At our temporary home in The Eldon Building, we’re limited by licensing rules on screenings of new films. So, we are especially pleased to be able to bring you a new release on Friday 21st November; Christopher Landon’s lauded mystery thriller Drop, starring White Lotus and Sirens Emmy winner Meghann Fahy. Before that, on Thursday 20th November bring your rods and lines as we go fishing once again for that 50-year old Great White (also known as Bruce) in an anniversary showing of Spielberg’s evergreen Jaws.
Difficult conversation corner: We really need your support. Numbers started well when we came to The Eldon Building, and many people expressed their pleasure that we’d be operating while the Boathouse is closed. But with no bar income, only that from ticket sales, we are reliant on ‘bums on seats’ to keep ourselves afloat. We are trying to show films we think people would want to see, while maintaining a varied programme, so please come along to as many screenings as you can make so that we can keep going.
Here's the schedule for this week. The Eldon Cafe opens at 6pm for a prompt 7pm start to the screenings.
Jaws
Thursday 20th November at 7pm
The film that invented the whole concept of a big opening day back in 1975, Jaws, is the film that started the career of one Steven Alan Spielberg, and little could we suspect where that would lead us. In Jaws, Spielberg’s roots in the New Hollywood movement (Coppola, Scorsese etc) are still on show – overlapping dialogue, long takes etc – but the ability to grip an audience and hold them for two hours is clear, and arguably never bettered in his subsequent work. Three words - Amityville, Shark, swimmers - lead to Brody, Hooper and Quint (Scheider, Dreyfuss, Shaw) going out on a boat to kill the finny menace, singing songs and comparing battle scars along the way. One of the all-time classics and a must see every time it’s on the big screen.
Drop
Friday 21st November at 7pm
A new release it may be but Drop is an updating of the old-fashioned mystery thriller where the twists just keep coming. After the death of her husband, Violet (Meghann Fahy) finally goes on a date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar, from It Ends With Us and – in our house, anyway – New Girl) but dinner is disrupted by a series of short-range message drops, leading to a labyrinth of suspicion and hidden motivations. Raking in $30M in box office already, Drop has been well received, with most reviewers noting the enjoyment and fun the film takes in presenting a succession of what would otherwise be implausible plot twists. Focusing on Fahy’s performance, the Guardian calls it, “a perfect match of star, script and style”.
Up Next Week:
Melodrama on Film: Sunset Boulevard, The Ipcress File
A brace of stone-cold classics next week. Our BFI-linked Melodrama on Film season gets under way on Thursday 27th November with Gloria Swanson getting ready for her close-up in the iconic Sunset Boulevard, the only film to be narrated by…well, if you don’t know, we’re not telling. And on Friday 28th November, it’s the first outing for cut price Bond Harry Palmer, with Michael Caine whipping up a quick omelette in the heart of swinging London for the legendary spy thriller The Ipcress File. 75th and 60th anniversaries respectively, can you believe it?
