth trilogy in its big-screen glory. In every case I'd already seen the movie, but experienced it all vicariously via his reactions. He was dazzled on each occasion (wasn't everyone?), taking particular delight in The Two Towers, with its introduction of Gollum as a fully-fledged character and the battle of Helm's Deep.
On leaving the theatre following that second outing he discussed with some relish how the action had kept cutting between three different locations, like me in awe of its epic scope. In an age where we're swamped by cinematic spectacle, it's good to remember those moments when you could still be surprised by the scale of events unfolding before your eyes. And I'm glad we turned it into a father-son bonding experience. (Although having lunch beside a speaker at Belfast's Hard Rock Cafe that one time was a poor idea. Sorry, dad.)
5. Moulin Rouge - The New Mission Theatre, San Francisco.
In a moment of serendipity I ended up watching Baz Luhrmann's tragi-romantic musical in a cinema almost as plush as the Moulin Rouge itself. It was a glorious backdrop (re-opened post renovation as the Alamo Drafthouse), one where you felt you were still in the movie until you'd left the theatre. The atmosphere was electric too - one of those wonderful group experiences, where you're either all laughing or in hushed silence together. And the truly spellbinding moment was the one where Ewan McGregor gave up comically stammering the lyrics of Your Song and burst into full-throated musical voice.
One moment the audience was in an uproar of laughter, the next... transfixed along with Nicole Kidman by a moment of transcendent romance. It was stupendous. I went to see it again when back in Belfast weeks later, to find out if the New Mission experience had been a one-off, but the audience reacted in identical fashion. Belter of a moment - in an audacious, sublime film.
6. A.I. Artificial Intelligence - Mann's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood.
I think it was still called 'Mann's' when I was there - I know it's reverted to its original name of 'Grauman's Chinese Theatre' since then. At any rate it's the most grandiose and touristy theatre I've ever visited, with its Hollywood Boulevard address and Disneyesque oriental architecture. I didn't get to see a fancy premiere though, just a regular screening of the Spielberg science-fairytale. A.I. was a story of suitably grand ambition for the venue. The bold Steven picked up the threads of a story developed by late Stanley Kubrick and forged a science-fiction fairytale that started small and kept branching out ever-larger with each succeeding act.
It's an often brilliant dystopian fable full of fascinating ideas and allusions to both Pinocchio and Frankenstein. I still have mixed feelings about the movie as a whole (adventurous storytelling, problematic ending); but the guy who stood up during the end credits and proclaimed 'That movie sucked' before walking out clearly didn't. Bad cinema etiquette, but undeniably concise film criticism. Good lesson there.
7. Memento - Watershed, Bristol, UK.
Good beer, good nachos, great selection of films. I've been to Watershed a handful of times in my life and have never seen a dud. The high-point was the night I watched Memento there, even though I was struggling to follow its temporally-reversed plot (I had to ask my movie-pal to help me piece it all together afterwards).
This was my introduction to the work of Christopher Nolan and it's still probably my favourite out of anything he's done, even after his Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and the marvel that was Dunkirk. An atmospheric modern-noir mind bender and an intriguing exploration of how identity relates to memory. Watershed was the perfect relaxing atmosphere in which to enjoy it. I mean look at the place. It's flipping gorgeous!
8. Slumdog Millionaire - Vue Cinema, Thurrock.
I don't have a great deal to say about the venue - it's your generic Vue branch and isn't required to be anything more. The reason I went there was because my friend had snagged some tickets from the SeeFilmFirst website for a preview of some little film called Slumdog Millionaire. It was set in India apparently and connected to the 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' TV quiz show.
There's so much to be said for going in blind to see a movie - pre-preview, pre-buzz, pre-awards -
with no expectations, good or bad. I didn't even know that Danny Boyle had directed it until the end, although that made sense in retrospect with all the edgy kinetic stuff happening on screen. Everything about this story was fresh and/or startling, though it certainly wasn't (as one poster subsequently stated) 'the feel-good movie of the year'. It was sometimes grim, sometimes heart-wrenching, occasionally magical. And it benefitted from taking me totally by surprise. I wish I could have more of that.
9. Mad Max: Fury Road - Odeon Cinema, Chatham.
Chatham Odeon is my local. If I want to see more esoteric arthouse stuff, I'm forced to seek it out elsewhere, but this cinema serves my mainstream entertainment needs splendidly. I know all the gang there; the Costa Coffee baristas even know my drink - double espresso, particularly if I'm flagging after a long week. No coffee was required, however, when viewing 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road. If it wasn't the best cinema experience of my life, it was certainly the loudest.
Watching the re-envisioned Mad Max was like sitting next to the speaker at a death-metal concert inside a gigantic carburettor. My cinema-partner actually took refuge under a coat and didn't come out until the end credits rolled. I think I enjoyed it, but there was an endurance factor as well, it was so relentlessly bombastic, pummelling its audience visually and aurally throughout most of its running time. It's made with undeniably quality and a noteworthy commitment to real effects over the computer kind, but it also nearly beat me unconscious. I think I need to watch it again at home sometime, under more controlled conditions.
10. Some Film I Haven't Seen Yet - Some Cinema, Somewhere.
The venue matters less, although I love a richly upholstered olde-worlde cinema with a magnificent entry-way and tangible sense of history. What matters of course is what's on screen - whether multi-million dollar or micro-budget, mainstream or niche, pulse-pounding or subtle. It's only a matter of time till that next great movie experience - now there's an enlivening thought. Maybe it'll be Beautiful Boy or First Man. Widows or Susperia. Mary Queen of Scots or Bohemian Rhapsody. Something to reaffirm my faith in the power of moving pictures one more time. Whatever the title, I'll tell you all about it (well not all - let's keep things spoiler-lite) here at Filmic Forays. Until then, happy viewing. And Happy 2-Year Anniversary to me. Now what can I go see to celebrate?
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