Film: The World's End

Well, I heard a bad review of this, but you see, here's the story; looking for a film this evening, top of my list was an Indian film about an athlete called the Flying Sikh. There were two problems with this film - firstly, I'd never heard of the man, and secondly, the film is over three hours long. The climax of the film is obviously supposed to occur when he's running races, but frankly, I don't give a hoot whether he wins. So that wasn't going to work. Then there was a film in Hoxton, but that's only showing at 11pm. Off the list. Then there was a film called Frances Ha. This is apparently about a twenty-something woman with a Walter Mitty vibe, who seems to live a life of pretence. Said to be good, but frankly, she sounded annoying. Then I watched the trailer, and she looked annoying. And then there was a whole heap of films not showing today.

Which brought us to a choice of two - The World's End, or The Village at the End of the World. The latter being a documentary about a village in Greenland - which is, no doubt, very interesting - nonetheless, I thought The World's End stood a better chance of being entertaining. So I said I'd give it a shot, and it was nice to go to something local for a change - cheaper, and less hassle. And it was a lovely evening for walking. So I booked myself a ticket, as it's in the Odeon Kensington, and I'm a member and get a discount for booking in advance. It was in Screen 1, which I've never been in before, and I saw that it's divided into different price sections. The cheapest seats are in the front four rows, which have unreserved seating. So I hummed and hawed and decided that would be ok. And then they gave me 100 points more than they should have! which was nice, if unexpected. (You also get points for Odeon purchases, if you're a member.)

When I got there, I discovered why I had got the extra points. Turns out this film is named British No. 1 film, or something, and you get 100 points extra for booking it, until 4th August. Cool. Nipped up the road to get cheap chocolate from Waitrose, and when I returned to the cinema, was amazed to see that, for the first time ever, there was somebody to take my ticket! Well, I never. Turns out that getting to Screens 1 and 2 is rather confusing, as there's no sign to say that you don't climb more stairs - I only knew from experience that upstairs from that is just Screen 3. I see there are more concession stands outside Screens 1 & 2 - I don't know how often they get used, though; they looked quite abandoned.

The screen itself, as you would expect, is nice and big, and I was pleased to discover that the fourth row from the front, which had all of one occupant before me, was quite far enough away from the screen to be comfortable. Speaking of occupancy, I really don't know that this film, for all its publicity, is making anyone any money - there weren't a dozen people at this screening, in the main screen, at prime time on a Friday night.

BTW, the trailer for The Conjuring was included in the programme. Now, I'm a huge horror fan and very interested in this, which is very highly rated - sadly, not quite out yet. I had avoided seeing the trailer until now, but was glad to be given an excuse. Verdict? I didn't see a single thing in the trailer - which I scrutinised very closely - that I haven't seen before in many horror films: which I suspect means that this film isn't really original - unless there's something they've hidden from the trailer - but the ratings, and the filmmakers' cv, make me think that they've probably done it really well. And that makes it worth a look. I expect to be seeing this fairly promptly.

PS Just watched a much scarier trailer on YouTube..

Back to the business at hand. So, this is a pub crawl film, and d'you know, it's fine. It's about as entertaining as many a night I've had in pubs. I chuckled at many parts, didn't expect much, because of what I'd heard about it, and had a quite decent time. The only thing I can really say I didn't like about it was I thought they went a bit far with the aliens. I thought the filmmakers were a bit optimistic with the pontificating aliens, and I didn't think it really worked - as I didn't think the apocalyptic ending really worked. It would've worked much better had they stayed a bit more realistic, perhaps. Hey-ho. Not a wasted night.

Tomorrow is film again, and those films that weren't showing today aren't showing again tomorrow. Well, nothing if not consistent. Anyhoo, that allows me to get down to films that I wouldn't otherwise see, and I have a choice of three for tomorrow, at a rating of 7.3. There's Blancanieves, a Spanish version of Snow White, set in 1920s Seville. Frankly, it wins over the other two, at the BFI. And I'm delighted to finally get to see it - it's been on the listings for ages. Interestingly though, I was reminded to check the cinemas' own websites for showing times - the time shown on LondonNet for Blancanieves was completely different to the time on the cinema website.