Cultural Highlights 2010: Film

1.) Tam Lin at the Roxy Bar and Screen, Borough High Street. This presented problems in that I am quite happy to go to the cinema on my own but not into a bar. Nevertheless, a rare showing of the only film Roddy MacDowall ever directed was enough to conquer my reluctance. In the end I wasn't convinced that pubs and cinemas go together. Other people are an unavoidable drawback of going to the cinema, but let's not encourage them. Let's not try and pretend that it's a social occasion. This is still the only film I've seen where the screening was interrupted because some pisshead tried to charge up their i-pod in the 'projector'.

As for the film, it's quite entrancing. Roddy isn't in it, but everyone in it talks like him. At the end, as I remember, Ian MacShane is pursued by a bear, and then his arm turns into a snake and attacks him. As I remember.

2.) L'Eclisse at the BFI. This had an introduction by some kind of professor, which was dreary in the extreme, and almost had the audience rioting when he sounded like he was about to give the ending away. He didn't, except to reveal that the ending was 'a montage', but that was almost enough to ruin my night, as I was spending too much of the film waiting for this 'montage', and wondering just what it consisted of. It seemed unlikely, given the nature of Antonioni's portrait of aimless characters drifting through a soulless landscape seething with existential angst, that it would be a sports training montage. Then again, how could I be sure?

However, it's a great film, one of my most enjoyable experiences at the cinema this year. In a way, it's a bit like a horror movie, suffused with the menacing feeling that nothing is about to happen. And, believe me, it does.

3.) Dahmer Vs. Gacy at the Prince Charles. Some films you don't need to actually see. Reading the title is enough. I'm saving my money for Dahmer Vs. Gacy 2: In Space.