The Curzon Cinemas

I think I have found a new favorite haunt! The Curzon Soho (see the link on the side bar!) is just a couple of blocks from my flat on Bateman St. But, before last night I had not been to see a film there so it was a pleasant surprise indeed to find out that this cinema is so funky and cool! It first opened its doors on Shaftesbury Avenue shortly after WW2 as "The Columbus Cinema" and remained largely the same until 1998 when it was renovated to become the current three screen art house. It has a really sharp modern aesthetic now that suits a cinema well with ample "hangin' while waitin' spaces." There is a great little street level cafe at the entrance and a bar in the main lobby down stairs where you can have a "proper drink" and chill out with your mates prior to your evening's chosen entertainment! It is places like this that reinforce my belief that the colossal blemishes on the urban landscape we call "the multiplex" in Canada with their cluttered "neon-consumer-explosion" aesthetic appear grotesque by comparison. Perhaps when I open my own cinema...

I saw Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams. It more or less lived up to the press I had read and the billing by friends who had seen it. The only thing I thought was not in the spirit of the film was the rather heavy handed voice over at the end of the film as the dying Paul (Sean Penn) reflects on the weight of the human soul. It was obviously unnecessary and possibly added due to the American backing of the film. What I loved about the film is the fact that it is true cinema. What I mean by that is that although the essential guts of the story could have been told in another medium the method in which they are told could only be exhibited as a film. The discontinuous nature of the editing of mere vignettes in time that in their shuffled arrangement somehow begin to coalesce as you gain more and more information is masterful work and can only be related by actually sitting through the experience. I was really blown away at times by how risky and tenuous an editorial style it presents. Thrilling as the method was (which shares similarity to the director's previous film Amores Perros) the acting was all the more so. There is not a moment of unconvincing overly contrived action.