Cinematic sensations: when film-going goes right

Having discussed the worst things that can happen to you while in your local fleapit, now I’m going to look at the best things that can happen when going to the cinema.

The film you can’t stop talking about
There is nothing quite like leaving the cinema talking about the film you’ve just seen, debating its qualities and its meanings with friends, jumping in the car and driving to the curry house still talking about the film, get to the restaurant, sit down, peruse the menu, order, eat and drink and still be talking about the film.

The most recent examples were Inception and Black Swan, and before that There Will Be Blood: all three generated hours of debate. Sign of a good movie, that.

The film you were dragged to see and unexpectedly fell in love with
It’s no secret that The Shawshank Redemption and Field Of Dreams are two of my favourite films. However, it’s less well known that I was dragged to both movies by Dunkini: neither film was on my radar at the time.

If I recall correctly, we saw Field Of Dreams after its main release had run with a showing at the NFT; and we encountered Shawshank at the Odeon Covent Garden (or Shaftesbury Avenue as it was then). Both sunk their hooks into me swiftly – and permanently.

I owe Dunkini a lot, but I owe him big for those two!

When you get the joke before everyone else
First example: in the second Austin Powers movie, Dr Evil plans to build a laser on the moon; he refers to it as a ‘project’ and that the laser is being built by ‘Alan Parsons’; he reveals that he calls it ‘The Alan Parsons Project’. I laughed like a drain at the sheer insanity of having a prog rock gag in a film, and not only that but one referencing Alan Parsons. That’s sheer bloody genius! Nobody else got it though…

Second example: the lead-up (complete with bouzouki score) to the three-way orgy of violence that effectively concludes Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (before the extended epilogue). Even as the lead-up started I was giggling, Guy Ritchie’s plot for the next 15 minutes of screen time already mapped out in my brain.

When a crowd laughs/screams in unison
A bloody good comedy with a full house is hard to beat, but is trumped by a classy horror movie that provokes screams and then laughs.

The most recent exponent of the latter was The Orphanage. I saw it at the Odeon Covent Garden with Rodling: the crowd were on edge from the start – and crucially everyone jumped and screamed in unison.

After each collective scream, there was a collective laugh as everyone’s psychological pressure valve kicked in.

And, miracle of miracles, we and the rest of the audience missed nothing: it was almost as if the director knew how audiences would react, and edited the film to allow the audience to relax after their screams and not miss any of the story.

Geek crowds on first nights
Geek crowds can only make a movie – they can’t break it. They bring an extra frison to a screening. The incredible numbing expectation while waiting for Phantom Menace at the Odeon Leicester Square on its opening night was only made bearable by the geek audience: we were surrounded by Vaders, Skywalkers, etc, and light sabres were brandished with abandon. If only the film had lived up to such lofty expectations!

The geek crowds at first nights of Marvel movies are simply the best: desperately spotting every gag and reference, and waiting for the inevitable Stan Lee cameo. Good-humoured, well-behaved bunch every time.

Strange serendipitous coincidences
Sometimes the stars align and focus on you, bringing you a great film and some surprise element in your life that in some way relates to the film you’ve just seen.

My example of this was seeing Last Orders at the London Film Festival. After the screening, I emerged blinking into the light, still trying to recover my composure – I didn’t expect the film’s dissection of male friendships to leave me in a big blubbery mess, but it did. I’m standing outside Odeon West End, focusing on my breathing, pulling myself back up and into an appropriate state of mind, only for a text message to arrive from my best friend. While the content of the message was ‘just’ blokey banter about West Wing and the use of Brothers In Arms, the underscore of the message (the unspoken simpatico male friends have) simply rammed home the film’s point home – and I was a blubbery mess again!

Basking in the discovery of a new sensation
Sometimes you watch a film and you realise that one of the new performers or someone on the technical side is a genius and will blossom further – and you become convinced that you’ll have to watch every film they make.

I offer this example: Scarlett Johansson. Having forgotten her Oscar-nominated role in the Horse Whisperer and not having seen anything else she did while growing up, her appearance in Lost In Translation blew me away. OK, seeing those buttocks on the big screen certainly created an impression, but so did everything else about her.

I saw Lost at the London Film Festival, and Scarlett was present before the film, and she seemed a genuinely nice person, not at all the budding Hollywood starlet, all fags and self-absorption. A few days later I saw her again at the premiere of Girl With A Pearl Earring, and again Scarlett was present. As she left the screening, she spotted an old friend in the auditorium – she screamed, through her hands up in the air, and ran, as best she could given the ridiculously figure-hugging dress she was wearing, towards her friend, they embraced and chatted, and then Scarlett left so the film could start.

The combination of her on-screen performance and power and the way she came across in reality left me completely smitten and convinced that here was a future star. Of course, she never delivered on that early promise and I have no idea if she’s still a nice person, but the impact had been made.

The hush that descends on an audience after a monumentally moving film
Three movie endings spring to mind: Schindler’s List, Bobby and Black Book. I distinctly remember seeing Schindler’s on the first Saturday night at the Empire Leicester Square (back in the days before it was a multiplex). The film appeared to end, but then came the colour epilogue with the real Schindler Jews: cue the audible choking of tears, followed by reverent silence. The film ends, the entire audience shuffles out, not knowing what to say. The reverent silence continues all the way to the Tube and all the way home…

Black Book and Bobby produced the same effect: Verhoeven’s Black Book because it was the Dutch Schindler’s, unearthing a dark period of its nation’s history, a history no longer taught at school so great is the shame – I saw it the day after its UK premiere at the London Film Festival and the audience was predominantly retired Dutch; and Bobby’s conclusion – the death of RFK and its impact on the hotel staff and guests, ‘scored’ to arguably his greatest speech – is unexpectedly moving, and like Black Book, I saw it the day after its UK premiere at the London Film Festival, this time with lots of retired Americans. In both cases, there was a mixture of silence and sobbing, both as the conclusions played out and the house lights came up.

And then there’s the plain sobbing! There was the woman next to us who lost it eight minutes into Up and simply couldn’t recover her composure. She apologised to my companion and I after the film, but no apology was required: it’s a desperately moving film.

Another sobber is the moment in Grace Is Gone when John Cusack relents and finally tells his daughters the awful truth about their mother’s death. Cleverly the director ignores the dialogue and simply lets Clint Eastwood’s piano lament utterly destroy the audience as the camera slowly pulls back from the characters. People were uncontrollably sobbing. Terrific stuff!

When you forget it’s a movie
The combination of darkness, the big screen, and the surround sound system can lull you into the very fabric of the film you’re watching: you cease to be aware that you’re watching a movie, you feel like you’re in it.

Perhaps my greatest example of this is The Return of the King, when Aragorn delivers his ‘not this day’ pre-battle speech: I was ready to pick up my imaginary sword and run from my seat towards the screen to the join the battle and do my bit to save Middle Earth.

The thrill of your loftiest expectations being met
I was shaking with anticipation as we sat in Odeon Leicester Square, waiting for X-Men 2 to start. The first film had been great, full of small character touches, and an inspired performance by Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine. Something the first film lacked, however, was Wolverine in full berserker mode, claws out, full of merciless rage; would X2 deliver that moment?

Would it? Of course it did – and with such aplomb! Wolverine’s first kill sees him pin a Weapon X trooper to the fridge, both sets of claws driven almost orgasmically through his chest. A further seven troopers get cut up by Wolverine before he escapes the mansion, the young mutants he’s with not sure whether they’d be safer with the invading troops or the berserker.

I sat through that entire scene, fists clenched, barely able to stop myself from standing up and shouting a celebratory “Come on!”

There are so many other things that make cinema-going great. What can you think of?