So again some quietness from my side, as I went to London last weekend to attend Empire Live. It is an amazing filmfestival organized by the UK film magazine Empire. I went to Empire Big Screen too, which I liked a little bit more because they had more early showings of pieces of movies that were not due to come out for the next one to one and a half years, but Empire Live was still pretty awesome.

There were lots of movies showing, but we have “only” seen four. The thing is, movies you can always watch later, while panels with production designers and directors and script writers are only there to experience one time. So about the movies I have seen I will write seperate articles, and also about London, as the event was held in the O2 Arena over there, but let’s focus on the film festival itself.

We bought Superscreen tickets, which gave us pretty much access to everything. It started on Friday evening with the double bill of the two new Daniel Radcliffe movies Imperium and Swiss Army Men, and he was there actually which was super awesome. I really fell in love with him thanks to Trainwreck, hihi, he is a legitimately amazing person I think. The way he tells stories, he just does not feel as media trained as other people.

Anyway, so that was a good evening, but as we got up at 5am that morning we did not really party, we just went to our hotel, which was the Hilton at Canary Wharf. Excellent hotel, very easy to reach by the super freaking awesome underground system in London. After a good nights sleep we headed back to the O2 for some eggs benedict at one of my favorite UK restaurant chains, Cafe Rouge, and then we went to see the movie Hacksaw Ridge, which is one of the best war movies I have ever seen. Andrew Garfield does an amazing job. There was not a Q&A with the director or with an actor, but it was such an exclusive screening that we needed to hand in our phones. And it was truly amazing.

After that we went to check out the Empire Podcast, which I really enjoyed because they had some excellent guests (Mike Colter, who is superhot, euhm, Luke Cage) and a British actor I did not really know, but he was still fun. We could ask questions and it is just very fun to listen to these movie editors talk about what they thought about certain films. Even though I always feel that Empire is too British minded, I still think I am going to listen to the Empire podcast from now on. I also really want to read the magazine, as I used to have my ex read it, so he would tell me the cool stuff, but now he is gone so I might want to read it myself then.

Anyway, after the Empire Q&A we went to the writer panel, where a few scenario writers (one from Bridget Jones’ Baby and one from Penny Dreadful, and two others) talked about how they worked. I thought it was not as interesting as I was hoping it would be, but it was still good fun to have a little look into this world. Afterwards there was a live script reading of Trainspotting, with all these up and coming young actors that play in Star Wars Rogue One and other amazing films, so that was pretty nice, it is such an excellent movie.

Then it was time to have something to eat and drink at T.G.I.F.’s before we went into the last movie of our festival: The Greasy Strangler. I thought the director was a pretty cool guy, but the movie was really not my thing. It was sooo weird (“was he being a smoothie?”) and that kind of humour is just not my cup of tea. Which is not strange: my humour is very odd. Anyway, I fell asleep during the movie a couple of times. As we did not have a lot of money, we decided to just go to the hotel, walking around at Empire Live all day had us a bit tired, though afterwards I was a bit disappointed that we did not really go for it that night.

Sunday was a day full of panels: costume designer Alexandra Byrne, Production designer Eve Stewart and Cinematography with Dod Mantle and Seamus McGarvey. The last one was my least favorite, because it was very abstract, but specifically the one with Eve Stewart: oh my god, I loved it. She totally inspired me to want to be a Production designer too, which sounds like a great job for someone like me, though the level of stuff you need to take care of is pretty insane.

Then we had to had home unfortunately, so we missed the last evening of the festival, but it was really nice. It was nice to see the super cool writers of Empire live, especially Helen O Hara who is my favorite. And I had a good time with my ex W and our friend P, it was really a lovely weekend and even though the tickets are very expensive, I would definitely go again next year (but may be buy seperate tickets for the events instead of this all access pass). Friday evening was lovely, we got ice cream and drinks and it was just very well organised.

More about the movies in other blogs on PsychoUnicorn, have a lovely evening!