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Each week, we round up the most exciting film events happening in London over the coming week, from pop-ups and one-offs to regular film clubs, outdoor screenings and festivals. Here’s this week’s top five…
Twenty-fifth anniversary screening: ‘Point Break’
Unbelievably, it’s a quarter of a century since Katherine Bigelow unleashed her action masterpiece, ‘Point Break’. Does she ever find herself wondering, even in the wake of all the awards for ‘serious’ projects like ‘The Hurt Locker’ and ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, whether she’ll ever make another film as purely pleasurable? This is one of those rare films where everything – and we mean everything – just works: The plot ticks like an atomic clock, the dialogue is both flawlessly functional and genuinely funny, and the combination of surfing, skydiving, Eastern philosophy and bank robbing means there’s never a dull moment.
Lexi Cinema, 194b Chamberlayne Rd, NW10 3JU. Sun Jul 17, 7.30pm. £10.50, £7.50 concs.
Check the Gate: ‘Hardware’
The Prince Charles’s Check the Gate season gives filmmakers, critics and experts the chance to program a favourite movie on 35mm film. This week it’s the turn of feminist film club Bechdel Test Fest, who’ve chosen Ridley Scott’s classic road movie ‘Thelma and Louise’, and our own Tom Huddleston, who’ll join composer Simon Boswell to introduce British sci-fi schlocker ‘Hardware’. Set in the future and shot in the Roundhouse in Camden, Richard Stanley’s feature debut is an impressive assault on the senses, a robotics nightmare laden with OTT apocalyptic symbolism and brash cinematic homages, from ‘Deep Red’ to ‘The Terminator’.
Prince Charles Cinema, 7 Leicester Place, WC2H 7BP. Thu Jul 14, 8.45pm. £8.50.
Nicolas Winding Refn presents: ‘Carrie’
To mark the release of his new movie ‘The Neon Demon’, director Nicolas Winding Refn has chosen seven of his favourite films to play at Picturehouse cinemas over the next seven weeks. It’s a predictably lurid selection, from the body-horror of David Cronenberg’s ‘Videodrome’ to the surrealist freakout of David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Dr’. The season kicks off with Stephen King adaptation ‘Carrie’, a truly throat-grabbing horror movie, sporting a handful of pitch-perfect set-pieces.
Picturehouse Central, 20-24 Shaftesbury Ave, W1D 7DH. Fri Jul 15, 9.30pm. £8.
Fighting Spirit Film Festival: ‘Drunken Master’
The Fighting Spirit Film Festival is an all-day event showing a brace of kung-fu flicks including the family-friendly ‘Kung-Fu Panda 3’, ‘Ip Man 3’, a fistful of shorts and this solid-gold classic, which will be accompanied by a display of old-school karate prowess. One of Jackie Chan’s earliest efforts, it’s the story of a mischievous young karate prodigy who apprentices himself to an alcoholic martial arts teacher, the legendary Drunken Master.
Cineworld O2, The O2, SE10 0DX. Sat Jul 16, 2.50pm. £10.
Secret Cinema: ‘Dirty Dancing’
Experience the faded charm of a 1960s Catskills summer resort with this immersive tribute to the ultimate cheesy dance flick, presented by the Secret Cinema crew. It ain’t cheap, and Patrick Swayze won’t be there to lift you up in his muscly arms, but these guys can always be relied upon to lay on an impressive spread. The film presumably needs no introduction, but here goes: a pure wish-fulfillment romance, it sees sheltered teen Baby falling for hunky dancer Johnny on holiday when she ’s conveniently required to replace his dancing partner, who’s pregnant (scandal!).
Secret location. Fri Jul 15. £65–£129.
For the full list, go to Time Out’s film events page.