It’s back. It’s the film they should have tried to ban, one so bad that cinema audiences have been known to stage mass walk outs while those that remain wish they’d stayed at home. Yes, The Room returns to Edinburgh’s Cameo cinema on Saturday 27 March, and you really should be there.
As Ross Maclean wrote last month, “to call The Room bad is to do it a disservice. It transcends ‘bad’ to become an all-encompassing onslaught of ridiculous scripting, woeful acting, cringe-inducing sex scenes, frequent non-sequiturs, bad dubbing and over-earnest melodrama.” And he’s seen it five times.
One of the main reasons for starting this blog was to highlight events that might only be around for a short time, one-off film screenings or plays that might be here today then…gone.
One upcoming event manages to mash both these things together rather wonderfully, providing Edinburgh film and theatre-goers with the chance to see a live play taking place at London’s National Theatre in the comfort of the Cameo Cinema, live by satellite – boggles the brain a bit really.
The play in question is Terry Pratchett’s Nation (and it’s not one of his Discworld novels) on Saturday 30 January and it goes something like this:
A parallel world, 1860. Two teenagers thrown together by a tsunami that has destroyed Mau’s village and left Daphne shipwrecked on his South Pacific island, thousands of miles from home.
One wears next to nothing, the other a long white dress; neither speaks the other’s language; somehow they must learn to survive. As starving refugees gather, Daphne delivers a baby, milks a pig, brews beer and does battle with a mutineer.
Stuck for a novel Christmas present? Fancy having your name on a little bit of history? If you have a spare £125 you could get your name on a seat in Screen One of one of the oldest cinemas in Scotland, Edinburgh’s Cameo.
Film fans can name a seat of their choice, with a dedication to themselves, a loved one or business engraved on a brass plaque mounted on the seat.
The price is £125 until 31 December, when it rises to £150, with funds to be matched by the cinema’s parent company, City Screen Limited.
The cinema will put funds raised towards the £80,000 refurbishment bill required to restore the 95-year-old cinema.
To find out more contact the Cameo directly:
Cameo Picturehouse
38 Home Street
Edinburgh EH3 9LZ
Booking & Info Line: 0871 704 2052
(10p a minute from a landline)
This is a biggie for film and TV fans not only in Scotland but around the UK: Bruce Campbell will be appearing in person at Edinburgh’s Cameo Cinema for one night only to promote his new film, My Name is Bruce!
Bruce will be in town as part of a promotional tour which will see him appear post-screening at only two venues in the United Kingdom, and Edinburgh is one of them.
One of my personal favourite Bruce appearances is in the short-lived but much loved Adventures of Brisco County Jr TV show, though he’s also worshipped appreciated by many for the Evil Dead trilogy, Bubba Ho-Tep, Maniac Cop, the Spiderman films, some superb episodes of Homicide: Life on the Streets and a long list of other cult classics.
This will likely sell out in seconds, with fans travelling from far and wide for the screening – subscribe to the itsonitsgone.com email and I’ll let you know more as soon I hear it.
Update 6 January: the Cameo have now announced that the screening will take place on Thursday 5 February 2009, tickets to go on sale on Monday 12 January.
Update 7 January: the latest from those nice people at the Cameo is that, barring last minute attacks by skeletons from the Middle Ages, tickets will go on sale at 11am on Monday 12 January. Sales will be by phone on 0871 704 2052 or in person at the box office but NOT online. There’s also due to be a Bruce Campbell Q&A post-screening. Please note that all this is subject to change – I’ll let you know more when I hear it…
Update 12 January: Gone in 13 minutes. No, that’s not some ropey sequel to a Nic Cage movie but the amount of time it took for tickets for Bruce Campbell’s Edinburgh appearance to sell out. Not bad considering sales were only by phone and in person. Ian Hoey, manager of the Cameo, says that a second screening is “being considered” for those that missed out, but that nothing is certain just now. He also says he has something “very special” planned for the film’s introduction…
Update 14 January: I’ve got a bit of exclusive news (it’s not even up on the Cameo website yet!): As I mentioned above, huge demand on Monday resulted in the tickets for the screening of My Name is Bruce followed by the Bruce Campbell Q&A selling out in a Cameo record of 13 minutes.
To try and ease some of the disappointment felt by those who missed out on tickets, the cinema have managed to arrange an additional screening of My Name is Bruce immediately following the sellout show. They are very hopeful that Bruce Campbell will remain after the Q&A to personally introduce this second screening!
Details are currently being finalised though the expected show time is around 9 or 9.15pm.
Tickets will go on sale at 11.00am on Monday 26 January and will be via the phoneline on 0871 704 2052 or in person at the box office only. Prices are £7.50 Full/£6.00 concession/£5.00 members.
In addition they’ll also be screening Bubba Ho-Tep as a late-nighter on the two days following this event.
This is fantastic news – two screenings introduced by Bruce Campbell in one night…we shall never see such excitement again?
I know this post is still getting a lot of traffic so if you are attending either screening, or are coming a long distance, please leave a comment below as I’d love to know who’s out there!
Updated 26 January: As of 4.30 today there were still 80 tickets left for the 9.15pm screening which the Cameo have now confirmed will be introduced by Mr Bruce Campbell…
Updated 29 January: As of 12.30 today there are only 19 tickets remaining for the Bruce Campbell introduced second screeing of My Name is Bruce… tickets can only be bought in person at the box office or on the booking line 0871 704 2052.
A quick mention for the double bill screening at the Cameo tomorrow of the Coen Brothers’ films The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and 2008’s Burn After Reading.
Apparently Mamma Mia! has been a pretty popular DVD, meaning there are probably a few more Meryl Streep fans out there, even more than there were after the release of the iffy The River Wild…hard to believe.
Ms Streep will be discussing her career at BAFTA in London on Saturday 17 January, the whole event beamed live to various cinemas around the UK, including Edinburgh’s Cameo.
There are two preview screenings of Danny Boyle’s sleeper hit Slumdog Millionaire taking place in Scotland in the next week or so, one in Edinburgh at the Cameo and the other at Glasgow Film Theatre, both on Tuesday 6 January.
Slumdog is a smart little film based on the true story of an Indian man who appeared on the Indian version of ITV’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire and whose run of good luck on the show led to accusations of cheating.
I’ll have a review of the film in a few days, but it’s well worth seeing, the above screening being followed by a live Q&A with its director, Trainspotting’s Danny Boyle.
Visit the Cameo and GFT websites for more information.
My overview of the festive films on offer around the country was published on The Skinny Film Blog at the end of last week. I’ve added it here as well as there’s some great stuff out there just now:
So, here it is, Merry Christmas…everybody having fun? Whether you’re struggling to muster Christmas cheer or the mistletoe is already hanging over the door, Scotland’s smaller cinemas are doing us proud this year when it comes to screening festive films for the whole family. Here a few of the best ones worth searching out…ho, ho and indeed, ho…
While its showing of A Muppet Christmas Carol has sadly been and gone, Edinburgh’s Filmhouse is going for broke this December with a season of films being screened under the Christmas at our House! banner.
From Friday 19 December until Thursday 1 January they’ll be showing the following delights which either have a festive theme or are associated with Christmas:
Along the road at the Cameo there will be a screening of It’s a Wonderful Life from Thursday 18 December, right up until Christmas Eve – see the site for details.
Glasgow’s GFT adds some sparkle to its line up by showing both It’s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas from Friday 12 until Wednesday 24 December, details on their website .
Descend into the depths of the “Camorra”, aka the Mafia, and see a side Italy’s underworld that has not yet been shown in director Matteo Garone’s Gomorrah. Based on Robert Saviano’s international bestseller on the violent and unforgiving mafia networks that run Naples, the documentary/film depicts the lives of different characters that are involved in a life of crime, retribution killings, illegal dumping, knock-off fashion wear and drugs.
Garone uses a multi-story technique to good effect by exploiting our initial struggle to see how the characters are involved with the Camorra to reflect the confusion and chaos that their activities cause within their community.
Its unhinged and warring gangs, unlike the single-structured and better known Sicilian Mafia, showcase their machismo and greed to devastating effects.
The film gives us a true and harrowing insight as to what it means to be living under the shadow of an organisation where betrayal and death are the only things they can be sure of.
Occasionally an event or screening pops up in Edinburgh or Glasgow that I feel privileged to be promoting here, even in a small way. Coming to Edinburgh’s Cameo on Sunday 21 September is a compilation of short films called Love Letters and Live Wires: Highlights from the GPO Film Unit and it does the cineast’s heart good to see this sort of thing arriving in Scotland.
With the British Film Institute (BFI) celebrating its 75th Anniversary this year, there are lots of events taking place to publicise their role of “promoting understanding and appreciation of Britain’s rich film and television heritage and culture” (it says here) and this is one of them. I’ll leave it to the BFI’s blurb to explain the rest:
“In 1933, the General Post Office made history by founding its own film production unit. The GPO Film Unit would become internationally renowned as a centre for creative, exciting public information films, leaving us perhaps the most evocative record of the 1930s zeitgeist on celluloid.
I’ve been a bit remiss over the last few months, failing to mention the brilliant Sunday Matinee Double Bills screened at Edinburgh’s Cameo cinema every…well, Sunday.
This week sees the well-reviewed Ben Affleck directed, Gone Baby Gone alongside 2003’s Mystic River from Clint Eastwood. The theme here is missing children, which doesn’t sound the cheeriest for a Sunday afternoon, but they’re both said to be fantastic and I’ll do my best to see them on the day.
The Summer Season at Edinburgh’s Cameo is in full swing, with this week’s performance is Le Nozze di Figaro, or The Marriage of Figaro, recorded in February 2006 by the BBC at Covent Garden and screened on Sunday.
This was a recording of a significant performance, marking as it did the 250th anniversary of W.A Mozart’s birth. The opera is set in four acts and recounts a day in the life of fictional Count Almaviva, married to Rosina yet seeking the affections of Susanna, Rosina’s maid. Susanna is in turn engaged to be married to Figaro, the Count’s valet.
The satirical story follows these main characters, but there are subplots including young page, Cherubino, and his fascination with the Countess. There’s also the old spinster, Marcellina and her accomplice Bartolo: Marcellina has a contract to marry Figaro and Bartolo is intent on making sure he fulfils his obligation. The countess conspires with Susanna to expose her husbands wandering eye as Figaro desperately tries to evade Marcellina, Bartolo and their contract.
Already well known for screening films that are on the fringes of the mainstream – their recent Fiendish Friday’s season being a good example of movies that you won’t see at your local multiplex anytime soon – Edinburgh’s Cameo have now unveiled details of their August Outer Limits season.
I’ll mention them all briefly here and do some more in-depth digging around for full details in separate posts, but here’s what’s coming your way soon:
Hardware plus Q&A with writer/director Richard Stanley – Sunday 3 August
I Drink your Blood – Wednesday 6 August
Thundercrack – Tuesday 12 August
Phase IV – Thursday 14 August
Last House on a Dead End Street – Tuesday 19 August
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave – Thursday 21 August
Each film will start at 11pm in Screen One and will have a special introduction.
Kicking of the Cameo’s Summer Season, curated exclusively for Picturehouse Cinemas and bringing together a mix of some of the most popular operas and ballets of the past three years on the Big Screen, is Don Giovanni on Sunday 13 and Tuesday 15 July.
In one of the most enthralling and brilliantly constructed operas in the repertory, Mozart challenges all of our senses, presenting musical characterisations of piercing psychological depth. In Seville in the 1600s, Don Giovanni is an infinitely nuanced nobleman and rake who lives for his libido, arrogantly flouting the most basic social conventions.
David Lynch’s 1999 movie The Straight Story comes to Edinburgh’s Cameo on Friday 13 June, complete with a new, live, soundtrack by ANIMAT.
For this film Lynch left behind the darkness that he’s renowned for and introduced audiences to elderly Alvin Straight and his lawnmower. Based on a true story, Straight travelled over 500 miles on his mower to visit his brother, while meeting various weird and wonderful people on the way.
The trials and tribulations of growing up in 1970s Iran are the subject of Persepolis, the film based on the autobiographical series of comic books by Marjane Satrapi.
Feisty and smart, the young Marjane is a true force of nature as she careers through life in Iran, a country constantly reeling from political and religious change and confusion. The films follows our heroine and her family as they struggle to live a normal life.
As Marjane grows up, encountering persecution from the authorities and struggling to remain an individual, we follow her move away from Iran to Vienna. Consumed with guilt, it’s the memory of her sage Grandmother, a woman with a homily for every situation, that anchors her to her childhood home.
For the last few months I’ve been expounding the virtues of the Cameo Cinema’s Fiendish Fridays, an opportunity to catch rare films in the company of fellow film fans. Here Ian Hoey, General Manager at the Cameo, gives a behind-the-scenes look at the genesis of these evenings.
The Cameo Cinema has a long history of going an extra mile when it comes to putting on events or presenting films. Making a visit to the cinema more than simply sitting in a dark room facing a screen for a period of time is part of the character and atmosphere of the place and it’s a tradition we delight in upholding.
Late-night films have been an established part of our programming for many years but the demand for such entertainment has been in steady decline for some time and the public are more and more reluctant to attend such screenings. As part of our rethink on the matter we have decided to focus more on certain themes than random titles. One of these themes is the Fiendish Fridays, which can be found on the last Friday of certain months of the year.
Following my preview of The 39 Steps at the Filmhouse, it now seems it’s on just along the road at the Cameo cinema from Friday 18 – Thursday 24 April.
Times aren’t ideal for everyone, most of them being in the afternoon, but I see there is one on Thursday at 6.15pm so I’d recommend you book your ticket now. This really is a superb film that puts many modern pictures in the shade.
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