Your
Belmont
Memories
Spoons
"I had seen the film The Disaster Artist at the Belmont and enjoyed it. Typical of the majority of films I went to see at the Belmont the audience was small. So when the opportunity arose to see the film that inspired The Disaster Artist and there were only a limited number of screenings I felt I had to go and see it. I usually aimed to arrive 20 minutes after the official start time so as to avoid the adverts. This has rarely been a problem.
On this occasion I was a little bit earlier than this and was stunned to see people queuing up outside. "What is going on?", I am thinking. "Why are so many people interested in a film of limited appeal?" I get to the ticket desk and I am lucky to get one of the last remaining seats in the front row of the large Screen 1. I prefer to sit near the back so as not to strain my neck and go swivel-eyed trying to take in a large screen close up. I was invited to take some plastic cutlery on the counter. "What is this for I asked?". "It is part of the film." was the reply with an enigmatic smile.
Sure enough Screen 1 was packed out. The film starts and a little way in the people behind me shout "Spoons" and I am showered in plastic cutlery . This happened at key points during the film. Also the audience shouted out phrases at certain repeated phrases or camera shots. The audience clearly knew this obscure film very well. Never in my 50 years of cinema going have I encountered such an immersive experience. Well done to the Belmont.
The film, in case you want to look out for it, is "The Room" by Tommy Wiseau. A film that has to be seen in a cinema.
Bruce Taylor
Share Your Memory
Spoons
"I had seen the film The Disaster Artist at the Belmont and enjoyed it. Typical of the majority of films I went to see at the Belmont the audience was small. So when the opportunity arose to see the film that inspired The Disaster Artist and there were only a limited number of screenings I felt I had to go and see it. I usually aimed to arrive 20 minutes after the official start time so as to avoid the adverts. This has rarely been a problem.
On this occasion I was a little bit earlier than this and was stunned to see people queuing up outside. "What is going on?", I am thinking. "Why are so many people interested in a film of limited appeal?" I get to the ticket desk and I am lucky to get one of the last remaining seats in the front row of the large Screen 1. I prefer to sit near the back so as not to strain my neck and go swivel-eyed trying to take in a large screen close up. I was invited to take some plastic cutlery on the counter. "What is this for I asked?". "It is part of the film." was the reply with an enigmatic smile.
Sure enough Screen 1 was packed out. The film starts and a little way in the people behind me shout "Spoons" and I am showered in plastic cutlery . This happened at key points during the film. Also the audience shouted out phrases at certain repeated phrases or camera shots. The audience clearly knew this obscure film very well. Never in my 50 years of cinema going have I encountered such an immersive experience. Well done to the Belmont.
The film, in case you want to look out for it, is "The Room" by Tommy Wiseau. A film that has to be seen in a cinema.
Bruce Taylor
21 = 2001
"An abiding memory I keep of the Belmont Cinema was going on my 21st birthday (in the year 2001, no less) to see 2001: A Space Odyssey. I had just graduated from film school, and Kubrick’s seminal classic had always been my favourite film, but until this point, I had never seen it projected.
This was one of many of the classic films I would go to see regularly, over the years, at the Belmont, and the sense that one was being given access to older films, presented as they were intended to be seen, by people who actually cared about film as an art-form and in our culture, was profound.
From Kurosawa, to Capra, to Ozu to Welles and beyond, from midnight screenings to premieres (where they also very kindly screened one of my earliest efforts as a screenwriter) the Belmont gave us that access and for those few hours it was as good as a time machine."
Chris Watt
The Room on 35mm
“I will never forget spending 90 minutes picking up plastic spoons from the floor of Screen 1 after a riotous sold out 35mm screening of The Room.
Never seen an audience so invested in a movie that was so bad it was incredible”
Dallas King
Nae Pasaran! Screening and Q&A
"In September 2018, we had a packed out Cinema 1 for a special screening of Felipe Bustos Sierra's documentary Nae Pasaran! — which told the true 1970s story of workers at the Rolls-Royce factory in East Kilbride who, in protest against the regime of General Pinochet, refused to carry out maintenance on a Chilean Air Force jet engine that had just arrived.
I was lucky enough to host the post-film Q&A with Felipe and and Stuart Barrie, who was one of the workers at the factory who was involved in this small but meaningful protest. Brilliant questions from the audience as always — we need to bring film screenings with Q&As back to Aberdeen!"
James Erwin