Review 2015: Film Experiences: Mags L Halliday on Fatal Attraction.

Film I think I saw every film released between 1987 and 1991, many of them twice in one day. I worked in an independent cinema chain. It was an ideal job for a teen too young to work in bars and too snarky to survive long as a waitress. I always wanted the Friday shift, when the cans of reels would arrive at lunchtime and be stitched together by the projectionist ready for the first screening. I also liked Sundays, where you started later (the religous manager not wanting anyone working before lunchtime on the sabbath) and got double-time. Everyone hated Saturdays: the kids left to run riot at the matinee; the teens leaving used condoms behind in the back row at the late screening.

As an usher, my job included selling tickets and popcorn, tearing tickets, selling ice-cream, cleaning the screen after each screening, being ready to evacuate the building in event of a fire, and 'watching the audience'. In practise, unless there was trouble in that pre-mobile era, the final task really meant 'watching the film'. I might watch in the screen, or through the projectionist's window. The latter meant I could have a quick fag whilst watching, so long as I didn't mind the loud whirring of the projector (and snores of the projectionist). We also got free passes to see films: those tended to be great currency in our social group as they are the cinema equivalent of your name being on the list for gigs.

The downside of the job was I became used to missing the start of films: the first 20 minutes were spent either letting the other screen in, cashing up the ice-cream sales, or both. If two of us were on, I might convince one of my colleagues to cover so I could see the start of a film I really liked. I have a lot of random memories of those years behind the torch. Like the time I fell asleep in Rambo 3, or how me and a friend crushed so hard on Carey Elwes in The Princess Bride. Or how I knew which of the town's small goth population were fibbing when they claimed to have seen The Lost Boys on its first night (one week run, mostly empty). Or that my last film was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which I adore to this day.

But I'm going to focus on Fatal Attraction.

It was due to be huge: we knew that as all passes were suspended and nearly all of us were on duty the first night. The first week, our big screen was sold out every night. And it ran for three weeks. I know that because by the end of its run, I hated it and counted up that I had seen it 20 times. Twenty times is a lot of times to see a film you don't like. I don't like Michael Douglas in it, I didn't like or care about the characters, I didn't like the plot or the sexist subtexts. I've never rewatched it since the last Thursday it played in that seaside cinema (by then downgraded to screen 2). And yet...

The first Friday, its opening night in our fleapit, I stood in the ushers' bit and clutched my colleague's arm in surprise when Alex suddenly reappears. A couple of screenings in and I started watching the audience. It was fascinating to see 200 people jump in unison and then - and this was the bit that fascinated me - sit back with an embarrassed grin. I watched it for weeks: this visceral response, and unpicked shot by shot how Adrian Lyne created it. The mise-en-scene used to denote each world, the zooms, the diegetic sound effects. I applied critical film theory to it to understand why an audience reacted en masse to a film. People go to thrillers with the same mindset they go to an illusionist: they think they won't be fooled like all the others. And they're wrong. Because film lures you in, creates a suspension of disbelief and then slams you in the gut with it.

I've seen that same communal gasp in other films over the years. At the first screening of Resevoir Dogs in a full Sheffield multiplex screen, when the only other woman in the screening walked out after the ear scene. Or at a moment in The Force Awakens two weeks ago (despite the person with their bloody mobile out just in my eyeline). That first time, when I started analysing how it worked, was another early step on a path to studying film history and creating a cornerstone of my life.

So whilst I still can't stand it, Fatal Attraction was a major film experience for me.

Review 2015: Kathleen Herzog on The Empire Strikes Back.

Film My dad was an old-school science fiction fan who loved Star Trek and the Planet of the Apes films and was thrilled to have a kid to share it all with, even if I didn’t quite get the appeal of Star Trek beyond “The Trouble With Tribbles.” I was a Star Wars fanatic, having been so impressed by the first movie I ever saw in a theatre that I was the only girl Darth Vader in my kindergarten class’s Halloween parade. My dad was delighted.

When Stuart asked for film experiences for this year’s Review, there was one perfectly crystallized moment that came to mind. I was seven years old when The Empire Strikes Back was released in May 1980. The memory of that day is mostly a blur of childhood rapture, adrenaline and joy, and the reason I am, to this day, consumed with instant goosebumps when I hear the theme music. But that moment, maybe a single second long, is frozen: turning to my dad when the Millennium Falcon escaped Cloud City, his face illuminated by the light of the screen. He was grinning and aglow with joy, and time stopped. “I’ll always remember this day,” I thought, “When I saw The Empire Strikes Back with my dad. I’ll never forget this for as long as I live.”

And it’s true, I have never forgotten and I never will. I’m sure my seven-year-old self didn’t realize that someday memories would be all I had left of my dad, and just how precious that particular one would be. He died four years ago, a brutal departure he fought as hard as he could. Gallows humor being a family specialty, he joked about being pissed off about all the great movies he was going to miss. He wasn’t really kidding, and this was before we knew about the pending reboots of so many of our other favorite things – The X-Files! Twin Peaks! Mystery Science Theatre!! Come on!

The Force Awakens wasn’t even a twinkle in J.J. Abrams’ eye back then, at least as far as we knew, but my dad loved the Abrams Star Trek reboot and would have been ecstatic that he was handling such precious cargo as our Star Wars franchise. The release coincides with my nephew’s eighth birthday and his next-generation excitement for a “new Star Wars movie” thirty-five years after my own giddiness for Empire is wonderful anti-bittersweet balm. It does happen time and time again, though, the flare-up of quick, helpless anger – Dad should be here! It’s not fair! -- quelled with the resolution that, in his absence, I’ll strive to enjoy it enough for two.

I’ll close my eyes when that logo hits the screen and remember the glowing cinematic moment I told myself I’d never forget. And just like that, he’ll be there with me.

Review 2015: Film Experiences: Annette Arrigucci on My Girl.

Film I remember seeing “My Girl” when it was released in 1991, one of the very few times both my parents took me and my sisters to a movie theater. In retrospect, I have to wonder, what were my parents thinking taking kids that were ages 9, 7 and 5 to this movie? For being a family movie, “My Girl” is pretty dark and heavy. To say the movie deals with death is an understatement – it’s steeped in it from the start. Besides that it has a widower dad falling in love, puberty, hypochondria, an unrequited crush, and on top of that it's in the midst of the ‘70s.

Looking back a lot of the movie went way over my head. Things on later viewings I saw as quirky touches by the filmmakers I accepted at face value the way you accept things when you're nine years old. Shelly living in a trailer and Vada's dad working (and living) at a funeral home and playing the tuba didn’t phase me. Didn't all adults have funny jobs and strange hobbies? I failed to see the humor in Vada taking an adult writing class and in her being the youngest one in the class by about 20 years. Some describe the character of Vada as “precocious,” but I didn’t see her as all that different from myself, besides being a couple years older than me. And at nine I didn’t really understand what the ‘70s were, other than they wore bell bottoms and played music that was different from the present era, but not unpleasant (do-wa-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-do - not a bad song).

And, the ultimate sign of my naivete, I didn't see Thomas J.’s death coming. I didn’t read reviews at that age, and I didn't know a person could be killed by bees, so it was a huge shocker.

It was the first time I cried in a movie. It was the first time I experienced the power of art of any type to bring me to tears. Even today just thinking about the scene where Vada runs in to the funeral service and says, "Where are his glasses?" wrecks me. It's so raw, and it’s something a kid would say. Seeing a sad movie in a theater is different from seeing it on TV – it’s more intense since there’s no escaping from it. You cannot look away. It’s an experience I tend not to seek out.

Upon reflection, as an adult, I will probably never be put in that situation again, where I’ll be forced to see sit in a theater and watch a movie that I don’t know is going to be extremely sad. In a way that is a relief – there are no surprises now that I read reviews and have a more sophisticated mentality about movies. But in another sense something is lost – the power of art to move you in way that is completely unexpected. That is something as an adult I experience less and less of. There really is something magical about seeing the world through the eyes of a child, and it’s sad to think that you can never see the world that way again.

Review 2015: Film Experiences: Tim Worthington on A Clockwork Orange.

Film This is the story of how I didn't see a film.

A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick's controversial (not least with the author himself) 1971 big-screen version of Anthony Burgess' acclaimed novel, had caused a vivid furore on its release, and by the end of the decade had been withdrawn from UK distribution at the director's request. There have been wild stories of threats and protests outside the Kubrick family home from 'anti-violence' protesters, though it's also worth remembering that the film was used as a political football by moralising blowhards like pretty much no other before or since; including, to Burgess' great frustration, one James Wilson Vincent Savile. What an excellent arbiter of socially responsible behaviour he turned out to be. Anyway, whatever the reason, withdraw it Kubrick certainly did, and with home entertainment still really only in its infancy, this mean that - for UK audiences at least - A Clockwork Orange pretty much disappeared off the face of the planet.

As you can imagine, this made A Clockwork Orange a very intriguing prospect indeed to any self-respecting young student of the weird and lurid corners of cinema history. Surreally stylised and futuristic photos in books about 'Sci-Fi Films' were a nagging reminder of its tantalising unavailability. It stood almost alone as a movie that had been a huge hit one minute then basically erased from history the next, while older cousins and more verbose rock journalists hinted at a secret knowledge of it that you weren't allowed to share. Even the row about its content and suitability seemed more exciting than it maybe should have warranted. The fact that even if it had been available, I would have been too young to actually see A Clockwork Orange was neither here nor there - I was as obsessed with it as others were with A Nightmare On Elm Street or Predator. I read the book, the listened to the fantastic soundtrack album, I even cut out and kept a Guardian article about the RSC's stage adaptation starring Phil Daniels as Alex. There was just one small but significant flaw with this fanaticism - I hadn't actually seen the film itself.

There were rumours, of course, that it was widely available on 'pirate', but it always seemed to command the sort of sums of money that you didn't particularly want to be handing over to shifty teenagers on street corners, especially when you'd already seen the woeful quality of some of their more easily affordable wares. And so it was that, long after I'd seen Twisted Nerve, Peeping Tom, The Magic Christian, Supervixens, Cannibal Apocalyse, Vampyros Lesbos, The Trip, Monte Carlo Or Bust, Psychomania, 200 Motels, Two-Lane Blacktop, Every Home Should Have One, The Rise And Rise Of Michael Rimmer and many other tantalisingly elusive doodles in the margin of cinema history, A Clockwork Orange remained my one big Halliwell-troubling box to tick. Yet despite the occasional frowning in a newspaper article accompanied by a badly-cropped version of that photo of Alex at the wheel of a car, it was still nowhere nearer becoming available.

Then, one day, a rumour began to circulate amongst members of a local Cinema Club that they were going to stage a secret - and not even remotely Kubrick-approved - screening of an under-the-counter print of the film to mark their tenth anniversary. Whether they ever actually intended to or not nobody really knows, as some ingrate prat promptly leaked the story to an illiterate muck-raking grief-porn-peddling chip-on-regional-shoulder local newspaper, who went predictably condemnatory crazy with the story - no prizes for guessing which photo they used to accompany it - prompting the cinema to issue a strenuous denial that they'd ever even considered it. Was this all a clever double-bluff, though? Was it worth running the risk of missing out on an actual chance to see it, and subsequently having to administer a self-kicking worthy of Alex and his Droogs? There was only one way to find out - to turn up on the supposed date and time and see if they were actually showing it away from prying smudgy-newsprint eyes.

As it turned out, I wasn't the only one who'd had that idea. A sizeable crowd had gathered outside the suspiciously darkened venue, made up primarily of studenty types holding cineaste-friendly impromptu discussions, nervy-looking lone gentlemen with an apparent disdain for washing their raincoats, and a small army of people in boiler suits and bowler hats. Oh, and a reporter, who was pleasingly blanked by everyone she attempted to speak to. As the night set in, the weather got colder, and it became increasingly obvious to anyone with a shred of sense that there was nobody actually inside the building, the Droogs seized their moment. A flurry of brolly-rapping on the determinedly shut doors and shouts to the effect of "but the slovo did viddy that the film would be on all horrorshow" did nothing to change the situation, so they started to indulge in in-character jostling of fellow would-be patrons instead. Once they began to loudly decry the arrival of 'the millicents', it really was time to give up and go home.

So, that's how effective banning films really is in terms of preventing copycat violence. Of course, there was also the time someone threw a full carton of Kia Ora at my head, but that's another story. And I actually saw the film that time too.

Review 2015: Film Experiences: Marc Jones on Casablanca.

Film When I saw Stu’s request for submissions, I didn’t think I had anything to offer in response. The last film I went to see at the pictures was either The Cloud Atlas or Alpha Papa, both of which have been out for at least two years. In honesty, I’m not a desperately keen cinema-goer.

However, the memorable film viewing experience I would like to relate took place on 31st August this year, when Ruth (my wife) and I went to see a screening of Casablanca.

The reason I exempt this screening from my chronology of films I have seen at the cinema is that we didn’t, strictly speaking, see it at the cinema. The venue for our evening’s viewing was St Luke’s church (colloquially known as ‘the bombed-out church’) in Liverpool city centre. Having been struck during the Blitz, the church has for the past ten years been under the stewardship of Urban Strawberry Lunch and, latterly, that organisation’s Ambrose Reynolds.

One element of the programme of cultural events Ambrose and his colleagues have put on at St Luke’s is outdoor cinema. Given that for a couple of years I lived just up the hill from the church, it shames me to say that until this August I’d seen films there on just two occasions; once a blissful December evening four years ago when Ruth and I watched a crackly recording of Carols From King’s 1954, and once when I’d wandered in drunk after a trip to the pub and joined a crowd laughing at the ‘Drink? Pipe?’ scene from Bride of Frankenstein.

Luckily, my interactions with St Luke’s weren’t confined to these visits. Over the following years Ruth and I played some memorable shows there with our folk duo Moss & Jones (and an array of enchanting guest acts), and spent many a sunny afternoon there in the middle of a trip into town. Best of all, St Luke’s is where Ruth and I were married on 14th September 2014. The venue’s versatility allowed us to have the ceremony and reception in the same space and it was an unforgettable day.

So when we walked through the doors on the evening of Saturday 30th August, St Luke’s felt like a familiar, homely space; one with which I have a definite relationship.

I’d not seen Casablanca before. Strictly speaking that’s not entirely true; someone had forced me to watch it at a student party in that insufferable way people do at student parties, but I was so affronted at this unasked-for annexing of ninety minutes of my evening that I paid as little attention as possible and retained nothing about the film when it had finished. So I was coming to it pretty much fresh.

The main feature was preceded by some Tom & Jerry cartoons – I’m not old enough to remember when this was a feature of cinema-going but, being a Tom & Jerry fan, enjoyed them nonetheless. (All the moreso, given that they were the proper Fred Quimby ones.)

Casablanca is one of those cultural artefacts which, due to the number of times it has been referenced and parodied, I feel like I’ve already seen (as stated above, I HAD kind of already seen it, but not really); like Apocalypse Now, The Godfather and Gilligan’s Island. My thoughts as I watched were a jumble of:

1.  So THAT’S who the weird-looking bloke is in those Bugs Bunny cartoons!
2.  I didn’t know it had jokes in.
3.  This is really good.

Basically, I was surprised. I’d expected to be bored by the film itself but entertained by spotting bits that had been referenced elsewhere. What I hadn’t expected was to just ENJOY watching it.

After the film had finished the audience milled about under the late summer night’s sky and Ruth and I felt sad. You see, the reason for the evening’s events had been that the council (which owns St Luke’s) was starting a programme of renovation works at the church the following day, with Ambrose and co. handing over the keys with no guarantee they’d get them back once the work is finished.

A tendering process is currently underway to determine into whose hands St Luke’s will be passed in the new year and there’s a very real possibility that the new custodians might not allow it to be open in the same way, if at all.

And so we stood in the venue where we got married, aware that we could be there for the last time. If so, it’s fitting that the end of our relationship with the building should come in conjunction with the screening of a film about endings, whose ending is in turn so well known.

RICK
Louis, I think this is the beginning
of a beautiful friendship.

The two walk off together into the night.

FADE OUT:

THE END

Marc is one half of the folk-inspired musical duo Moss & Jones.

Review 2015: Film Experiences: Diane Shipley on Sex and the City.

Film I know. Part of me is embarrassed that a stereotypically girlie cliché was the prompt for one of my most meaningful cinema-going experiences. But it’s the same part of me that’s internalised society’s misogynistic messages about the unimportance of female-centric stories, so let’s keep going.

Before we get to the movie, though, a quick sidebar about the show. I get why some people hate it: not just the weird fashion, terrible puns, and Carrie Bradshaw’s faux profundities (“I couldn't help but wonder: can you get to the future if your past is present?”), but the really inexcusable stuff. The uncritical portrayal of at least one emotionally abusive relationship, the lack of women of colour as anything other than servers or stereotypes, and the contempt for bisexuality, for starters. Plus there’s a scene where Carrie says that journalism pays well WHICH IS A LIE. But Sex and the City was more than just the female Entourage. It was revolutionary.

It was the first time we’d seen women on the small screen speak so frankly about sex. And while sometimes it might’ve been TMI, I think we all learned a few things. For a show that’s supposedly so superficial, it also debated class, the wage gap, the ethics of sex work and the “pinkwashing” of breast cancer products, among other topics feminists still talk about. Most of all, though, it portrayed female friendship as what it is: one of life’s most essential coping mechanisms.

At the end of season six, Miranda and Steve were happy, Charlotte was getting a baby, Samantha had survived cancer, Carrie and Big were together, and everything was all wrapped up. So when I heard there was going to be a movie spin-off, I decided to pretend it didn’t exist. Then in 2008, I was floundering in my attempts to build a career as a freelance writer (unlike Carrie, no one wanted to pay me a month’s rent for one column a week) and my dad generously offered to pay for me to visit him in Australia. Excited at the prospects of sunshine and not paying board, I went to stay with him and his (then) wife for ten weeks, which is too long to stay with anyone, it turns out. There was tension between all three of us for all sorts of reasons, leading to sniping and shouting and hurt feelings.

One Friday, I took the train into Perth city centre and there, outside a small cinema, I saw an ad for the Sex and the City movie. Instead of being depressed that it existed, now it felt like a gift: four friendly faces who could make me feel at home. The opening day was in a couple of weeks, so I decided to come back then. From what I could see, the cinema was a dump, with a dark street level entrance leading to a badly-lit staircase and a set of swinging doors beyond. But I’d take what I could get.

Two weeks later, I treated myself to a burger and milkshake before heading to the cinema. Going up the dank staircase, I braced myself for grottiness, but when I pushed through the doors, it was more like faded glamour, with art deco details and the kind of small concessions stand you’d see in an old movie. There was even a side table where you could help yourself to tea or coffee –just make a 20c donation, we trust you. The screening room was beautiful: it was obviously once a theatre, with an ornate roof and different levels, and it had kept its velvet padded chairs. I sat down and studied the mouldings, finding it hard to believe I’d stumbled onto this weird little gem.

It was about half full, which is a good amount: large enough to feel like a crowd, small enough that your handbag can have its own seat. There were maybe three men in the audience, and an excited buzz went through the crowd as the lights went down. The grey-haired woman three seats down and I grinned at each other.

When you go to the cinema on your own, there are some screenings where you feel alone (and sometimes that’s exactly what you want: I was fine not bonding with the Larry David lookalikes at Whatever Works). At Sex and the City, I was among friends. I don’t know if we really all “woo”-ed when the title came up and clapped when the film ended, but it feels like we did. I know we laughed a lot, and I don’t think I was the only one who cried when Charlotte attacked Big with her bouquet because she loves Carrie so much and was fed up of him hurting her. As a film, it was unnecessary, it was too broad, and the Big and Carrie storyline was disappointing. But it wasn’t terrible. It was fun to spend time with these women again, in the company of other women.

In a few days, I’d get news that would send me into a months-long anxiety spiral and by Christmas I’d have nerve pain so bad I couldn’t sleep. But watching Sex and the City, I didn’t know that yet. And there, in that weird, splendorous cinema, for a couple of hours, for the first time in months, I felt optimistic. I felt part of something. I felt happy.

You can follow Diane on Twitter @dianeshipley. You can visit her Tumblr here.