Films: Alien Day (Alien & Aliens)

For tonight, I was thinking film again - couldn't see anything better coming up than what was advertised by The London Movie Club and The Hideout: Horror Sci-Fi Club London! both of which I'm a member of. And both of which, it transpires, are run by the same people! So I signed up with the Hideout. Specifically, what was happening was Alien Day - a special double bill of the classic, Alien, and its sequel, Aliens, at the BFI Imax! See, the planet where the aliens land is named LV-426.. So, you know, 26th of the 4th.. Now, I'd never even been to the Imax, so this'd be interesting! Also good to meet these folks again.

Ah Lordy, when did my life get this busy? I really don't know.. Anyway, what with writing the last post this afternoon, my time ran away with me, and I couldn't even get a bite to eat before I headed for the cinema. And what an awful time to have to catch a bus.. being rush hour, they were delayed, and indeed, I was lucky to get on the one that finally took me there - after a certain point, the driver took on no more people! And tarnation, by the time I got on it, it was already time to meet the group! Never mind, couldn't be helped..

Now, I knew where the Imax is - you couldn't miss it, it's that whopping, round building at the centre of the roundabout near Waterloo. How you get in, though, was a bit of a mystery.. Google Maps, unphased, showed me a zigzag walking route - which I correctly determined corresponded to the subway, which I don't think I'd ever before used. Off I set - and sure enough, the entrance is at the bottom of the ramp - you really can't miss it. And from that side, you enter straight into the cafe, where they were sat at a table, just inside the door. Couldn't miss them either, despite the inconspicuous, handwritten note taped to a cup, which said "MEETUP". :-) Well, I did know the organiser.. and besides, they were the largest group there!

Dinner was a hot chocolate - decent - and a packet of Piper's Sweet Chilli Flavour. Kept the wolf from the door - and the chat was good. When it was time to go in, we had another set of steps to climb, and then just two doors to enter by. Turns out you enter at the bottom of the screen, and climb.. the thing is four storeys high, so that could be quite the climb, depending where you are! Me, I was in Row H, to the side - I was too late to book in the centre, which would have been better. An entertaining usher gave us an instructional talk just at the beginning, about how, if we needed to leave during the film, we should take the top (fourth floor) exits. Plus the usual stuff about phones and rubbish.. Mind you, I think he encouraged us to deposit our rubbish in the bins on Floor 1 rather than those on Floor 4 - which advice I blatantly ignored..

We had some fun trailers to start, then off we went, beginning with that fabulous, slow-reveal title sequence against a planetary backdrop. As people mentioned beforehand, Alien is a slower burn than its sequel - I'd go so far as to call it kind of poetic. The music - both title and background - has a melancholic air that helps with that..  and silence is used extensively, which I've always thought holds tremendous impact. And crikey, what a long time it is since I last saw this.. delightfully, I'd pretty much forgotten everything that happens in it, apart from a few main plot points! so almost everything came as a surprise to me. What an experience it is to see this film - and how lovely for those in the group seeing it for the first time! It's iconic - a true classic.

At the interval between films, we convened in the bar at the entrance, where I got wine in a can, chocolate M&Ms, and a table that I was lucky enough to be out in time to secure - the house was pretty full, and the bar was crammed at the interval. At the entrance to the auditorium, a couple of screens displayed the Alien movie poster, with a countdown timer.. with three minutes to go, ushers started to go around warning people that the doors would be closed when the timer counted down to zero. All v atmospheric..

The second film, as someone mentioned, is more action-based than the first - the Marines are brought in, all gung-ho, and prove pretty useless, I'm happy to say! Our heroine, Sigourney Weaver, exchanges her pet cat, from the first film, for a kind of foster daughter in the second, as she is drafted in as a kind of consultant, when they go in to try to rescue some colonists who have been unwittingly plonked on the alien planet. Again, they're almost the only ones left alive.. great staying power, that woman! Ultimately less memorable than the original - but I do like the development in the design of the alien itself. And all in all, what a fun night! Delighted this was advertised - and it was lovely to meet the group(s). Hope it's not too long till the next time..

Afterwards, we kind of rushed off to catch our various transport home - it was nearly midnight, and indeed, it was after midnight when my bus finally arrived! I did have choices - think I chose badly.. again, never mind, I got there eventually.

Tomorrow, Helen's in town for a conference - we're meeting for dinner at Colosseo, before I head off to join Up in the Cheap Seats again, for The Good Person of Szechwan, by Brecht, at the Lyric Hammersmith! At least I'll get fed, this time..

On Friday, I was thinking film again - but just this evening, London Baroque Music Lovers advertised a Handel concert at the Heath Street Baptist Church. It's a performance of his opera, Rinaldo. I do love a bit of baroque, haven't heard any in ages - and it's, as usual, months since I was last with this group! so I plumped for this.

No confusion over what I'm doing on Saturday - back with Laurence Summers and the 45+ Not Grumpy Old Londoners again! This one is Clerkenwell: A Village of Contrasts - not so far from me. How fortunate am I, to be living close to so much history..

On Sunday, I got a free ticket for David McSavage's new show, Lazy Bastard, at the Top Secret Comedy Club. Still available, still free, if you're interested..

On Monday - well, there's a ton of stuff on Meetup! I finally decided that the most attractive thing was the Vintage Soho guided walk with Barrie, again with the 45+s (it's a bank holiday, you see). As with so many of his walks, however, tickets are also available with TAC - and even though I still have to pay him £5 cash on the day, it represents a saving!

On Tuesday, film again - and that blasted film listings site still has, as of now, partial listings up for it. So - subject to change, as so many films are listed with the caveat "no information available at the moment" - Tuesday's film is looking like How to Blow Up a Pipeline, the fictional account of climate activists attacking a pipeline in Texas. Showing in my local cinema - not that the listings site let me in on that secret, but from experience, I tried the cinema website myself directly..

Next Wednesday, again, loads of stuff on Meetup - but two of my groups are running events that would interest me, but are sold out. The Horror Book Club, meantime, is reading The Yellow Wallpaper - a novella that I found on Kindle, and downloaded a free sample for. Mind you, it came as part of a collection.. and is so short that its entirety was included in the free sample! so I read the whole thing last night. How different from our last assignment.. I wasn't that keen on it - although the ending is good. So I'll probably head to yet another film that night. Subject to change, it's a tossup between two - depending on my mood, I might go and see Godland, a dark-looking thing about a young, fanatical, Danish priest who gets sent to Iceland in the 19th Century. And at the same rating is Sick of Myself, a satire set in Oslo, in which a girl is jealous of her boyfriend's artistic success, so she draws attention to herself by taking drugs that give her a skin condition.. Both also on in my local cinema, not that the listings site let me in on the secret.

On the 4th, I booked a livestream from the Crick Crack Club, from the Story Museum Oxford. This is King Lear Retold. However, these tend to be available for a week after - so I've taken the opportunity, also, to book a concert with the World Music Meetup! This is La Chinganera, in the Finnish Church - and the concerts organised by Eleanor Salter Thorn of TunedIn London are always good!

Then back to Ireland for the coronation weekend..