The Illusion of Depth

 After two weeks and two American films, we are moving to the UK for film number three.  Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is quite possibly about as British as it gets. Directed by the consistently underrated Anthony Asquith, The Importance of Being Earnest boasts what may very well be the perfect cast, including Edith Evans, Joan Greenwood, Michael Redgrave and Margaret Rutherford.   Filming a stage play can be tricky business (especially a play as stylised as Earnest ) but Asquith never puts a foot wrong. Victorian morals and conventions are thoroughly eviscerated by Oscar Wilde's text, and this film adaptation captures it beautifully.  As ever, Thursday's screening will be free, and open to everyone.  The Importance of Being Earnest 7.30pm at the  Victoria Park Baptist Church 186 Grove Road,  London E3 5TG Thursday the 30th of September

 For our second film screening, we are turning to another beloved and deservedly classic masterpiece: Singin' in the Rain . Singin' in the Rain has often been called the "greatest film musical ever made" and while I personally wouldn't go that far (sorry, folks!) it is a joyous and heartfelt love letter to a very turbulent period in Hollywood's history - the transition from silents to sound.  Gene Kelly is at his best as Don Lockwood, a swashbuckling silent film star who is faced with the prospect of re-inventing himself as a star of talking pictures (if anyone at the studio can figure out how to actually make one). Quite apart from the memorable star turns of Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds, the whole film is thoroughly stolen by Jean Hagen's once-in-a-lifetime performance as Don Lockwood's co-star, Lina Lamont. Jean Hagan received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of the silent-film beauty queen who was, shall we say, not ideally suited ...

 Update; December, 2022:  To anyone reading this page now, the roof work is now complete and the building is fully re-opened. Our film nights are back in the main hall, and we can use the entrance on Grove Road. We have witnessed a number of truly cataclysmic events in the past year or so: a Global Pandemic; an attempt to overthrow the Government in the US; the catastrophic but entirely foreseeable fallout from Brexit. And then the Church Roof Collapsed. Okay, I suppose a leaking roof isn't the worst problem most of us have had to face this year (the horrors never stop: all the local grocery stores are completely out of grapefruit juice ; truly we are living through Armageddon) but       (a) it is symptomatic of the kind of year this has been, and     (b) it does mean that we won't be organising these film evenings in the usual Church Hall. While the fearless roofers and scaffolders tirelessly wage their battles against the Forces of Entropy ...

Casablanca (1942) For our first night back in the cinema, I wanted to choose something that was suitably epic, and was also an undisputed classic. And so Casablanca it is. Casablanca is not only one of the great films of all time, it is also a film that is especially apt for this particular moment in history.  Made just as the US was entering the Second World War, Casablanca is a film about immigrants and refugees, made by immigrants and refugees. The isolationists, xenophobes and nationalists would do well to note that one of the all-time beloved American movies was made with almost no native-born American involvement whatsoever.  The only Americans (by birth) in the cast were Humphrey Bogart and Dooley Wilson (and many xenophobes out there would probably say that Dooley Wilson doesn't count). For the rest, there was of course Ingrid Bergman (Swedish), Conrad Veidt (German), Paul Henreid and Peter Lorre (both Astro-Hungarian) and the irrepressible Claude Rains (who was from C...

 A Few Notes on Hygiene and Social Distancing While Movie-Going After 18 months of Lockdown and enforced germophobia, it is with not a small degree of caution that we are resuming our film evenings at the Victoria Park Baptist Church on the 16th of September. Inevitably, we have considered how free and open to make these evenings.  Should we go full-on Doomsday Scenario and insist on masks, vaccine cards, social distancing, the whole enchilada?  Or should we throw caution to the wind and simply party like it's 1979? Ultimately, we have decided to proceed with cautious abandon . We will not insist on masks at all times, however everyone should feel free to wear them if they choose. Seats will be socially distanced, but everyone will be welcome to sit with their trusted friends and family.  We do strongly encourage vaccination, and if you are not fully vaccinated, please think long and hard about attending a public function such as this. Humanity did not pull itself, ...