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Euronews
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Euronews
Sex, sleaze and subversion: Inside London's new grindhouse cinema
On an unassuming street in central London, a red-painted building peeks at passersby — its facade plastered with a close-up of The Man with the X-Ray Eyes. Inside, I'm watching Ruggero Deodato's The Washing Machine, an Italian murder mystery involving psychosexual mind games, fridge fornication, and bleeding appliances. It's the kind of filmic fever dream only The Nickel would dare to screen: a new micro cinema in London founded by filmmaker and programmer Dominic Hicks. Imbued with the frenetic spirit and sleazy charm of retro American grindhouse theatres, it's a shrine to the deranged gems of exploitation cinema: gritty, boundary-pushing B-movies. Or as Hicks puts it: 'A safe place for weirdos and outsiders.' June's inaugural screenings include everything from Todd Browning's silent horror The Unknown, to Roman Polanski's erotic thriller Bitter Moon, to David Winters' Cannes-set giallo The Last Horror Film. The programming embraces an anything-goes approach, inspired by the edgy offerings of London's infamous Scala cinema. 'I like films where the beauty in them comes through how the audience receives and nurtures them in their collective imagination,' Hicks tells Euronews Culture. 'Whether it's the practical effects, or the score, or the bad acting that they find really quotable — it belongs to the audience in the long run.' The Nickel might be small, but in an era of digital disconnection and algorithmic ennui, it's part of a growing movement across Europe: DIY film clubs and hyperlocal venues that counter the monoculture of streaming services and multiplexes. From Liverpool's trans-inclusive 'Paraphysis Cinema' to the feminist-themed 'Tonnerre' in Paris, these repertory pop-ups represent a desire among cinephiles to discover subversive oddities as intended: with an audience. 'These community spaces are an opportunity to bring people back together to have conversations about movies,' Hicks says. 'You don't have to all feel the same, but the idea of being challenged, or getting the giggles together about some strange little forgotten gem, is always going to be entertaining.' This idea of confronting discomfort together is key. Namwali Serpell, writing in the New Yorker, recently lamented the rise of 'new literalism' — a cinematic trend where movies like The Substance and Anora heavy-handedly spell out their meanings and politics. Exploitation cinema, in all its moral ambiguity and tonal absurdity, offers a thrilling antithesis. 'I actually prefer, particularly when you look at the films of the 70s, how murky those movies were — that it's not abundantly clear if the filmmakers had the right morals,' Hicks explains. 'For me, that doesn't mean it's actually promoting poor morals. I think audiences are intelligent enough to challenge what they're seeing.' Before raising nearly £14,000 (€16,640) for its permanent space, Hicks ran The Nickel as an event programme for his local pub and The Cinema Museum. Much of what he shared was on rare 16mm prints, tapping into the sensory ambience of physical formats. Similar to the revival of vinyl, the crackle and click of film reels have become a way for people to connect with art more tangibly. 'You can't come close to the aesthetic experience of watching an original film print being projected in public when you're streaming things digitally,' Hicks says, citing one magical moment at The Cinema Museum when the projector got stuck and burned a film print: 'Everybody was just delighted. It was like we'd seen a shooting star.' Though The Nickel is still under construction when I visit, the vibe already feels special. Obscure physical media lines the entrance's shelves, their lurid covers begging to be fondled. Meanwhile, the dimly-lit basement bar is set to double as a communal hub for film-related workshops. 'Ultimately the plan would be to have everybody create projects together, then we can screen them here,' says Hicks, excited at the prospect of working 'on weird shit' with others. At a time when cinemas face a precarious future, The Nickel's vision is ambitious and comfortingly optimistic. According to the Independent Cinema Office (ICO), almost a third of UK independent cinemas are under threat, with London institutions like The Prince Charles launching petitions against redevelopment. But Hicks doesn't believe cinema will die — just its commercial models of old. 'I think we're seeing a return to that neighbourhood, smaller, independent cinema, because multiplexes don't give people a compelling enough reason to leave their sofas,' he explains. 'But I have faith that people won't surrender something so essential as the experience of going to the movies. I really hope not, anyway. And if they do, it'll be a hill worth dying on for me.' As the end credits of The Washing Machine roll, the room fizzes with the excitable energy of a shared (and sordid) little secret. Away from the anodyne streaming output, there's a quiet rebelliousness in The Nickel's embrace of mess, madness and misfits — a reminder that cinema's darkened rooms are often where we feel most fully seen. The Nickel cinema opens in London on 11 June. An image of five elderly women having a giggle while sharing spring rolls in a quiet corner of Sichuan has been crowned the world's best food photograph. Titled simply as "The Elderly Having Delicious Food", the heartwarming photo by Chinese photographer Xiaoling Li has taken the top prize at this year's World Food Photography Awards, beating nearly 10,000 entries from 70 countries. Shot in Shuangliu Ancient Town, the image captures what Li describes as a 'Dragon Gate formation' - a Chinese phrase for neighbours gathering to chat, gossip, and share stories over food. 'They eat the famous Sichuan snack 'spring rolls,'' says Li. 'Food makes these people happy; they enjoy a beautiful and joyful life.' The awards, sponsored by Tenderstem® Bimi®, were announced in a glittering ceremony at London's Mall Galleries, hosted by chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi. The competition spans 25 categories - from 'Bring Home the Harvest' to 'Food in the Field' - and celebrates the many ways food weaves through our lives, cultures, and stories. 'These Awards showcase the power of photography in telling incredible food stories from around the world,' said Dave Samuels, Brand Director at Tenderstem® Bimi®. 'No matter how the world changes, food remains at the heart of our lives.' A selection of the winning images will be on display at Fortnum & Mason from 2 June and the Museum of the Home from 3 June to 7 September. Below, feast your eyes upon a few of our favourite winning images from this year's competition.
Chicago Tribune
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: An exceptionally freaky Lon Chaney movie, restored, comes to Chicago this Sunday only
'Gruesome and at times shocking' as well as 'anything but a pleasant story,' according to the 1927 New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall, 'The Unknown' stars Lon Chaney as Alonzo the Armless, a knife-throwing, sharpshooting featured traveling circus performer with a shady past. He's in love with the owner's daughter, Nanon (Joan Crawford), the apple of another's eye: that of the resident strongman. 'All my life, men have tried to put their beastly hands on me,' she confesses to Alonzo backstage, amid the sawdust and manufactured ground fog director Tod Browning and his collaborators plainly adore. (So do I.) Where 'The Unknown' goes from there in its beautifully restored 66 minutes turns a triangular romantic melodrama into its own sinister geometric configuration. Alonzo's faking his armlessness (only confidant Cojo knows the truth) because he has a rap sheet and a highly incriminating second thumb on one hand. This fugitive from Spanish justice – 'The Unknown' takes place in MGM-Hollywood-soundstage-Madrid — apparently has killed before. And in silent superstar Chaney's sixth of 10 assignments with director Browning, a key figure in cinema horror and nightmarish carnival imagery, Alonzo surely will kill, and maim (himself?) and suffer again. Happy V-Day weekend! This Sunday only, the nonprofit Chicago Film Society screens a 35mm print of this recent George Eastman Museum restoration. Shortly after its 1927 run until the discovery of a print at the Cinematheque Française in 1968, 'The Unknown' was considered all but lost, like the majority of all silent films. But here it is, and the Eastman restoration will be preceded by a newly preserved experimental short film, courtesy of the Chicago Film Society: 'Comes to a Point Like an Ice Cream Cone' by Heather McAdams and Chicago musician/songwriter Chris Ligon. An amalgam of carnival, freak-show, and Baraboo, Wisconsin, Circus World archival footage from several different decades, the short is a frenetic whirligig — and the rhythmic opposite of 'The Unknown.' It has been shown in different versions in Chicago dating back to the 1980s, though officially completed in 1997. Hollywood often turned to the rich, colorful, often seedy visual possibilities of circus yarns in the second half of the 1920s, though seldom if ever with the outlandishness and psychosexual tension of 'The Unknown.' Manon cannot bear the touch of any man's hands, and it's implied that she may be a victim of incest. (Things improve for her once her father has left the scenario, shall we say.) Crawford works some startling wonders in this role, and later credited her career fortunes in part to working with Chaney. His fervent dedication to mastering the physical demands of Alonzo, with some help from a stand-in without arms, Paul Desmuke, left an impression on colleagues as well as audiences. All the same, 'The Unknown' was too much to be a real hit. Today, it's remarkable for many reasons, chiefly the opportunity to see Chaney's brilliantly expressive face without terrifying distortions in the name of terror. Is the film's narrative absurd? Extreme? Feverish? Guilty, guilty, guilty. But this is exceptional pulp, and Chaney and Crawford are startlingly effective. This Sunday's screening will be accompanied by a live musical score performed by Whine Cave, aka Kent Lambert and Sam Wagster.
