Back off, Warchild, seriously.
On Saturday I went to see A Matter Of Life And Death at the National, and it was honestly one of the best plays I have ever seen. Absolutely amazing: plot, characters, setting, set (the staging was beautiful and ingenious, full of bicycles and ladders) dance, and music (THERE WAS A UKULELE). Just. Yes. I haven't seen the film, but would really like to now; from the programme I gathered that there were quite a few changes made for the stage adaptation. It's running until the 21st June and tickets are £10. If you are vaguely in the London area, I recommend this as highly as possible: please go and see it.
And then, of course, yesterday was the Hot Fuzztival.
(I only had one of the free drinks, in the end. I don't drink much? I got Diet Coke in a glass bottle and was stupidly excited.)
Annnyway. I got a train at about ten past nine to make it to Victoria for about quarter to ten, where I met Aislinn (who'd won the tickets), along with friends Becky, Emily and Jon who'd decided to come along at the same time as us and just join the end of the queue and hope they might make it in. (They did.) I got a text from _faeriequeen when I was at Victoria saying she was near the front and would be able to get in, and then I spoke to freakish_geek on the phone just after we'd arrived at Leceister Square (I think the conversation consisted mainly of, "oh my goodness, you really are a real person" on both ends), and then we wandered up to near the front of the cinema where there was a separate queue for competition winners. I saw freakish_geek waving from nearby and so went over to see her; we said hello, and then, suddenly, _faeriequeen was somehow there, and said hello to me, and then there was a wonderful moment in which the two of them slowly turned to face each other in surprise and confusion. I think they must have spent about four hours standing next to each other in the queue, through sheer coincidence, neither aware of the fact that the other was also not only a livejournaler but a livejournaler who I was going to meet, so I was glad to be there for the revelation.
We were inside by about ten to eleven, seated nearish the front of the main bit of cinema (there was a balcony too). Edgar bounded onto the stage, eventually, cheerful and full of a variety of amusing anecdotes. "It's eleven in the morning!" he cried, excitedly, and enquired as to whether anyone had queued outside overnight; two boys cheered and stood up. He listed the cast members who would be turning up in the evening: Bill Bailey's name got the biggest cheer, but was followed by a couple of others that the audience were clearly not quite as excited by: "Ok, fine, I should have said Bill Bailey last."
Here are a couple of really useless and blurry pictures of Edgar, more to prove I and he really were in the same room than to actually excite your eyes, because... I'm really bad at photography?
The first film was chosen to wake everybody up on a Sunday morning, apparently: Hard-Boiled, which was set in Hong Kong, and subtitled, but unfortunately the man in front of me had some kind of huge head and so I had to spend most of the film leaning into either Aislinn's or freakish_geek's personal space to see past him (sorry). I remember an unbelievable amount of shooting and people dying, lots of explosions, and a seemingly endless storyline about getting all these babies out of a burning hospital. "Wait! I left a baby in the nursery!" OH CHRIST NOT ANOTHER ONE.
We went outside to re-queue for the second film (yes, we had to go out and wait between each one, which was... I never really worked out why, but, hey), which started at about two pm. This time it was The Last Boy Scout, which I seem to remember involved somebody shooting a gun through a glove puppet, and a lot more blood and dying and stuff. I should probably point out that in stark contrast to today's Woolworth's difficulties, there was no checking or even mention of what age you needed to be to get into the cinema: they quite happily showed everybody three 18s in a row. I imagine that if they had bothered to ID people--or in fact even just say "you have to be 18 to come to this thing"--it would have been fairly lax anyway, but there you go. EDGAR WRIGHT LETS ME WATCH 18s, WOOLWORTH'S. WHY WON'T YOU SELL ME A 15. I HATE YOU. (ETA: My dad says it's something about not having to go by the same laws if the film is being shown for free, apparently.)
More queuing and then back in for the third time to see Point Break at about half past four. Nick Frost turned up for the introduction to this one. "What better film to show before Hot Fuzz than the gayest film ever made?" enthused Edgar. "You can forget Brokeback Mountain, even Top Gun..." And, well, it was amazing, and unusual, sitting this cinema with about 350 other people all laughing and cheering madly at every lingering look between the protagonists, every line about getting your man or going in through the back door. I would have been less surprised if it had been a cinema full of teenage girls, but as far as I could tell, most of the audience seemed to be men in their twenties, but, er, you know, if that's what floats their boats, I'm really not complaining. We were sat at the very back at the balcony for this one, and Edgar and Nick Frost came and sat at the other end of our row to watch it; I couldn't see them, but could hear Edgar laughing.
We hurried outside again to queue for Hot Fuzz proper, and spotted Bill Bailey in the bar on the way out. I was transfixed by his hair. On the way in again, we were all given free copies of Shaun Of The Dead--which, unbelievably, I didn't already have, so was overjoyed by--and Hot Fuzz DVD covers signed by Nick Frost (although we misread the signiture as "midget" for some time). We managed to get seats in the main bit of the cinema, about halfway back. Edgar arrived, and immediately introduced Simon Pegg, who came on stage and introduced "in an odd China doll sort of way... Doctor Nick Frost!", who tried to get onto the stage and promptly fell over. I thought it was part of an act, at first, but... I think he just fell over, actually. (ETA: I completely forgot until just now that Edgar and Simon actually jumped on top of him at this point.) He was fine, though, and introduced Kevin Eldon, who introduced Bill Bailey (who walked up the aisle doing rock hands in sunglasses), who introduced Paddy Considine, who introduced Olivia Colman (who is still heavily pregnant). I may have got the order wrong. They were all given microphones and sat down in the front row.
For some reason, the bit of music that comes with the Universal logo at the beginning of films didn't play, and so, led by Bill Bailey, they all sang it enthusiastically. It soon became quite charmingly obvious that they really, really hadn't planned or even thought through what they might possibly say in the commentary; now and again, during lulls in laughter, one of them would say "Is everybody actually still here?" or "Are you all bored yet?"; Paddy Considine made recurring complaints about the film being far too long and not featuring enough of him, and eventually announced that he was going to sleep. They would regularly disappear off to the toilet, which resulted in Simon Pegg coming back just as the three village inspectors appear on screen, and shouting "They're our mothers!" really, really loudly from about a foot away from me (I was in an aisle seat) and making me jump out of my skin. Simon Pegg responded to almost all appearances of people on screen with "He's dead now". Paddy Considine often slipped into an astoundingly good Steve Coogan impression.
There was a bit where one of them made a reference to the baggage handler sketch with Simon and Bill from years ago--"Does anyone remember Is It Bill Bailey?", they asked, and I sort of thought lots of people would, so I went "YES!" really loudly and was then quite embarrassed. Edgar revealed that the bit about somebody fingering somebody by the duck pond was a true story from his childhood--or at least a rumour that he really had heard as an eight-year-old at school, and, not knowing what it meant, had announced to his family at the dinner table when asked what had happened at school that day.
Edgar also got everybody to shout "Aaarrghhh!" along with the film twice--once when the clip of the shooting in the air from Point Break gets shown, once when Danny does the same near the end--and to say "Yarp" along with the trolley boy. ("Edgar, you've got such power over them," said somebody. It was difficult to tell who was talking sometimes, I should probably point out.)
The best possible way to see a film, I think--or a tv show, or play, or anything--is with a group of people, the bigger the better, who are finding it absolutely as brilliant as you are, because everything's somehow so much more funny when everybody else is laughing too. I loved having the cast point out and build you up to all their favourite moments that you might have missed--like, in the scene where Simon Skinner comes to the police station and says he won't press charges against the shoplifter, we were all told to watch out for "Simon Pegg's best ever double-take", which I had never noticed before but I couldn't have possibly found funnier once I did. Actually, the bit I think I may have laughed the very most at in the entire film was in the scene after the Romeo and Juliet performance, in the pub, where someone points out the people who have been extras in some film or another--and just before it happened, Edgar Wright went, "Circle wave!" and the man in the film did do this little circular-motion wave, and I genuinely thought it was the most fucking hilarious thing I had ever seen, and I don't know why. The best mass audience reaction, by far, however, was the kicking-the-granny scene: not even the reaction to the moment it happened, but the build-up, as Nicholas is running towards her, because I swear to god the audience started going "Ohh..." louder and louder and louder until he finally hit her (and then cheered manically).
The cast all gleefully slashed Danny and Nicholas throughout the film: "There's the question of whether the Greek yoghurt is actually a reference to his sexuality... like, he likes it Greek-style," mused Nick Frost as Nicholas browsed the dairy aisle in the supermarket. He also explained that in the scene at Danny's flat his romantic acting technique was to try and look at Simon's lips as much as possible ("I wanted to amp up the gay"). And then there was a bit that I half-missed but I think they were talking about taglines, and mentioned the zom-rom-com thing for SotD and there was some reference to this being a homo-ro, which probably doesn't work quite as well, but, you know.
Random things I remember people saying throughout the commentary:
PADDY CONSIDINE: This microphone smells funny. It smells like someone's rubbed it over their bridge.
SIMON PEGG: That is the weirdest thing you've ever said.
BILL BAILEY: And have you heard that song, you know, that goes "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier"... which is very nice and all, but complete nonsense. I mean, what? Like, "I've got ham but I'm not a hamster"?
[later, as Danny holds up toy monkey on screen]
BILL BAILEY: I've got monks, but I'm not a monkey...
[Simon Pegg shouts and makes generally excited noises as Nicholas and Danny jump through the air shooting two guns at once]
NICK FROST: This film is basically like one ginormous wank for you, isn't it?
[Simon Pegg carries on unabashed]
BILL BAILEY: Of course, if you watch blind people having sex, it's called guide dogging.
NICK FROST: [apropos of nothing] Who remembers when I fell up the stairs earlier?
ENTIRE AUDIENCE: [long, long laughter]
Everybody cheered at the various names that came up in the credits, although I think I may have cheered on my own for Martin Freeman, because everybody appeared to have stopped by that point, but I am glad that I did. And then--you'll like this bit, saintsinsatin--Simon got up on stage and said they had a surprise, and called out for someone called Lee to come up to the front. Lee appeared, and climbed up; Simon put his arm round him, and then this man asked his girlfriend in the audience to stand up, and asked her to marry him. The audience erupted into cheers, the girl was called up on stage too, and Lee said "You've got to say yes, because I've told them all that you will,"--but then he got down on one knee, and asked her again, and she did said yes, and everybody went mental. The cast all hugged them and shook their hands, Edgar Wright stood there shouting, "We've made marriage happen tonight!" and Simon Pegg started reading out wedding vows.
That was it, really. We went outside and Aislinn, Emily and Jon decided to hang around to try to meet people (it turns out they met Bill Bailey, and I sort of wish I'd stayed now) whilst Becky and I went home, walking some of the way to the tube with _faeriequeen (who impressed Becky with her prowess at meeting JRT) and freakish_geek ("I just feel I should say: GAY UKULELE PLAYERS." "YES."). The whole day was amazing, bizarrely tiring (considering most of it was spent sitting down), and involved more watching people shoot other people than I have ever seen in my life and probably ever need to see again. Incidentally, the shoot-out and action sequences in Hot Fuzz, which I had previously thought were quite ludicrously long, now seem like nothing in comparison with all the other films we watched, bloody hell--they just don't stop running around shooting people. (Is it obvious that I don't watch a lot of action films?)
Finally, here is a picture of our wristbands, because, er, we were very excited by them? They turned out to be completely indestructible: you can't imagine the grief encountered last night trying to get it off. It doesn't even tear, for Christ's sake.
And then, of course, yesterday was the Hot Fuzztival.
(I only had one of the free drinks, in the end. I don't drink much? I got Diet Coke in a glass bottle and was stupidly excited.)
Annnyway. I got a train at about ten past nine to make it to Victoria for about quarter to ten, where I met Aislinn (who'd won the tickets), along with friends Becky, Emily and Jon who'd decided to come along at the same time as us and just join the end of the queue and hope they might make it in. (They did.) I got a text from _faeriequeen when I was at Victoria saying she was near the front and would be able to get in, and then I spoke to freakish_geek on the phone just after we'd arrived at Leceister Square (I think the conversation consisted mainly of, "oh my goodness, you really are a real person" on both ends), and then we wandered up to near the front of the cinema where there was a separate queue for competition winners. I saw freakish_geek waving from nearby and so went over to see her; we said hello, and then, suddenly, _faeriequeen was somehow there, and said hello to me, and then there was a wonderful moment in which the two of them slowly turned to face each other in surprise and confusion. I think they must have spent about four hours standing next to each other in the queue, through sheer coincidence, neither aware of the fact that the other was also not only a livejournaler but a livejournaler who I was going to meet, so I was glad to be there for the revelation.
We were inside by about ten to eleven, seated nearish the front of the main bit of cinema (there was a balcony too). Edgar bounded onto the stage, eventually, cheerful and full of a variety of amusing anecdotes. "It's eleven in the morning!" he cried, excitedly, and enquired as to whether anyone had queued outside overnight; two boys cheered and stood up. He listed the cast members who would be turning up in the evening: Bill Bailey's name got the biggest cheer, but was followed by a couple of others that the audience were clearly not quite as excited by: "Ok, fine, I should have said Bill Bailey last."
Here are a couple of really useless and blurry pictures of Edgar, more to prove I and he really were in the same room than to actually excite your eyes, because... I'm really bad at photography?
The first film was chosen to wake everybody up on a Sunday morning, apparently: Hard-Boiled, which was set in Hong Kong, and subtitled, but unfortunately the man in front of me had some kind of huge head and so I had to spend most of the film leaning into either Aislinn's or freakish_geek's personal space to see past him (sorry). I remember an unbelievable amount of shooting and people dying, lots of explosions, and a seemingly endless storyline about getting all these babies out of a burning hospital. "Wait! I left a baby in the nursery!" OH CHRIST NOT ANOTHER ONE.
We went outside to re-queue for the second film (yes, we had to go out and wait between each one, which was... I never really worked out why, but, hey), which started at about two pm. This time it was The Last Boy Scout, which I seem to remember involved somebody shooting a gun through a glove puppet, and a lot more blood and dying and stuff. I should probably point out that in stark contrast to today's Woolworth's difficulties, there was no checking or even mention of what age you needed to be to get into the cinema: they quite happily showed everybody three 18s in a row. I imagine that if they had bothered to ID people--or in fact even just say "you have to be 18 to come to this thing"--it would have been fairly lax anyway, but there you go. EDGAR WRIGHT LETS ME WATCH 18s, WOOLWORTH'S. WHY WON'T YOU SELL ME A 15. I HATE YOU. (ETA: My dad says it's something about not having to go by the same laws if the film is being shown for free, apparently.)
More queuing and then back in for the third time to see Point Break at about half past four. Nick Frost turned up for the introduction to this one. "What better film to show before Hot Fuzz than the gayest film ever made?" enthused Edgar. "You can forget Brokeback Mountain, even Top Gun..." And, well, it was amazing, and unusual, sitting this cinema with about 350 other people all laughing and cheering madly at every lingering look between the protagonists, every line about getting your man or going in through the back door. I would have been less surprised if it had been a cinema full of teenage girls, but as far as I could tell, most of the audience seemed to be men in their twenties, but, er, you know, if that's what floats their boats, I'm really not complaining. We were sat at the very back at the balcony for this one, and Edgar and Nick Frost came and sat at the other end of our row to watch it; I couldn't see them, but could hear Edgar laughing.
We hurried outside again to queue for Hot Fuzz proper, and spotted Bill Bailey in the bar on the way out. I was transfixed by his hair. On the way in again, we were all given free copies of Shaun Of The Dead--which, unbelievably, I didn't already have, so was overjoyed by--and Hot Fuzz DVD covers signed by Nick Frost (although we misread the signiture as "midget" for some time). We managed to get seats in the main bit of the cinema, about halfway back. Edgar arrived, and immediately introduced Simon Pegg, who came on stage and introduced "in an odd China doll sort of way... Doctor Nick Frost!", who tried to get onto the stage and promptly fell over. I thought it was part of an act, at first, but... I think he just fell over, actually. (ETA: I completely forgot until just now that Edgar and Simon actually jumped on top of him at this point.) He was fine, though, and introduced Kevin Eldon, who introduced Bill Bailey (who walked up the aisle doing rock hands in sunglasses), who introduced Paddy Considine, who introduced Olivia Colman (who is still heavily pregnant). I may have got the order wrong. They were all given microphones and sat down in the front row.
For some reason, the bit of music that comes with the Universal logo at the beginning of films didn't play, and so, led by Bill Bailey, they all sang it enthusiastically. It soon became quite charmingly obvious that they really, really hadn't planned or even thought through what they might possibly say in the commentary; now and again, during lulls in laughter, one of them would say "Is everybody actually still here?" or "Are you all bored yet?"; Paddy Considine made recurring complaints about the film being far too long and not featuring enough of him, and eventually announced that he was going to sleep. They would regularly disappear off to the toilet, which resulted in Simon Pegg coming back just as the three village inspectors appear on screen, and shouting "They're our mothers!" really, really loudly from about a foot away from me (I was in an aisle seat) and making me jump out of my skin. Simon Pegg responded to almost all appearances of people on screen with "He's dead now". Paddy Considine often slipped into an astoundingly good Steve Coogan impression.
There was a bit where one of them made a reference to the baggage handler sketch with Simon and Bill from years ago--"Does anyone remember Is It Bill Bailey?", they asked, and I sort of thought lots of people would, so I went "YES!" really loudly and was then quite embarrassed. Edgar revealed that the bit about somebody fingering somebody by the duck pond was a true story from his childhood--or at least a rumour that he really had heard as an eight-year-old at school, and, not knowing what it meant, had announced to his family at the dinner table when asked what had happened at school that day.
Edgar also got everybody to shout "Aaarrghhh!" along with the film twice--once when the clip of the shooting in the air from Point Break gets shown, once when Danny does the same near the end--and to say "Yarp" along with the trolley boy. ("Edgar, you've got such power over them," said somebody. It was difficult to tell who was talking sometimes, I should probably point out.)
The best possible way to see a film, I think--or a tv show, or play, or anything--is with a group of people, the bigger the better, who are finding it absolutely as brilliant as you are, because everything's somehow so much more funny when everybody else is laughing too. I loved having the cast point out and build you up to all their favourite moments that you might have missed--like, in the scene where Simon Skinner comes to the police station and says he won't press charges against the shoplifter, we were all told to watch out for "Simon Pegg's best ever double-take", which I had never noticed before but I couldn't have possibly found funnier once I did. Actually, the bit I think I may have laughed the very most at in the entire film was in the scene after the Romeo and Juliet performance, in the pub, where someone points out the people who have been extras in some film or another--and just before it happened, Edgar Wright went, "Circle wave!" and the man in the film did do this little circular-motion wave, and I genuinely thought it was the most fucking hilarious thing I had ever seen, and I don't know why. The best mass audience reaction, by far, however, was the kicking-the-granny scene: not even the reaction to the moment it happened, but the build-up, as Nicholas is running towards her, because I swear to god the audience started going "Ohh..." louder and louder and louder until he finally hit her (and then cheered manically).
The cast all gleefully slashed Danny and Nicholas throughout the film: "There's the question of whether the Greek yoghurt is actually a reference to his sexuality... like, he likes it Greek-style," mused Nick Frost as Nicholas browsed the dairy aisle in the supermarket. He also explained that in the scene at Danny's flat his romantic acting technique was to try and look at Simon's lips as much as possible ("I wanted to amp up the gay"). And then there was a bit that I half-missed but I think they were talking about taglines, and mentioned the zom-rom-com thing for SotD and there was some reference to this being a homo-ro, which probably doesn't work quite as well, but, you know.
Random things I remember people saying throughout the commentary:
PADDY CONSIDINE: This microphone smells funny. It smells like someone's rubbed it over their bridge.
SIMON PEGG: That is the weirdest thing you've ever said.
BILL BAILEY: And have you heard that song, you know, that goes "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier"... which is very nice and all, but complete nonsense. I mean, what? Like, "I've got ham but I'm not a hamster"?
[later, as Danny holds up toy monkey on screen]
BILL BAILEY: I've got monks, but I'm not a monkey...
[Simon Pegg shouts and makes generally excited noises as Nicholas and Danny jump through the air shooting two guns at once]
NICK FROST: This film is basically like one ginormous wank for you, isn't it?
[Simon Pegg carries on unabashed]
BILL BAILEY: Of course, if you watch blind people having sex, it's called guide dogging.
NICK FROST: [apropos of nothing] Who remembers when I fell up the stairs earlier?
ENTIRE AUDIENCE: [long, long laughter]
Everybody cheered at the various names that came up in the credits, although I think I may have cheered on my own for Martin Freeman, because everybody appeared to have stopped by that point, but I am glad that I did. And then--you'll like this bit, saintsinsatin--Simon got up on stage and said they had a surprise, and called out for someone called Lee to come up to the front. Lee appeared, and climbed up; Simon put his arm round him, and then this man asked his girlfriend in the audience to stand up, and asked her to marry him. The audience erupted into cheers, the girl was called up on stage too, and Lee said "You've got to say yes, because I've told them all that you will,"--but then he got down on one knee, and asked her again, and she did said yes, and everybody went mental. The cast all hugged them and shook their hands, Edgar Wright stood there shouting, "We've made marriage happen tonight!" and Simon Pegg started reading out wedding vows.
That was it, really. We went outside and Aislinn, Emily and Jon decided to hang around to try to meet people (it turns out they met Bill Bailey, and I sort of wish I'd stayed now) whilst Becky and I went home, walking some of the way to the tube with _faeriequeen (who impressed Becky with her prowess at meeting JRT) and freakish_geek ("I just feel I should say: GAY UKULELE PLAYERS." "YES."). The whole day was amazing, bizarrely tiring (considering most of it was spent sitting down), and involved more watching people shoot other people than I have ever seen in my life and probably ever need to see again. Incidentally, the shoot-out and action sequences in Hot Fuzz, which I had previously thought were quite ludicrously long, now seem like nothing in comparison with all the other films we watched, bloody hell--they just don't stop running around shooting people. (Is it obvious that I don't watch a lot of action films?)
Finally, here is a picture of our wristbands, because, er, we were very excited by them? They turned out to be completely indestructible: you can't imagine the grief encountered last night trying to get it off. It doesn't even tear, for Christ's sake.