Glasgow’s Cinemas of the Past

What the Rosevale looks like inside now

So I did this blog with the intention of talking about some of the cinemas in Glasgow, but so far I’ve only talked about the Grosvenor cinema. I was doing some internet-based browsing (as usual) and came across this cinema – Rosevale, on Dumbarton Road. It’s now actually been changed into a charity shop, but apparently if you go around the back you can see some of the place that once held over 2,000 seats. It used to be a back-court style cinema but it was closed years and years ago, in 1965. It has been changed into many different things since then, from bingo hall, snooker club and supermarket. You can read about its full history here if you want to know more.

This is possibly my favourite discovery, purely because I’ve visited there a lot as a club and had no idea it used to be a cinema – the ABC, on Sauchiehall street (I’m sure you’ll be familiar with this too!). I don’t know whether this is common knowledge, so if it is then I apologise for my ignorance and use the fact that I don’t like history and that I am from Edinburgh as an excuse. Anyway, it used to be called the ABC Regal and was one of the first buildings in the city to be fitted with electricity in 1888 – which made it perfect for cinema-going usage. It underwent many different conversions whilst it was a cinema (it was also a dance hall as well) but nowadays is a music venue and of course, club. Click on this link for a more detailed history of it, there are lots of interesting pictures too!

What the ABC used to look like from the outside (1979).

1979 - these stairs still look familar today!

One of the screens that used to exist at the ABC.

It’s really strange how many times I’ve walked past some of these buildings that I’m discovering used to be cinemas. Here’s another one that I found interesting, because I have never really noticed it until it popped up when I was looking for things to write about –

Salon - Past/Present day

It was called Salon and was on Sauchiehall Street as well, just beside what is currently a sports shop. In its day however, you wouldn’t have missed it as it was painted white against the dark backdrop of old city. It was one of Glasgow’s earliest cinemas, where there was a roof-top winter garden (sounds lovely but I bet the weather wasn’t up to much – it still isn’t) and also a tea room. It was only open for about 10 years as it got a bad reputation so it was changed into many different dance halls and clubs – nowadays there are plans for it to be converted into a “boutique hotel” so much of its original structure will be gone. This is the link to the full information about its past.

Of course these are only a few of the cinemas I wanted to mention since I found them interesting. If you want to find out more about cinemas in Glasgow (old and new) then these two sites are great, the Glasgow Film website which tells you of cinemas past and present, and the Scottish Cinemas website which catalogues nearly all of Scotland’s cinemas! Thanks for reading this post, and feel free to comment too if you find any interesting old cinemas.

Project X

So I mentioned in the previous post that I also went to see Project X last week. I would’ve written about it sooner but I was so excited to write about 21 Jump Street that I seemed to have over-looked it. But don’t worry, I’m rectifying this now!

Again I seemed to have managed to avoid finding out loads about the film before I went to go and see it – usually I watch all the trailers and ruin it for myself by looking it up on Wikipedia! Project X sounded to me like some sort of sci-fi movie but nope, it was about a group of geeks that want to throw the biggest and best party to become popular. Nothing new there, but when it started I was confused for a bit – it is all filmed in that home-movie camcorder style fashion. I just found it weird because I’m so used to that style being used for horror films but after a while I didn’t even notice. It made the film a bit different from the traditional teen movie and made you feel like you were there.

The main cast weren’t any famous actors I recognised either, which I suppose was good because it added to the fact that I didn’t really know what to expect from it – but after the first few jokes I decided I really liked it. There’s a few funny lines from the over-confident cocky friend of the main character Thomas and also from the geeky side-kick. If you were to compare it to 21 Jump Street in terms of comedy and laugh-out-loud moments, I would probably go for the latter. But that’s not to say that Project X wasn’t amusing, because I thought it was quite funny – kind of like a high-school style version of The Hangover (funnily enough it is directed by the same director).

So what did Rotten Tomatoes think of the film? With a mere 26% rating, the overall review goes:

“Unoriginal, unfunny, and all-around unattractive, Project X mines the depths of the teen movie and found-footage genres for 87 minutes of predictably mean-spirited debauchery”

Hmm, doesn’t seem to agree with me then! However it does say that 70% of the audience liked it, so don’t let it put you off going to see it if you want to. As the film progressed the plot did get more and more ridiculous which made it funnier. I did leave the cinema wishing that I was throwing a party though – if that was the point in the film then they definitely achieved it. Bring on summer! I’ll leave you with the trailer for it, and be sure to look up cinema times while it is still out – enjoy!

21 Jump Street

I’ve been going to the cinema so much recently I should probably get a Cineworld card or something.. this week I went to see Project X and 21 Jump Street. But I chose to write about the latter because I was pleasantly surprised after seeing it – other than a few people telling me that it was meant to be really funny film, I didn’t know much else about the movie. It features Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum who star as police officers that get sent back to high school undercover to uncover a drug scandal. It seemed like an odd comedic pairing, but it does actually work – I think I was surprised by how funny Channing Tatum actually was since his standard roles are romantic/look-how-attractive-he-is ones like Dear John and The Vow. There is also a surprising cameo from someone, which made me like the film even more, but I won’t spoil that for you.

Anyway it had been a while since I had went to see a comedy at the cinema so it was nice to have everyone around you laughing with you too – nothing is worse than sitting through bad jokes – if you want to be laughing for a whole movie, then this is the one to see. Check out the trailer for it too, luckily it’s not one of those trailers where it ruins all the funny bits so when you go and see it you’re disappointed –

Let’s return to good old RottenTomatoes.com (I’ve bookmarked this along with IMDB!) which actually has a high rating of 85% on the website, with its overall review being:

A smart, affectionate satire of ’80s nostalgia and teen movie tropes, 21 Jump Street offers rowdy mainstream comedy with a surprisingly satisfying bite.

I would definitely agree with this – it’s a film I would happily sit and watch again. The negative feedback seems to come from people commenting on its crude humour – such as Philip French of the Observer commenting that it was “obsessively foul-mouthed” but I reckon that was just nit-picking to find something wrong with such a light-hearted film. All of the listed top critics on the website have given it a positive review so it must be pleasing to the majority of people.

If you’ve seen 21 Jump Street recently, leave a comment and get in touch to let me know what you thought of it. You can also vote in the poll above to choose your favourite recent comedy film – feel free to add your own suggestions too.

The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists

David Tennant seems to be quite active in the movie scene right now – which I am quite pleased about! This is from his previous film “The Decoy Bride” released earlier this month to this new animated comedy called “The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists” which is directed by Peter Lord (the same guy who made Chicken Run/Wallace and Gromit!). It is a movie adaptation of The Pirates! book series, the plot focussing on the main character ‘Pirate Captain’ who sets out on an adventure to win the Pirate of the Year award – trying to beat his competitors Black Bellamy and Cutlass Liz. David Tennant plays Charles Darwin whom the characters team up with, with other famous names being part of the project as well, with the likes of Hugh Grant (starring as the Pirate Captain), Salma Hayek and Martin Freeman.

Tennant expressed his enthusiasm for his role in the film and said:

“I don’t even know how long I was working on it, certainly over a year, maybe even two years. It was a long process that the actors would just revisit every now and again… It was clearly a laborious and fastidious process, but it is so exciting to be any contributing factor to that.”

The film looks set to be a good family flick, with it being screened in 3D as well (well, what isn’t in 3D nowadays?), here’s the trailer if you fancy a sneak peek at the movie:

If you want to find out more, visit the film’s website here – although I did find it quite hard to navigate on my rubbish computer… maybe save it for when you have access to a computer that isn’t as slow as mine! You won’t have to wait long to find out whether the long production of the film was worth it – The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists is due to be released on the 28th of March 2012 in the UK.

The End of Glasgow Film Festival

So I started this blog with a post of the Glasgow Film Festival, and thought I’d do one to sum up the end of the Festival since I haven’t mentioned it since then. It was on from the 16th February to the 26th of February – overall there has been positive response to this year’s festival – reports from the Glasgow Film Festival Website say that ticket sales were well up from last year, and with sales being up 40% in the last 3 years. Co-director Allan Hunter said:

Cinemas have been buzzing, the number of sell-out screenings has risen and both audiences and critics have really embraced all the diverse elements of the Festival programme.

Examples of these mentioned sell-out screenings were Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy, and the UK premieres of The Decoy Bride starring the lovely David Tennant and The Raid, directed by Gareth Evans. The “fest within the fest” Channel4’s FrightFest was also a popular event for attendees as always. The other featured festivals such as the Glasgow Youth Film Festival and Glasgow Short Film Festival – the latter featured a competition which is a first for the event – the winner was Will Anderson for The Making of Longbird, who won a cash prize sponsored by Glasgow’s own “The Wee Curry Shop.”

Something that I just came across as well was a Gene Kelly flash mob that was performed at Glasgow Airport just before the festival kicked off – it was one of the ways the event  this year paid tribute to Gene Kelly – it has received over 10 thousand views now. You can watch it here (I love a good flashmob!):

In addition to this, throughout the festival they screened selected Gene Kelly musicals. I’m sure there will be even more to look forward to next year, with the 2013 Glasgow Film Festival running from the 14th-24th of February. Leave a comment if you attended this year’s festival and if there’s anything in particular you enjoyed!

Glasgow, the new Hollywood?

Last year we saw Glasgow being used as the home for movie sets, from Brad Pitt’s upcoming zombie film World War Z to a Bollywood film featuring Slumdog Millionaire star Anil Kapoor. I just thought I’d do a blog on the other film that was recorded here – Cloud Atlas, seeing as it’s due for release later on this year, around October time. The streets of Glasgow were changed to look like San Francisco hills while they made the film adaptation of the book by David Mitchell, funnily enough called ‘Cloud Atlas‘. The story isn’t the classic beginning, middle, end narrative but 6 different stories set over various time periods and places which are all connected (sorry that’s a bit vague, I haven’t actually read the book).

The new film will feature Oscar-winning Halle Berry, along with many other familiar faces like Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon and Jim Broadbent of Harry Potter, Moulin Rouge and Bridget Jones’ Diary fame. It is also co-directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski brothers that are most famous for The Matrix movies. Feel free to check out the film’s IMDB page for the full cast list and details!

More of Halle Berry on set in Glasgow, rocking a wig

Halle Berry, on set

Tom Hanks

Believe it not, this is Hugh Grant!

Familiar faces among the Cloud Atlas cast

Cloud Atlas

It’s so exciting when there’s something big like this Hollywood production in town, for instance apparently lots of people descended on the city when Brad Pitt was in town filming World War Z, with an appearance from Angelina Jolie too. However there was criticism that it made people’s journeys much longer with all the traffic and disruption caused for the filming. Despite differing opinions though, Glasgow becoming a new favourite place favoured by Hollywood directors to film means extra money for the economy – according to the Guardian, an extra £150 million has been made from filmmaking in the city in the last decade. Not bad.

On a side note, recently in Edinburgh, James McAvoy was also spotted filming outside one of my friends’ workplace – The Christmas Shop near the Grassmarket for any of you that want to know. All the stars seem to be avoiding wherever I am! Anyway, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion – is all this good for Glasgow’s economy and publicity? Or would you rather they take it somewhere else?

Cineworld – Taking The Next Step in Cinema?

As is probably obvious by the last post, I visited the cinema last week. (Not the Grosvenor I’m afraid, the Cineworld!) As I walk in, they have these two cinema seats plonked in the lobby area in front of a screen… it turns out these two seats are new 4D motion technology they are introducing to one of the screens at the Renfrew Street Cineworld. I did have a go on them – I think the closest thing you could relate it to would probably be one of those simulator rollercoaster rides you get in arcades.

D-Mox Motion Seat

It’s actually one of the first cinemas to be offering this experience to cinema-goers, following a deal that was signed between Cineworld and D-Box technologies. The price to pay to offer this experience does sound a bit steep though, apparently costing an extra £4.50 a ticket. The first movie that is coming out with this motion technology is the Disney film John Carter – a science fiction action film. You can view the trailer for it above, and if you want to read more about the film visit its trusty IMDB page here.

According to a YouGov poll, 41% of us think that 3D is just a gimmick, and more people agreed that it did NOT improve the quality of a film. I’m not too fussed about 3D films if I’m being honest – it’s a nice extra to have, but I’d happy just watch a 2D film with no complaints too. Only time will tell if this new technology will catch on. The only thing I’ll say is this though – the final Harry Potter would have been amazing using this 4D technology, especially with the massive battle scenes.

So, as citizens of Glasgow we have the privilege of being some of the first to experience the 4D motion cinema experience in a few days, from the 9th of March! Feel free to leave a comment below with your opinion and vote on the poll – are you excited about this new technology, or is this a step too far in the attempt to keep cinema alive?

Safe House

Last night was Wednesday. I am on the mobile network Orange. Wednesdays + Orange = Orange Wednesdays. So what better time to visit the cinema? Me and my flatmates were in the mood  for a good action film to go and see, and this one did not disappoint.

Featuring Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington, it is a story about a notorious criminal Tobin Frost (Washington) who is finally taken to a CIA operated safe house after years of evasion, but the person responsible for the ‘house’ Matt Weston (Reynolds) finds himself having to go on the run with the fugitive after the safe house is broken into.

Personally I thought the movie was great, there were lots of moments where I was hiding behind my hands and gripping onto the person next to me (don’t worry, I did know them) through the fight scenes and chase scenes. There were also quite a few “jumpy” moments where you’d get taken off guard and get a bit of a fright. However sometimes the camera shots and cinematography made it hard to see what was happening, and I did find the story quite hard to follow and nothing really original.

But that’s just my opinion, here are what other people thought of the movie:

“Though Safe House is anchored by strong performances from Washington and Reynolds, they’re let down by a thin script and choppily edited action sequences that betray the film’s unfortunate lack of imagination.”

– RottenTomatoes.com

“It … shows how much can be done with a business-as-usual CIA-thriller script when it’s bolstered by effective acting and expert direction.”

– Mark Adams, The Daily Mirror

“For his debut film in English, Daniel Espinosa pulls off a great looking action thriller which is sadly let down by a script that falls apart towards the end.”

– Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman

So some good and bad points from reviews, but really, if you are in the mood for seeing a bit of punching, shooting and a hell of a lot of chasing then you should definitely go and see this movie. Plus the main characters are easy on the eye.

The Oscars

Okay so, although this is not strictly Scottish movie news, I think The Oscars is pretty relevant as one of the biggest awards ceremonies like, ever. It was the 84th Academy Awards last night (26th February), and there were some big expectations for Martin Scorsese’s ‘Hugo‘ and the very popular ‘The Artist‘, with 11 nominations and 10 nominations respectively. Both films did incredibly well – they both ended up with 5 Oscars each.

“The Artist is a wonderful, charming valentine to the birth of movies.”

– Jon Voight, Actor.

The Artist won ‘Best Picture’ which made it the first silent movie to win an Oscar since the very first Academy awards in 1929. Just goes to show that everything comes back into fashion at some point! (This is the excuse I use for owning too many clothes.) It also picked up awards for ‘Best Costume’, ‘Best Original Score’, ‘Best Actor’ for Jean Dujardin and ‘Best Director’ for Michel Hazanavicius.

The video above shows some highlights from the awards, with Meryl Streep gaining her 3rd Oscar for her role as Margaret Thatcher in ‘The Iron Lady‘, and the emotional speech from Octavia Spencer when she won Best Supporting actress for ‘The Help.’ This years event even saw Christopher Plummer win ‘Best Supporting Actor’ at 82 years old, making him the oldest Oscar winner to date. The other big winner ‘Hugo’ excelled in technical categories like Cinematogaphy and Visual Effects. Have a look at the BBC’s full list of winners here.

My all-time favourite part of the Oscars is definitely the Red Carpet and seeing what everyone is wearing (see below) and it might sound stupid but I like it when it cuts to the audience. It’s just literally full of everyone who is anyone in the film business, and seeing their reactions to the winners is great too. Oh, and sorry for the over-use of the word ‘Best’ in this blog… but it is an Oscars post after all. I’ll leave you with the Oscars official website – it’s worth a visit.

Jean Dujardin winning ‘Best Actor’.

Octavia Spencer, looking amazing in her dress.

Meryl Streep, seeming dressed as an Oscar herself.

Ellie Kemper rocking the ‘Sequinned Mermaid’ look – I love it.

Gwyneth Paltrow all in white.

Cameron Diaz’s dress is gorgeous. And she is looking so muscular!

The Grosvenor, Ashton Lane.

Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow

When I first moved to Glasgow, one of the first thing I noticed was the massive Cineworld in town – the huge building is over 12 levels high with 18 screens, and even has an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for being the world’s tallest cinema! (I was probably the last person to discover this!)

So I’m sure you’ve all visited there at some point, but where else is there to see a movie if you’re not a Cineworld fan? I was recently taken to Ashton Lane and noticed that they have the cutest cinema there next to all the bars called The Grosvenor, I definitely am going to visit it soon. With only 2 screens it’s definitely smaller than Cineworld! The interior looks really trendy (for want of a better, less cringey word) with comfortable seats and sofas. They offer a deal for food and film – perfect if you want to make an evening of going to see a movie. To top it off, not only do they sell American candy and Mountain Dew but you are also free to take your drinks from the bar (which are priced a normal bar prices) into the screen with you – so take note, don’t have a glass of wine because the coziness of the cinema plus the sleepiness induced by rosé might just make you fall asleep.

It sounds like the homely feel of the cinema is a definite selling point for it, as reviews from Yelp.com praise it –

“It’s amazing! I felt right at home watching the latest Harry Potter flick… the only thing I was missing were my slippers!”

– Darryl R.

The Grosvenor, Ashton Lane

So if you fancy seeing a film there soon, head over to their website – I reckon ‘The Woman in Black’  would be even scarier in this kind of cinema! This is also their twitter as well – @GrosvenorCinema. And after you can hit the Lane for some cocktails, there are lots of cute bars there too. Keep tuned to the blog as I’ll be posting more places you can see films in Glasgow, along with reviews of films I’ve seen once I can convince someone to come along with me!