Empire Live - Day One

This weekend was all about film. So, my favourite kind of weekend. Months ago my friend (Foxo) and I bought tickets to this event. We thought we'd see some movies, maybe some others things, enjoy some drinks, go bowling and the event did exactly what it said on the tin. Almost.

There was a bit of embellishing going on from Empire, claiming a preview of Free Fire, Ben Wheatly's much anticipated film. When in fact it is was exclusive footage. Even Wheatly who was there at the screening for High-Rise pointed this out. And there were some weird things happening with the schedule.

We had tickets for High-Rise, which, started midway, the panel discussion, Women on Screen, which we both really wanted to see BUT this very popular and interesting discussion was not placed well in the schedule. This annoyed me greatly. So, Empire, remember this, you put a hot topic panel in the middle of other popular items, you will annoy your loyal readers.

We stepped out of the tube and headed for the much-changed O2, well the surrounding part has changed a great deal since I was there last. The first thing we did, apart from seek out coffee (needed my fix) was marvel at the Dome. It truly is gigantic and only half of the Dome, as I’m sure most know, is used or open to the public. 

We headed over to the superscreen to stare and marvel at a sneak preview at Luke Cage footage with the man himself, Mike Colter, who almost ran into in our hurry to get there. Mixed in with a Q&A with Colter, we got see some exclusive clips and some trailers. I was looking forward to the series but now I am completely hyped up for it. Only a week until it appears on Netflix! Colter too was brilliant, telling us some funny stories but the highlight came from a child in the audience asking what his ideal costume would be. Colter basically described a onesie with gold on it. An excellent start to the weekend.

Next we downed some sushi as it was the only place that didn’t have a extra long queue outside then we dashed back over to the superscreen again for a last minute addition to our own schedules, War on Everything. I loved this film, a mixture of hilarious dialogue, horrible characters you can’t stop watching and even some heartfelt moments that maybe shouldn’t be. As I said, I loved it. But I think director John Michael McDonagh stole the show. Not only should he have his own films school, with his words of wisdom and blunt honesty, he’s a damn fine screenwriter. Another very funny interview and Q&A. I admired Calvary, his second film and I should see The Guard, very soon.

Before we went to our final event of the day we snuck away to check out the Empire Hub, which was in the Brooklyn Bowling alley. We had a look around, scoped out the bowling situation and were weirded out by the ‘art’ that decorated the bathrooms.

Last event was a live director’s commentary of The Raid with Gareth Evans and Empire’s own Chris Hewitt. Luckily I had already seen the film so I got to sit back and laugh at the anecdotes from Evans. It was insane how much he remembered about each of the extras and the extras and some of the actors were just normal everyday guys. There were even some shots and mistakes that Evans happily shared with us going into detail about the smallest of things. It was such a great experience and in fact, made me enjoy the film more.

After the film we headed back over to the bowling alley as we were determined to get our free drinks AND bowl before we had to run for the last train. As there were only two of us, we naturally put fake names into the game. So the winner of the game was Astronaut Mike Dexter and close on the heels was Foxy and in 3^rd place, Night Cheese.

And this was all just day one.