Save the Cameo

When I lived in Edinburgh one of the places I enjoyed going to was the Cameo cinema. Opening originally in 1914 and undergoing a refit and name change in 1949 it is now under threat. There are proposals to turn the main cinema into a bar and convert the current bar into a cinema screen.

Have a look at the Save the Cameo site for more information.

Although nowadays I mainly go to the big monster of Cineworld for my movies, being hooked in of course with their unlimited films offer, I did always enjoy visiting one of the art house cinemas in the Capital.

The monthly midnight mystery movie was always good fun, where they would put a clue to the film up every week and the ticket price would rise with each clue from £1 to £4. The film was generally always a new movie prior to release. Films always seem better when you get to see them early.

There was a regular double bill on a Sunday, usually of older films, which we always resolved to go to, but never did. They probably still do these, but I haven’t been for years, although I did look in when I passed recently.

Among my Cameo memories are seeing Michael Winterbottom’s I Want You at the film festival where the star, a sheepish looking Allesandro Navarro was introduced to the handful of people that made up the audience.

Peter Mullan providing an entertaining Q & A after a screening of Orphans. Seeing American Movie in Cameo 2 and having to explain to our friend Simon afterwards that it was in actual fact a documentary “You mean that was real?!”

When the mystery movie was The Big Lebowski; seeing The Thin Red Line and hearing that Stanley Kubrick had just died; seeing The Full Monty on a date; a bunch of us not telling George what Todd Solonz’s Happiness was all about, leaving him to nod off and then wake right at the worst part and a packed house roaring along with Being John Malkovich.