Sep 24

Sep 24 Picture Perfect In Woolton Picture House.

The best thing about Ocean’s 8, was watching it in Woolton Picture House, the oldest Independent Cinema in Liverpool, built in 1927, and a modern day miracle.

Woolton Picture House, Woolton Village, Liverpool.

I used to love going to the pictures, I’d get dressed up for it, and in spite of the occasional prat pompously feeling the need to correct me: “you mean the cinemaar”, I still call it The Pictures and now I’ve found my perfect Picture House.

One of my favourite teenage memories was prising open the ten tonne, decadently metal-worked Art Nouveau doors of the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle, whose entrance was tucked up like a secret hideaway from the vicious arctic blasts that rode into town down the Tyne River, off the North Sea and sliced through the streets. Once you were in you were safe, warm and cosy in a heavily ornate nest of carved wood, curved engraved glass, organic metal spirals, gilded plasterwork and velvet drapes, saturated in bygone glamour which set you up properly to “suspend your disbelief” and open your mind in preparation for the mysteries of some other world.

I saw Rumble Fish there in 1980 something. The Metro trains would pass directly underneath the building and emit their own rumble at strategic intervals. You could hear it and feel it. It was thrilling. It was also the moment I realised that I had a natural inclination for the Mickey Rourke type boys of this world, when all my friends were charmed by Matt Dillon, I realised I was doomed.

They ripped the front off the Tyneside Cinema and replaced it with glass sliding doors and a plastic counter. A bit like Greggs.

I’ve never had that authentic cinematic experience since. Came close with Blue Velvet in some sleaze pit in Amsterdam, smoking cigarettes in the Coronet in Kensington, London and sweating in that vintage Sideshow Museum place I used to go to on the edge of civilisation in Coney Island, Brooklyn, but none of them came close to that feeling of being welcomed into the arms of escape and genuine lost world romance.

Interior walls of Woolton Picture House.

Until last night in the Woolton Picture House, with it’s original signage, single string of slowly-changing-colour showbiz lights, one-woman ticket booth for the one screen option, classic old velvet bucket seats (so soft yet supportive), crumbling walls, glowing lamps and a 45 degree incline for rolling bottles or bodies. There was even an intermission with a lady serving ice cream, which came as a welcome entertainment break from Ocean’s 8.

The only thing I can think is that this film was made before the recent revolution, and hopefully will serve as an example of everything that has misrepresented women in the past. It should stand as a teaching aid on what can happen when you take AAA caliber, multi-billion, world dominating, supremely talented women and give them a script written by a 14 year old boy.

The sight of Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett playing two criminal hard-cases and for some excruciating schoolboy titillation seductively feeding each other cake in a diner made me want to claw my arms with a sharpened prison spoon. They gave Rihanna some dungarees and a joint. I can’t.

The attempt at ironic humour was crowbarred in, and to be honest, I got the only laugh in the room when I said out loud: “I didn’t think this could get any worse” as James Cordon barged his way on screen in the part that should have gone to Kim Cattrall, Judy Dench, Melissa McCarthy, Tracy the Barmaid in Eastenders, anyfemalebody but him.

Honestly, the movie doesn’t really matter (it’s only flickering light), because Eleanor Rigby is buried in the church round the corner and “John Lennon and Paul McCartney swam here” in the baths over the road. Woolton Picture House can make any bad film a grand experience.