Once every four months, members of the Oswestry Film Society can be found in the bar of the Wynnstay Hotel, wrestling with the great conundrum of what films to show for their next season. Thankfully it’s a fairly bloodless affair, as we are all (generally) the politest of folks. Of course, it doesn’t mean that the conversation isn’t occasionally heated, because the one thing guaranteed to excite a film enthusiast more than watching films, is talking about films.
Just like those that compare notes on their football team’s performance on a Saturday afternoon, or the glint in a bookseller’s eye when asked for a recommendation, beware striking up a conversation with a film buff, because once they get started there’s no stopping them.
Maybe ‘film buff’ is the wrong label, because it conjures up images of Barry Norman, but anyone with a passing interest in cinema will have an opinion to share. There’s just as much fun in singing the praises of a film you have enjoyed as there is in disagreeing, it doesn’t really matter. The wonderful variety of cinema that means some films can move one person to tears and leave the next person cold.
One of the best things about being part of Oswestry Film Society – and by extension a regular visitor to our host cinema, Kinokulture – are the conversations between our members after a screening. Sometimes it’s a brief exchange and other times there is intense debate. After the screening of My Cousin Rachel, opinion was greatly divided as to whether Rachel Weisz’s titular character was a scheming villain or the innocent victim of circumstances.
Our new season starts in May. If you haven’t been to a screening before, then you are warmly invited, either to an individual film or the whole season. Enjoy a great film and tell us what you thought of it after, because as the late, great Bob Hoskins used to say for BT, “It’s good to talk.”
By Tom Brookes.
From our weekly column in the Oswestry Advertizer, published on 27th March 2018.