Film: Lootera

I wasn't at all sure what to go to tonight. It was always probably going to be a film, and I eventually finished ranking the currently showing films in terms of their score out of 10 on IMDB, and started working down from the top to see what was on the menu for tonight.

Generally, the films at the top of the list tend to be arthouse, or old, or rare, or all of the above, and not for popular consumption. So you'll find that they aren't showing in many cinemas - maybe not more than one - and where they are showing, they won't be showing every day. And so it proved that the first 15 or so films on my list weren't showing at all today.

Then there was Pacific Rim, which sounded good, being directed by Guillermo del Toro, whose work I have loved. It also had the advantage of showing widely, which meant I could see it locally - even walk to the cinema. And was highly ranked. Then I read the review on LondonNet, which is my resource for checking what films are on and where, and I quote: "It's difficult to believe the writer-director of Pan's Labyrinth and the quirky Hellboy saga has surrendered all of the humanity, which underpinned his previous work, to oversee what is essentially 131 exhausting minutes of wanton destruction. The script, co-written by Travis Beacham, is a wasteland of two-dimensional characters and hoary clichés.." So I watched the trailer, and came to the same conclusion. Off my list it came.

There was a Werner Herzog film - they're doing a season of his films at the BFI - but I knew a lot of his films are on YouTube. So I checked, and sure enough, there it is. For free. I kept on looking. There was a film called El Alcalde (The Mayor), a documentary about the mayor of a Mexican town. Unfortunately, it's only showing somewhere that takes, according to Google Maps, 53 minutes to get to, and frankly, I don't give enough of a damn. And so it was that I came, with a sigh, to Lootera. It's an Indian love story set in 1953, and at least it's playing in town - Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue, to be precise. So, with 10% off if you book in advance, I booked it. I wasn't that keen really, but couldn't come up with a good reason not to go, and as someone pointed out, I had previously said that this policy of going to the best rated films gets me to lots that I would never otherwise consider.

I haven't been to this particular cinema before, so looked up how to get there. Google Maps said to go to Piccadilly Circus and down Shaftesbury Avenue, but I couldn't see a cinema on Streetview, so looked up directions from the cinema website instead. They said to come through the Trocadero, which has a basement entrance from the Tube station. Still confused, as I'd never been to the Trocadero before, despite having passed it several times, I looked up the Trocadero website. I discovered there's a whole shopping centre there, and it said that indeed you can enter from the Tube station, or else to look for Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum.

Yeah, right. Firstly, the Tube entrance seemed to be closed - certainly, it was completely dark. So I said I'd go to street level and look for Ripley's, that there must be an entrance there. I found the museum easily enough - no sign of this cinema though. Bemused, and glad I was early, I continued down Shaftesbury Avenue, passing the street entrances of places I'd seen mentioned on the Trocadero website, but with no idea how to find the cinema, until I finally came across it. So, to find this cinema, head down Shaftesbury Avenue from Piccadilly Circus, keep going until you find it. It's just past the Rainforest Café and the Golden Nugget Casino, on the right.

When I got inside, I immediately became confused again. Escalators all over the place, no sign of the cinema, lots of shops.. I found the cinema entrance to be up the escalator to my right. Collected my ticket, queued for quite a while to get a hot dog, as I was hungry. I do approve of them having separate ticket and concession stands though, so as not to hold up people who don't want anything but a ticket. Then I noticed a huge queue at the entrance to the screens.. fortunately, not for mine. I guess there are a few films showing that could have provoked such a crowd..

The seats here are lovely and comfortable, among the most comfortable I've experienced. Unfortunately, my hot dog was not so lovely, and I ended up leaving a lot of it. The film itself, however, more than made up for all the trouble getting there, and the hot dog, and the ladies beside me, who chattered all the way through the trailers as though they hadn't seen each other in a year - and the trailers themselves, where the sound effects were plenty loud, but the actors' voices were barely audible.

This film is sponsored by Mills & Boon, among others, which tells you that you're in for a romance. But this is a beautiful film, sweet and charming, not as sickly sweet as you might expect from many a Hollywood romance. It's not at all overdone, it's quite believable, the actors are great together, and I could not believe, when I looked at my watch at the end, that I'd been there for nearly three hours. Well, I guess that's what you get when you have an intermission! And I cried near the end, as did many around me. If Mills & Boon stories are all like this, I might even become a fan..

Thinking of the French film Bande a Part for tomorrow, at the Cine Lumiere at the French Institute. A lovely cinema, more comfy seating and tons of legroom. Wouldn't be the first Saturday afternoon I've whiled away there..