Ever heard of the Essential! cinema in Wardour Street, London? No, neither had we, that is until we found these two vintage programmes from it dating back to July & September 1981. A quick trip over to the always amazing Cinema Treasures website reveals its history as a screen that changed hands and styles many times during the 1970s and into the 80s. From a preview theatre, to a porn cinema and then in 1976 is turned into the Essential, which is what we’re interested in. These two programmes both date from 1981 and show that the programming there leaned heavily towards the cult, arthouse and music film side of things. In fact you could still programme all of these films today and have a very credible line up of films to show people. What’s great though is at the time a lot of these films were then fairly recent, especially the punk documentaries which they played in September, quite remarkable to think that we’re now so far away from this time. PLUS you know all of this would have been screened on 35 or 16MM, let’s hope one of two of the prints screened here still live on out in the wild somewhere!
Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we’ve decided to part ways with our current venue, this takes effect immediately which means our 100th night was our last time there.
But it’s not the end of The Duke, we’re going to take a break and concentrate on DukeFest which is still scheduled to take place in the last week of June. We’re looking for a new venue now which we’ll use for two of the festival nights; we’ll let you know in due course what’s happening with that.
We’ve also got several other events which we should be taking part in over the Summer, so there’s still lots going on. After that we’ll look into getting a permanent new home and taking things from there.
As always thank you all so much for your support and for always coming along to check out what we’re showing, we couldn’t do it without you!
Monday 4th April – PimpShuei – Show stars at 7PM Ends around 8PM
This April Alex is heading all the way to Philadelphia, USA to represent The Duke at the Cinedelphia Film Festival, a massive 2-week extravaganza of incredible films, offbeat TV and general video madness. We’ve been invited to take part and we’ll be unleashing a best of our Found Footage Show on Saturday night right in the heart of Philadelphia.
To warm up for this we’re doing a bonus Duke night at one of our favourite London bars, the one and only PimpShuei. Come along and join us as we run through the show we’re put together for Philadelphia and unleash on you the best of our Found Footage finds! We really want to see how it all plays with a crowd so please do come along and check out the show, plus we might throw in a few extra surprises along the way.
Also as Evrim can’t make our 100th Duke Night he’ll be here this time so come and join us as we belatedly celebrate 100 nights of film chaos with him at our 100.5 night!
Shows starts at 7PM and should run about 45-Minutes, stick around after the show for drinks and fun. FREE ENTRY as always!
It’s nearly time for FrightFest 2015 and we’ll be back taking over one of the Discovery Screens for a double bill of film chaos including hosting The Late Night Film Party. So to get your all ready for 5-days of back-to-back films here’s our Top 5 films to watch over the weekend, each of these is 100% Duke approved!
5) Curtain: If Henenlotter ever needed an heir; Jeron Henrie-Mcrea might just be what he’s looking for. Mixing lo-fi, lo-budget charm with an impressive determination to craft a world with its very own rules, ‘Curtain’ defines the best of low-budget making. See it now and be one of the first discover a major upcoming talent whilst also getting lost in the weird esotericness that is this film.
4) Final Girl: It’s time someone took the classic girl in peril formula, gave it a good beating and then put it through the grinder: meet Final Girl, a new film from photographer turned filmmaker Tyler Shields – blessed with brilliant acting, drop dead gorgeous to look at AND completely revisionist in its approach, this short but sweet punch to the temple will both shake you and leave you gasping for more.
3) Deathgasm: Take heavy metal, Peter Jackson and a spirit of can-do and the mix you have spells ‘Deathgasm’. A throwback to the low-budget high-spirit genre comedies of yesteryear, this is one midnight film which will both make you laugh with its unique brand of silliness and blow your mind with its outrageous gore and special effects, an overall winner and the most likely to please an audience.
2) Rabid Dogs: How do you remake one of the most downbeat, sleazy and brilliant films in the history of cinema? Why, you keep the basics and turn everything else up to 20, of course. Director Eric Hannezo‘s stylish, heart-pounding take on the Bava classic is a noir/giallo ride for the modern century with a kick-ass synth soundtrack to boot which cleverly and carefully utilises the original theme to great effect. Involving several stand-out sequences including one pagan ceremony straight out of Wicker Man, this is brilliant, audacious invention of the highest kind. Simply put, you owe it to yourself to experience Rabid Dogs on the big screen.
1) Remix, Remake, Rip-Off: It might at first seem like nepotism to put our own screening at number 1 but ‘Remix, Remake, Rip-Off’ really is one of the best documentaries you’re likely to ever see about genre cinema: imagine a country in political turmoil whose burgeoning cinema delved head-first into the crazy waters of genre films in order to satisfy a demanding audience and you’ve got the starting point for this crazy journey of film which will not only introduce you to some of the most inventive, funny and downright mad filmmakers you’re ever likely to see but also will give you an even bigger appreciation for all those classics we take for granted. Mad, bad and dangerous to know, Remix Remake Ripoff will twist your head, blow your mind and explode your expectations. A must-see!
