Film: Twenty Twenty-Four

I was considering going to a film today.. which meant redoing the film list.. and just got it finished on Friday. Imagine my glee to see a horror film on top! I do believe that's the very first time that horror has come top of an unrestricted list of London showings. Twenty Twenty-Four was only showing today - and in the Vaults, yet! What a great location for a horror film. Unfortunately, having decided to go see it - which took about one second after the list was done - it then took me 20 minutes to book it! I swear, I could not find a link - which was worrying, as the above site said tickets had to be booked in advance. But their booking link doesn't work, their advertised phone number links to the wrong company, the other phone number I found for them isn't monitored, they say to book via Time Out, but Time Out provides no links at all for them.. I was despairing by the time I found the link for the Vault Festival, which is the one you need. Honestly, do they really not need to advertise better? Anyway, there's a shorts programme too, and since there was a discount if you booked both, I did.

So, off I set - and o my, if we thought there was a thaw.. see, it's been raining all week, which has kept the temperatures up. Today, it didn't rain - and you could feel it as soon as you stepped outside. It would've been too long a walk straight from home, but fortunately the office is on the way, so I stopped off there, grabbed some food, had a pit-stop before continuing. From there, Google Maps predicted approximately a half hour walk - of course, they weren't taking account of the construction works that have been going on around Waterloo forever now, it seems, and which you have to walk around. I was also lucky passing through Trafalgar Square, where they were just setting up for a run. Had I been a bit later, my way would've been blocked by crowd barriers. As it happened, the most interesting thing I saw on my way was a street artist, drawing flags of different nations - on which nationals of those nations felt compelled to leave money, as they passed. Nice idea!

I had left myself some extra time to get lost, so made it to Leake Street, with its famous graffiti tunnel, in good time. Fascinating place, with graffiti artists at it as I passed - but be aware, there's a bit of a whiff, both from their spray cans, and from the homeless people who sleep down here:

They'd advertised that it would open 15 mins beforehand - make that 5. Anyway, when we eventually got in, most people made for the box office, but I already had my tickets, and made my way straight down the back, past intriguingly named rooms such as "The Pit", or "The Cellar". The main bar is "Punch", near the entrance - the bars further in are for people attending shows. And the Crescent theatre, right at the back, is where they show films - and also where I saw the Pop-up Opera, once. And wouldn't you know, they've set up a yurt there now!

As I waited for that to open, the usher apologised for the delay, explaining there'd been a Great Gatsby party the night before, which had run on very late. It wasn't too long before we were let in though, and given that the screen wasn't that big, I took a seat in the front row.

1pm was the shorts programme, which comprised six offerings. The first was The Darkness Keeper, a Spanish-made film, in English, with English subtitles. (?) A sweet film, it concerns a little girl who's afraid of the dark, and determined to keep it locked up. Next was The Peony Pavilion, a Chinese film about a man torn between two lovers - an older woman, and a pretty young opera singer. 112 was an excellent short, about an exasperated Spanish emergency telephone operator on Christmas Eve.

Then there was a break long enough that I started to wonder whether there'd be any more! Finally they presented us with a Finnish offering, The Ferry, which is just a wordless docu-film about a day in the life of a Helsinki ferry. This was followed by a rather depressing short, whose name was never given, about an ageing couple in Northern England - and we ended the shorts session with what I would describe as a completely pointless film about the yoof of today. Take Away follows an evening in the lives of a group of Spanish skateboarders, hanging out outside a Burger King.

Even those of us with tickets for the main feature were made to wait back in the main bar, so they could "set up". Tickets themselves were pretty unnecessary, by the way, unless you were buying them on the spot - people who'd prebooked had their names on a list. Anyway, when they finally let us in again, I made my way to the same seat as I'd had before.

Twenty Twenty-Four is a dystopian film, set in the near future, where things are so bad that the whole planet is in imminent danger of nuclear holocaust. So they've built these underground bunkers, designed to protect "priority one" people - the people you'd save in such an event. And this film concerns itself with one bunker in particular, maintained - like all the others, we're told - by a lone scientist. Unfortunately, things "up top" go bad earlier than expected, and he ends up all alone, locked into this thing and questioning his own sanity, only a silent computer - which speaks to him through type - for company.

Pardon my French, but this is some of the most God-awful unmitigated shite I've had the misfortune to see in years! It could have been so much better - I've seen great creepy stuff about people who end up isolated and questioning their sanity. I was hoping the computer would be reminiscent of Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Well, I can live with the computer they gave us, which committed no greater crime than being realistic. Pity you couldn't say the same for the lone actor, who gave a pretty weak performance. Simply put, he went bonkers too quickly. Which made the whole film go off the rails! Not to mention the fact that the film was more confusing than creepy - I hardly understood a thing that happened throughout. Oh, and how come he was supposed to be a scientist? He didn't do a tap of science during the whole thing - all he did was jiggle a lever and try to fix the electrics (and what unreliable equipment, always breaking down, they were depending on, for these "priority one" people!). Besides, why send down a scientist when all they needed was maintenance before the guests arrived?

Awful. Like an art school project. Which might explain the cheering from the back when the actor's name appeared in the opening credits, and the round of applause at the end. I had been the first in there - I was also the first out. And also glad to leave because of the bitter cold - not only did I leave my coat on throughout, I had to shove my hands up my sleeves (optimistically, I didn't bring gloves).

Tomorrow, I'm back with the Crick Crack Club - Love in the Shadows is in Soho Theatre, and, as usual for these events, already sold out.

On Tuesday, the Man is wearing his Hat again - Let's Do London - for less! is off to see Phantom of the Opera. Only 11 tickets, snapped up at once, of course - and hard to believe he's never seen it! Wonder whether anyone else who's going from the group has, apart from me..!

On Wednesday, I'm actually flying back to Ireland, because I'm going with my mother on Thursday to a Colm Wilkinson concert at UCH Limerick. Staying for the weekend, as it would be my weekend in Ireland anyway.

And on the following Monday, I got a cheap ticket to a comedy show - Alasdair King is performing at the Pleasance Theatre.