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A Review Of Part Of The Film Weekender And Some Of The Power Cut That Interrupted It

Published Fri, 09 Sep 2011 08:44:33 -0500

Last updated Fri, 09 Sep 2011 08:45:11 -0500

If you're tempted to see Weekender, Karl Golden's E's and Wizzorama, then I urge you not to do so with a row of alleged bit-part cast members.

I say alleged, because the film cut out before we got to their contribution. I had to take their word when they shouted "I'm in this!" and "Where's my credit?" and "C'mon, I could be fuckin' downloading this in a month!"

Frustrated in my attempt to get a better seat and stuck on the business end of Degenerates Row, I longed for them to leave and attempt that download. Instead, they made an unusual and in my experience, unique, attempt to trump the material's leary and obnoxious shtick.

The ravers in the movie, Matt and Dylan, were pill popping, beat addicted dickheads but at least they had pretensions of likability; my row mates had no such ambition. They were loud, inattentive and base and it was possible that they'd never sat in a cinema and attempted to watch a film with an audience in their lives.

These cocks, whose brainstems were marinated in cheap beer, fingered their chat boxes, texted each other, because speech is a crude instrument, and laughed in the gaps between plot advancing scenes; moments when nothing was happening on screen bar gesticulating, sweat caked mashheads fitting to their favourite tunes.

They weren't alone. A third of the audience, perhaps the portion invited by their mates in PR, were incapable of holding their gaze. Instead the auditorium lit up with touch screens, ensuring that the few iconoclasts who'd dreamt of watching the film without distraction, enraptured in hedonist excess, remained dreamers.

As the first act fought the audience's phones for their undivided attention, I thought about Karl Golden and the folly of making a film for a young audience. Why bother? Perhaps those that would pay to see a film about rave culture were either bombed on bentines or nostalgic for it, in which case they'd have reached their forties with 12% of a normal adult's concentration.

Undoubtedly some had forgotten the experience entirely and had accepted the invitation to enjoy those Manchester and Ibiza nights for the first time. In a Bourne-like journey, they'd finally gain an insight into why they'd lost so many teeth, why their ex had perished in a pool of vomit and crucially, why they couldn't ejaculate.

Was I enjoying the movie? I couldn't be sure. I hated all the characters. They were broad and gormless. To watch them was to know the joyless deflation that accompanied a Jason Manford set. They were obvious and dull, living for little except dancing and tripping; they bantered for sport.

The film's sense of humour relied on identification with the afflicted but as anyone who's ever sat in a pub with a pool of drunks will tell you, what's hilarious to them is tedium on toast to others.

Still, after thirty minutes of nothing there was hope. A cockney arrived; not an interesting character but a potential story complication and I took some interest, or as much as my fellow audience members would allow. The strutting dunce, packed with high grade MDMA, which some of the invited guests would have thought to be an academic qualification, offered to take Matt and Dylan to Ibiza and show them what drugs could do when released into a closed community committed to the cultivation of sexually transmitted disease.

The boys flew to the island, eyes like saucers, but saucers full of drugs, and their new bit-of-business Tsar, the magic man, took them to his house in the hills. Dylan, high on the possibilities, ogled the beach babes that lined the open air swimming pool. This was more like it; bare breasts and tan. Opened mouthed he reached out to touch one an-

The cinema plunged into absolute darkness. It was a dark and stormy night.

I was astonished. It seemed as though the crowd had noticed the film wasn't playing anymore. This, finally, was evidence that some of them had been watching it.

The rest, realising it was dark and that either the film had cut out or they were blind, began to boo and shout out. "Sort it out!" cried one, "well that was a great movie!" called another and I noted the girl from the PR agency noting it down; there was her poster quote.

We sat there for a full minute, confused and hungry. What had occurred? By this time, 7.40pm, rioters were burning most of London. Some were already calling them The Pudding Lane Brigade. I wasn't. Were they responsible for the film cutting out?

Rumours blew through the crowd. The mob had pulled the power to the cinema, said some, others claimed they were already in the lobby, brutalising the staff. Any moment these Morlocks would smash through the double doors and lay waste to this audience.

A gang of teenagers armed with bricks and tennis rackets are an indiscriminate bunch; bombs with genitals. If there was any justice they'd tear the most disruptive patrons limb from limb, stealing their phones and violating their cadavers. However rioters can't be trusted to do the right thing and consequently I realised that I, as a representative of Bleeding Cool, an online publication that stood for civilisation, would have to defend this wretched troupe. It was quite possible that I'd have to kill a man, perhaps several men. I'd hoped never to do so again, the press screening of Hangover Part II was supposed to be the last time.

I was getting pumped up when the announcement came from the front. There'd been a power cut and we were obliged to evacuate. The crowd were incensed. I, however, saw this as an opportunity. If the film re-started then I could sit somewhere else, possibly in a different cinema altogether, and consequently I made a beeline for the nearest fire exit.

On the street, the possibility of rioting became real.

With little information forthcoming, many now had to contemplate the possibility that they'd wasted time and money on this fruitless enterprise. One girl, dressed in a black leather outfit, remonstrated with the cinema manager; a meek looking man who'd reluctantly stood out front and told us we could be there indefinitely, when his lieutenants refused. "I've spent thirty quid getting here, are you going to refund that?" she demanded. Thirty pounds? Where had she come from, the midlands? The idiocy of spending that much to see this film seemed reason enough to refuse her. The manager, who couldn't believe it either, broke the news that he couldn't, and indeed wouldn't, refund her travel, but she would get a refund on her complimentary ticket. "My ticket was free!" she bleated. "Indeed," he replied, "and you'll get it all back, trust me."

Others tried to strong arm him. One of the guys from degenerates row gave intimidation a go. "You ARE going to refund us, aren't you?" he asked rhetorically, prompting a nervous nod from our man. He could, he knew, agree to anything, after all he had just two hours to retirement and the tickets to Argentina were booked. Nothing could stop that now.

Was this the end of Weekender? It seemed like it. I looked at my fellow critics, taking the temperature of the crowd. The BBC's James King gave it some thought then left, heading for the tube. Well, if the BBC weren't going to stay then it seemed ridiculous that Bleeding Cool should. This wasn't a publication that took it in the tunnel, oh no, this was the culture portal that could still make the train back to the suburbs and with luck, whatever was on TV at 9pm.

I don't know how Weekender ended. Perhaps you'll see it and find out. I'd like to imagine that Matt and Dylan, having made a fortune with club nights on that Mediterranean isle, realised they'd wasted their lives. They returned home to Manchester and set up a foundation for listless youth, campaigning for the criminalisation of dance music, and, in an inspirational final scene, capping their achievement with the closure of Ibiza. Was that was happened? Maybe one day I'll know.

One day.