Leeds Cinema Crawl Vol. 2: Sophomore Features
Tom Grieve, Contributing WriterBook now
Leeds Cinema Crawl
Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.
Take a cinematic journey across the city with Leeds Cinema Crawl. Starting at Cottage Road Cinema, then zipping over to Hyde Park Picture House, before a stop at Archive on the way to The Howard Assembly Room, this city-spanning film marathon is a proper cinematic journey.
This is the second edition of the Leeds Cinema Crawl, so naturally, they’ve decided to pick four director’s superior second features. That means a selection of sophomore films that brought filmmakers to wider audience attention, and helped launch the careers of some big time directors.
The day starts brightly at 11AM with Edgar Wright’s much-loved rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead at Cottage Road Cinema. An affectionate riff on the zombie films of George A. Romero, this 2004 follow up to Wright’s 1995 no-budget debut A Fistful of Fingers, is the film that brought the director mainstream acclaim alongside his Spaced stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Next, it’s off to Hyde Park Picture House for Bill Forsyth’s BAFTA-winning 1981 classic, Gregory’s Girl. Eternally charming, this high school coming-of-ager is considered amongst the greatest Scottish films ever made, and screens as a new restoration this September.
As we head into the evening, James Cameron’s The Terminator ups the ante at Archive. Cameron’s first film was box-office bomb Piranha II: The Spawning and provided little indication as to the director’s future successes. 1984’s The Terminator and its star Arnold Schwarzenegger, need little introduction, but the uninitiated should expect a smart, lean sci-fi thriller that more than meets the hype.
Rounding out the evening is Damien Chazelle’s 2014 Whiplash starring Miles Teller as an aspiring jazz drummer and J. K. Simmons as the ruthless teacher whose methods drive the student near madness. Chazelle’s debut was Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, which received good notices considering it was his Harvard student thesis film, but Whiplash was a phenomenon, winning multiple statues at the Academy Awards.
