Someone asked how many of the 403 films I watched in 2023 I saw on the big screen. Off the top of my head, I would have guessed closer to 30 than 20, but much fewer than usual since at the end of 2022 we moved from Bristol to a small Welsh village with a train station but not much else, and certainly not a cinema.
There is a multiplex a few miles away in the Newport retail park, but being dependent on public transport, the only way to get there is an hourly bus which stops there 55 minutes before the film starts and departs 5 minutes before the end credits roll. Every fucking time.
So in the face of such first world problems, we’ve stayed Bristol-oriented. Fortunately my commute is on the same line and costs the same as travelling to the city centre, with no restriction on breaking the journey partway to put in my hours inspecting the pipe at the piss factory, so I’ve made use of that a few times this year (and of my customary picket line being near the Watershed and about ten minutes from the Odeon).
And it turns out, the answer is actually 60 films on the big screen (although not always in cinemas), with 21 of them over the five days I spent at the Cinema Rediscovered and Forbidden Worlds festivals. (I’ve written about falling in love with cinema, rather than just film, here; if you scroll down you can listen to me reading about falling in love with cinema, rather than just film, aloud.)
It was a hard year for cinemas. Audiences are still nowhere near pre-Covid levels, Bristol lost two of its five multiplexes (including the only cinema in the south of the city), and the Watershed took a funding hit. But there wass still an awful lot going on: festivals (although I didn’t manage to get to anything at Afrika Eye, Encounters, Bristol Radical Film Festival or Bristol Palestine Film Festival, and only one film at Slapstick) and screenings organised by the good folks at 20th Century Flicks, Cary Grant Comes Home, Film Noir UK, Horror Without End and Southwest Silents, among others).
Cinemas, festival, screening organisations, pop-up events are precious and we should cherish them. I mean, just look at the range of stuff I did manage to get to (I promise I’ll stop just posting lists soon):
Salomé (Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova 1922) – with live accompaniment
Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau 1924) – with live accompaniment
Papirosnitsa of Mosselproma/The Cigarette Girl of Mosselprom (Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky 1924) – with live accompaniment
Beverly of Graustark (Sidney Franklin 1926) – most uncomfortable seats
Asphalt (Joe May 1929) – with live accompaniment
Tange Sazen yowa: Hyakuan ryô no tsubo/The Million Ryo Pot (Sadao Yamanaka 1935)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren 1943)
Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang 1945)
Wanted for Murder (Lawrence Huntington 1946)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston 1948) – highest cost/lowest quality one-off screening, but it was in a fancy old wine cellar with a fancy glass of red included
The Third Man (Carol Reed 1949) – IMAX
The Sound of Fury (Cy Endfield 1950)
Beware, My Lovely (Harry Horner 1952)
Invaders from Mars (William Cameron Menzies 1953) – IMAX
20000 Leagues under the Sea (Richard Fleischer 1954) – in London
Yield to the Night (J. Lee Thompson 1956)
Koroshi no rakuin/Branded to Kill (Seijun Suzuki 1967) – IMAX
Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke 1967)
Tell Them Willie Boy is Here (Abraham Polonsky 1969)
M*A*S*H (Robert Altman 1970)
Bushman (David Schikele 1971)
Dolgie provody/The Long Farewell (Kira Muratova 1971)
Meng long gou jiang/The Way of the Dragon (Bruce Lee 1972)
Coffy (Jack Hill 1973)
A Rainha Diaba/The Devil Queen (Antonio Carlos da Fontura 1973)
Shampoo (Hal Ashby 1975)
Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter 1976) – IMAX
Prey (Norman J. Warren 1977) – IMAX
Victor/Victoria (Blake Edwards 1982) – most uncomfortable seating but we’d learned from the earlier screening of Beverly of Graustark and managed to get in the front row so we could at least stretch our legs out
WarGames (John Badham 1983) – IMAX; I introduced this one despite being ill – too ill, in fact, to stick around for the second half of the double bill, which was a shame cos there’s no way seeing Threads (Mick Jackson 1984) on an IMAX screen could have made me feel worse, surely?
After Hours (Martin Scorsese 1985) – IMAX; I introduced this one, which was pretty weird since I’m no fan of Scorsese, but at least I managed to make an increasingly baffled and angry audience applaud Teri Garr
Night of the Creeps (Fred Dekker 1986) – IMAX
Something Wild (Jonathan Demme 1986) – IMAX; I introduced this one before introducing After Hours and it was lot smoother ride for everyone involved
Wong ga jin si/Royal Warriors (David Chung 1986) – IMAX
Salvation (Beth B 1987)
Die Hard (John McTiernan 1988) – in Plymouth
One Hand Don’t Clap (Kavery Dutta Kaul 1988)
Cyborg (Albert Pyun 1989) – I introduced this one, too, suggesting that I am now Bristol’s go-to guy for reminding people how fucked up and weird (and shit) the 1980s were
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Joe Dante 1990) – IMAX
Szürkület/Twilight (György Fehér 1990)
Ging Chaat goo si III: chiu kup gin chat/Police Story 3: Supercop (Stanley Tong 1992) – IMAX
Beurokeo/Broker (Hirokazu Koreeda 2022)
Enys Men (Mark Jenkin 2022)
R.M.N. (Cristian Mungiu 2022)
Barbie (Greta Gerwig 2023)
A Dog Called Discord (Mark Jenkin 2023)
Dream Scenario (Kristoffer Borgli 2023)
Expend4bles (Scott Waugh 2023) – the last film I will ever see at one of those now-closed multiplexes (where thirteen years earlier I saw the first Expendables back-to-back with the Piranha remake)
Fast X (Louis Letterier 2023)
Gojiro – 1.0/Godzilla Minus One (Takashi Yamazaki 2023)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (James Mangold 2023) – in Amsterdam, in the most ornate venue of the year, and the only one to serve champagne-and-absinthe cocktails
Infinity Pool (Brandon Cronenberg 2023)
John Wick Chapter 4 (Chad Stahelski 2023)
Kuolleet lehdet/Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki 2023)
The Marvels (Nia DaCosta 2023)
Meg 2: The Trench (Ben Wheatley 2023)
Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan 2023)
Pathaan (Siddharth Anand 2023)
Polite Society (Nida Manzoor 2023)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Power and Justin K Thompson 2023)
Mark Bould 