Empire’s Big Screen O2 Weekend Prologue
Talk about being a glutton for punishment. So I took (and passed with flying colours) my first exam in fifteen years today, may the good times roll as the second exam for a further qualification is on Friday morning – can’t wait for that. I am reasonably excited however as I’ve just been accepted as a scumbag journo freeloader for this inaugural event that kicks off on Friday, which means I will be performing a 2.5 hour exam, then legging it over to Docklands for two and a half days of movie watching, panel event viewing, freebie grabbing, celebrity hunting nonsense – I rule. I could do with a break after a hectic week of assimilating some truly fascinating project management techniques which have to my mind little practical applications in the real world but what can you do? The movies are a calling and given this is practically on my doorstep I can’t say no, plus it probably can’t hurt to mingle and network (oh god, I’ve really gone all corporate) with some of the key figures behind Europe’s most popular film magazine - I have no principles. So what am I most looking forward to during this celebration of the mainstream both past and present? Well here goes;
Avoiding the obvious gags of London going ape I’m reasonably looking forward to this, it’s been getting reviews along the lines of the best summer genre movie of the year, I was planning to see this at the weekend anyway but now that indulgence will be conducted for free. I’ll save my other pre-screening observations on the whole Planet Of The Apes franchise for the review…I’m not bananas.
I’m far from being the worlds biggest fan of Kevin Smith – no pun intended – but this has split the audience down the middle at the festival screenings in the States and at least he’s trying something different, thus I’m willing to give him a chance. There’s also a screening of this little known UK SF movie beforehand which could be fun…
Keeping with the SF cult movie theme a rare cinema outing for JC’s first effort on the Saturday morning, any opportunity to see one of his early movies can’t be missed right? Then maybe a 2000AD panel discussion and an ultra difficult Movie Quiz which could result in me hurling expletives in tandem directions, then a sneek preview of this which our Australian correspondent recently caught at the Melbourne Film Festival and said he enjoyed;
Then I may bow out of proceedings until Sunday as I’m supposed to be meeting some mates in town. I’d best take it easy though as Sunday morning sees the 25th anniversary screening of this, you may be surprised to hear it’s actually one of my favourite films;
I’m really excited about this, to finally see it on the big screen, Wil Wheaton recently posted a quite moving blog post after attending a similar reunion in the US, this is probably the only film I’ll craft a full review for as I won’t have time for anything more than daily round ups for the other stuff given that I’m back at work on Monday. Not sure what else I’ll slot in but given that there is a crew retrospective on Alien shortly after and Kim Newman is curating a screen I’m sure I won’t get bored, then maybe round off the extravaganza with the UK premiere of this;
This was on the agenda for Frightfest, not that I wish to sound bitter or anything but….oh fuck it – screw YOU Frightfest, blow it out your muthafucking ass – I win. Well, maybe not as I suspect that it will be rubbish but it might be light enough to provide an apt coda to proceedings. Now, let’s just get that pesky exam out of the way….
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