Film: Friday 13th Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan, Beatles Walk, & Film: Materialists

Now in the middle of a whole heap of Meetup.. On Friday.. well, The Hideout was off to Friday 13th Part VIII in the Prince Charles (PCC).. and the organiser offered me a free ticket. Otherwise you couldn't drag me to it, TBH. We were meeting in Victory House beforehand - and I had no time to eat before that.

On a hot day, the bus was sweltering.. even walking around the streets was like being slowly cooked. Two of the group had beaten me to it - and wow, it's three months since I last saw Jonny, the organiser! Great to catch up. Predictably, Victory House are no better than ever at serving wine.. I asked for Sauvignon Blanc, had to specify that was white wine.. and it'd be in the fridge.. and it was a lucky thing I spotted her putting ice in the glass, and made her take it out again! They finished the bottle on me, and weren't sure it'd come to the extent of a large glass - it just about did. The girl on the till said they only charged me for a medium - at £15, I should hope they weren't going to charge any more!

We had a decent-sized group - and lo, Jonny had a ream of tickets for us! So in the cinema, the usher scanned them all together, and we went in as a group. I was sat in the front row, with a few others.. oh goodee.. Well, I knew the basics of the franchise, that the serial killer is Jason Voorhees, who drowned as a kid at summer camp and now wreaks revenge on the people of the area. This sequel is set in the 80s - so you can expect big hair, big glasses, and shoulderpads. The premise is that a graduating high school class are taking a celebratory cruise to New York - but Jason gets on board..

Jason, as you might expect, is one of those big killing machines, impossible to kill, impossible to defeat. Pretty much all you can hope to do is outrun him - but there isn't very far to run on a boat, and the first part of the film consists, basically, of him picking off people, one by one: kind of a box-ticking exercise. We agreed, outside afterwards, that the film improves when a small group does make it to New York, and Jason is chasing them around there. Someone also commended the camerawork, particularly in the Subway sequence. Mind you now, despite the title, Jason doesn't get to see much of Manhattan, or do much damage there.. too expensive for the filmmakers, perhaps? Anyway, to be fair, this was better than I expected. Still have no particular interest in seeing any more of the series, however..

Afterwards, Jonny was in the mood to go somewhere, and I suggested food. Cue a longish trek to Garlic and Shots, a discreet doorway sandwiched between two others. I'd never been here before - never even heard of the place - but boy, was I in for a treat! The decor is eclectic and Gothic:

We slotted nicely into a large table in the middle, formed by pushing several small tables together. We were to discover our laminated place mats included shots menus:

All the food here has garlic in it - so you'd better like garlic! A few of us had the chicken, and I had a white wine - another at the table had the same wine, and complained it wasn't at all cold for her.. hence she asked for ice in hers, I did without. But oh wow, when the food came out (after a considerable wait).. Rarely have I had a dish as good. And of those who didn't order that, or offer an opinion on what they had, they did also finish their meals.. Happiness all round. Meantime, the soundtrack was rock - even had a U2 track in there! I don't blame the staff for bopping as they worked..

After dinner, we asked whether we could have a quick peek downstairs:

Downstairs is a horror fan's paradise, heavy metal on the playlist (upstairs is lighter rock). The whole basement is lit in red:

Our curiosity sated, we went back upstairs, where I asked for another drink at the bar. The lady I asked was the one I'd seen earlier, pouring my drinks - who said my server would bring it to my table. Oh, ok.. I sat down again. 10 minutes or so later, when the lady I'd asked appeared with the bill, I asked whether there was any chance of getting my drink.. I guess she'd meant for me to go and ask my server for it specifically, because she looked at me in something like amazement, and said it'd have to wait until after the bill was paid. "In that case," as I said, "don't bother, because it'll take forever.." On top of that, the bill was wrong - we'd been charged for two bottles of wine, rather than two large glasses.. and would you credit it, when she came back with the corrected bill, I was the last to pay - and was undercharged! You couldn't make it up. Nonetheless, it's a great place to visit, and the food is amazing, and served till late - late bar too.. just be careful with the bill, and don't give in any last-minute orders..

They have their own WiFi, but trying to get directions home on my phone outside was tricky - it's a real internet blackspot! Happily, Jonny was able to point me in the right direction, and wouldn't you know it, the internet came back at the next junction..

But it was too late to blog, because yesterday, I was back with Laurence Summers and the 45+ Not Grumpies, yay - finally got to do his Beatles walk. Made it early, and remarked to myself that I should have shares in the #188 bus - it's also the bus I take to work, which meant this was the third day in a row I'd taken it! Anyway, as I approached Tottenham Court Road Station, where we were to meet, 15 mins early, I saw someone standing at the far wall - but it wasn't until I was much closer that I realised it was him! In my defence, he had a new hat and shirt, and by the way, he's not usually this early.. Well, I met faces old and new, and we had a great chat - and a long one - before we started, the standard 15 mins after the advertised time.. he waits that long for latecomers.

We did have at least one Beatles expert on the walk, who knew a lot of the facts already and was able to contribute at many of the stops. She also brought her (very well-behaved) dog, although unsure whether he was actually a Beatles fan. Now, I didn't take a helluva lot of photos - I'm not generally one for taking photos of office buildings, for instance. I made an exception for this unusually discreet example:

This unassuming facade belongs to Sir Paul McCartney - the logo stands for McCartney Productions Ltd. This was a new one to me - but some sights I vaguely remembered from a London Literary Walks walk from some years back, Soho Scene! Such as this plaque at Trident Studios:

We stopped at the Spirit of Soho mural - apparently the mechanism that caused movement when the clock struck the hour no longer works:

But here's one I definitely never saw before - John Lennon, in a pose reminiscent of Jesus on the cross. The statue is called Imagine, after his famous song of the same name:

We stopped outside the Palladium, where the Beatles played:

Of course, currently playing there is Evita, the musical about Eva Perón, the famous former First Lady of Argentina, and a famous national figure. And the most famous part of the musical is her ballad, Don't Cry for Me, Argentina, supposedly sung from her balcony to the assembled crowd. Well - for this production's matinees, she apparently comes out on the balcony, over the entrance, and sings it to the passers-by! It's filmed, and the footage broadcast into the auditorium. Well now, I have to say, that's something I've never come across before..

We also happened across the very first Debenhams:

..and something I also remembered from that previous walk - the site of the short-lived shop The Beatles opened, which had to close within six months because all the merchandise was being stolen, and they didn't want to prosecute! And Laurence reminded us that the reason that only two of them are mentioned on the plaque is because only two of them are dead..

We finished up at Marylebone Station, featured in A Hard Day's Night:

..and by that stage, I was well ready for lunch. The walk does cover a lot of ground! We headed for The Volunteer - funnily enough, I didn't remember the name, despite having been there twice before! (I checked.) We had the same table we've had before - and this time, they didn't have the schnitzel, so I went for the steak and ale pie.. which was gorgeous. The lid of the crust was a little tough, but well worth the effort, as it was flavoured.. An excellent meal, although service was erratic, as ever - people got their food at wildly different times, and one poor soul ordered vegetarian sausage and got meat instead.. and it took forever for it to be exchanged! Never mind, conversation was good, as ever. Roll on the next..

I hadn't noticed until a few days before - but The Hideout's sister group, Movie Roadhouse London, was going to Materialists that evening, in the Odeon West End! A romcom, but rather elevated by the fact that it's written and directed by the excellent Celine Song, who gave us the devastating Past Lives a couple of years ago. This one promised to be a lot more lighthearted, with Dakota Johnson as a matchmaker with no time to organise her own love life. Enter the perfect man - Pedro Pascal, who, for my money, was the best thing about Gladiator II! Enter, at the same time - just to complicate matters - her deadbeat ex, Chris Evans, for whom she still has feelings. So, I arranged to go to that..

I was finished with lunch well early.. was just in time to catch a bus, and headed straight to Leicester Square. Walking past the cinema, I thought I'd just ask whether I could go in.. and the nice man said yes. Even though I was 3.5 hours early for my film! I did explain I'd be meeting friends, and was early even for that - perhaps he knew the group (some of the staff certainly do), but anyway, he let me in. And so I hogged a table in the bar for some hours, continuing my re-read of A Book of Bones on my phone, and drinking wine - Sauvignon Blanc is the only one of the three whites here that they don't do by the glass, but it was fine. And in due course the others arrived, and we chatted merrily before going in.

The seats all recline here, which makes for a very comfortable experience. And although I had to go to the loo during the trailers, I had time to make it back before the film started, thankfully!

I can see why this film isn't higher-rated.. it's a strange mixture. It's certainly more cerebral than a standard rom-com, with tons of analysis of modern dating, and how it has a tendency to become a business transaction. There's even a little snippet of cave-dwellers, engaging in a form of marriage that seems to depend on the variety of tools he's brought his beloved, as well as some flowers he's picked. Cut to the present day, with flowers being delivered in Manhattan..

This is Dakota Johnson's business, and she knows all the angles - funnily enough, while men's requirements are subjected to mockery (there's a funny sequence where she's interviewing potential male clients who have ridiculously specific age requirements for their potential partners), however, women's requirements seem to be her bible: specifically, height and salary. $150k seems to be substandard in this highly restrictive club, and nobody blinks an eyelid at it.. although they do at least pause at the thought of guys having surgery to increase their height.

Enter her ex - a struggling actor, whom she meets again as he's catering the wedding of one of her clients, to which she was invited, and where she also meets this new guy. And so she gets to compare them directly - the guy who shares a flat, drives a banger, and can only afford to eat in greasy spoons, versus the suave guy in finance who dresses well, takes her to nice restaurants, lives in luxury, and fulfils her every wish. But in the end, what does she actually want..?

It might have worked better if this had been presented as a documentary - but perhaps the director was trying to wrongfoot us, confound our expectations, by presenting it as a romcom. It's far more serious than your average romcom, so doesn't really work as that - and having the trappings of one doesn't sit well with the serious message that it conveys. So it ends up being a film with some good points to make, but with a mix of styles that means the audience is never sure whether they should be laughing. I basically liked it - there's some good acting, and they're nice to watch - but it's not a patch on the last film from the director. Never mind, always good to be with the group..

And now I don't have time to blog today's proceedings - so watch this space for more!