R On Cinema

On Cinema

In 1896 the Lumiere brothers opened the first cinema in the Grand Caf?
in Paris but I didn't get to go to one until a long time after that. I
can't remember the first cinema I went to or what I saw exactly but I
have vague memories of going to see Sleeping Beauty. The Disney one.
Ever since then I've had a thing about Disney.

In fact, I've been to Disneyland twice, once in Tokyo and once in
Paris. I haven't been to either of the Disneylands in America although
I have been to America. I went to university there. The whole time I
was in America I didn't go to the cinema once let alone a theme park
about the cinema. I'm not sure why that was. Perhaps it was because
just being in America was like taking part in a movie.

Each time I went to Disneyland it was with a boyfriend. In Tokyo it
was with Takuma. He wasn't out so he wouldn't go on any of the rides
with me. There were other people there that day. One of them was Nick.
He was Greek, so Nick the Greek, I guess. Now Nick the Greek wasn't gay
exactly but he was always wanting to come to Shinjuku with me. Shinjuku
is the gay area in Tokyo.

One time I heard that Nick had gone there with Marc and that he had
pulled an Irish guy. Nick said to Marc that he might do it again but
next time he would be more choosy. Apparently the Irish guy wasn't very
nice. Nick didn't want anyone to know and shortly after that he moved
out of Shiki, the area where we lived, to be closer to the centre of
Tokyo. He was quite a nice guy and I hear that he now works in a girls'
school. You can read into that what you will. I know how I see
it.

The second time at Disneyland was with my current boyfriend Gary. It
was just last November. Gary gets travelsick and the first ride we went
on was the Aerosmith one. It's kind of inside and has all these
flashing lights and it zips up and down and around corners. Oh yeah,
and the music is loud. Gary likes Steps. I don't think Aerosmith is his
thing.

So what with the travel sickness and everything that ride finished him
off. He started throwing up. He couldn't walk. He said he couldn't stay
at Disneyland.

"We'll go back to the hotel," I said.

"I can't," said Gary.

So what we did was we checked into the Disneyland hotel. No bags.
Nothing. The middle of the day. Two men.

The woman on reception was German and dressed as a raccoon.

"Vud you like von bed or two?"

"One," I said. "A large one."

Gary was behind me throwing up into a large plant pot.

Later when Gary was sleeping I snuck out and bought him a Donald Duck
doll. He has it now and it sits by the side of his bed at home. So it
wasn't a totally wasted day.

When I was a kid they used to have a cinema club. It was at the local
Odeon in town. It was 50p and ran from about 8 - 12 on a Saturday
morning. Mum used to leave money for me and my brother on the breakfast
bar and off we would go. There was a bunch of us. Dean and Jeffrey
H***. Paul and Susan B***. En route to the cinema we would stop off in
one of those sweet shops and buy the kind of sweets that you measure
out into a weighing dish. The bus fare into town was 12p. I am 32. I
can't remember how much the sweets were.

At cinema club they would show cartoons, a series and then a film. The
best film ever was about some kids who have these model aeroplanes that
really fly. These kids discover some plot or something and then they
attach these darts onto the aeroplanes and then they fire them at
something and somehow that means they have won. I'll never forget that
film. It was awesome.

Paul B*** was two years older than me. His was the first cock that I
ever really saw. I remember wanting to see it and then he showed me.
His sister found out and she said she would tell and we would both go
into a home. I remember she told me this when we were on the swings in
the park and then I heard my mum calling from the roof and I ran
home.

I grew up in a pub and when it was bedtime mum used to go out onto the
roof - it had a flat roof - and just shout, "Drew! Drew!". That night I
was glad of it.

You could see Paul B***'s house from the roof of our pub. It was about
150 metres away and his bedroom was at the front. Sometimes I would go
out onto the roof at night and we would flash each other. Usually this
happened in the Summer months. I was 8 or 9 then.

A few years after that we got a large screen tv in the pub. It must
have been 100 inches at least. It worked by some kind of projection
system and there was also a large mirror involved. Of course everybody
wanted to come over and watch stuff. That was in the days before long
opening hours. The pub shut at 2:30 and wouldn't open again until 6.
That time in between was ours and when we weren't at school we used
it.

One of the best films we watched was The Wanderers. I remember there
was a big discussion about it beforehand because the film was an 18 and
none of us were 18, not even close. Dad said he didn't mind but
everyone else would have to ask their parents first. Well, everyone did
and somehow it was all oked. To this day I don't exactly know
how.

We were one bunch of excited kids. The pub was shut, mum and dad were
upstairs, and we had the place to ourselves. We pulled our chairs
nearly right up to the screen, we didn't want to miss a thing. I was
the youngest, my brother was 2 years older as was Paul. Jeffrey was
just a year older and Dean was the oldest. He was four years
older.

The Wanderers was a film set in the Bronx in the sixties and it was
about gang warfare. I was in a gang later on but it wasn't like this
gang. This gang were really rough and pretty mean to each other.

The scene that has stuck in my mind the most was where the Wanderers
gang are captured by this other gang who are even badder than them.
This other gang take the Wanderers gang to a bridge and then make them
drop their trousers and pants. Then they tie a piece of rope around
each of the Wanderers cocks and tie the other end of these ropes to
heavy stones. They say they are going to throw the stones off the
bridge. The Wanderers are all pretty worried that they are going to
lose their cocks.

"Don't do it man," they scream. "Don't do it."

Well, this other gang they did do it. But it was all ok because the
rope was pretty long and the stones landed in the water below without
anyone losing their cock.

One day after that when Paul and I were in the Castle Park standing on
the bridge where we always played Pooh Sticks I asked him if we could
re-enact that scene. I would tie a big stone to his cock. Unfortunately
he wasn't up for it. I learnt something that day. About how films
weren't like real life.

Not all the films had cocks in them so I don't want you to get the
wrong idea about me. Most of the time we watched those Hammer Horror
films. We would watch them sixorsevenoreight times. Man they were good.
Jeffrey in particular liked them. He had ginger hair.

Regarding cinema and first dates:

The first date that I had with Takuma we went to see Seven.

The first date that I had with Gary we went to see Minority
Report.

That says it all.

At some point in my life I got into that whole Nouvelle Vague thing. I
was 18 then. I came about it this way I think.

When I was 16 my dad gave me a copy of The Outsider by Camus. I
thought it was the best thing I had ever read. I talked about it at my
French O Level oral exam. I had read pretty much all of Camus's stuff
by then and Sartre too although I didn't like him as much. Around this
time I wanted to commit suicide a lot and I think Camus's books helped.
You know life is shit but suicide is illogical. Not not painless, as
the MASH song goes. That was a lie.

Anyway I think I heard that Camus had based his book The Outsider on
James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice. I read it and realised
that I had heard right. The Postman Always Rings Twice is pretty much
The Outsider (and The Rebel too as it happens) with a story.

Next I heard that there were all these French film directors who loved
American pulp fiction and were trying to recreate something of the same
feel in their movies.

That was my entry into the Nouvelle Vague.

In my opinion The 400 Blows is the best one of the lot and Jules et
Jim is over-rated.

Recently I saw a Mexican film that was influenced by the Nouvelle
Vague. It is called 'Y Tu Mama Tambien'. It is about these 2 horny
teenagers who meet a beautiful women and they all go together on a road
trip to find a beach that doesn't exist. If you haven't seen it then I
would say that you do. It has some cocks in it and also some breasts so
I think that it would appeal to the majority of people.

Actually I am in love with one of actors in it. He was in another
Mexican film called 'Amores Perros' which after 'Y To Mama Tambien' was
just about the best film that I saw this or last year.

I've been to Mexico by the way. I was running low on money when I was
in America so I thought it would be a good idea to go to Mexico. I
ended up staying in a brothel. But that, as they say, is another story,
and one that doesn't have any films in it at all. I was 20 then.