Back to the cinema.
I first purchased this bad boy in ‘Alps Second Hand Shop’ on Dalry Road in the scorching summer of ’99, which remains to this day the greatest era of recent cinema and probably my life. The VHS was a battered, well-worn pan and scan number that cost less than today’s fare for a single bus journey on one of our ghastly maroon peasant wagons. It suffices to say that the following two hours were a religious experience. The video, if you are curious to know, looked exactly like this:
Ocean Terminal’s Vue Cinema reopened yesterday after a lengthy hibernation, the new ‘distancing epoch’ peppered with PPE and anti-bacterial spray flying everywhere. They are showing some classics, presumably because studios are unsure as to how to proceed with their new releases. £5.99 a ticket for this cinematic baptism? Yes, yes, yes.
What a BELTER it is, magically flawless, deep escapism imbued with universal themes, a compendium of genre tropes and technique. PhDs have been written about this motion picture, and I cannot pinpoint even a single thing in it that should not … be in it. One could deem the experience Citizen Kane (1941) in space. There is no point me highlighting the highlights, as we all know what those are.
“NOOOOOOOOOO, NOOOOOOOOO!”
I would just like to say that 99.9% of cinema today is fucking gash, total tripe. Pure shite.
This isn’t.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 