Lovely Token Homo cult movie screenings in London

Over the last few weeks I’ve been to a handful of cinema screenings by Token Homo, who bills himself as putting on “queer, cult, and curious cinema events at venues across London”, and they have been great.

Not only have the films been enjoyable, but the actual screenings themselves are fun. And the world and the internet needs more fun.

[How can you not enjoy scenes like these from Frankenstein vs Baragon?]

I’ve been to Token Homo screenings at the bar in the Finsbury Park Picturehouse and at Beer Merchants Tap in Hackney Wick – there are also events at Genesis cinema in Bethnal Green – and they both have the same essential ingredients: a relaxed screening with an introduction, an intermission, a quiz, silly prizes, a bar, and an encouragement not to spend the whole film staring at your phone or yapping through it, but an exhortation to laugh, cry, whoop and generally treat it like a social event rather than worship silently at the sacred altar of the motion picture.

(However, I mean, god, I haven’t treated it like a social event myself and *gasp* talked to people, because we all know whether it is football, gigs or curious cinema screenings, I very much enjoy being alone in a crowd)

[Waiting for The Hills Have Eyes in Hackney Wick]

And I am not kidding about the fact that I used to hate going to the cinema. As I always used to put in the opening blurb to my one-line cinema reviews, as soon as I sit down in the cinema I always want to get a beer and go to the toilet as if it is a gig, not sit in exam conditions. Just the very thought that I can’t get up for the next 90-120 minutes used to induce “the horror”.

It was even worse when I smoked. I remember, as a teenager and twentysomething, nipping out of movies groups of friends had dragged me to so I could have a ciggie in the toilets. One time after a film the people I was with were ribbing me that when I’d gone off for a smoke I’d missed the scene where the leading actress was topless – clearly an absolute unmitigated disaster as a straight teenage boy – and only years later realising there had been no nudity in the film at all and it had been a wind-up, like the Carling “Sofa” advert where the guy is made to believe a goal has been scored while he was in the bathroom, but it was just his mates co-ordinating a fake cheer.

Anyway, none of that for me these days. I made a conscious decision a few years ago that it is fine to go to the loo, bring in some “adult cans” to a screening, and walk out of a film if it was boring me after twenty minutes, or sometimes later, if I realise that I really don’t care how it is going to end – I’m looking at you Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Sometimes you maybe miss a crucial moment by nipping out for a wee, but then I’ve missed loads of goals at football over the years and it doesn’t stop me enjoying the medium, and there will be another movie along next week.

[I think this was the furthest I got into a movie at the cinema and then walked out – about 40 minutes – when I realised, Jenna Ortega or not, I just did not care what happened to any of these people, alive or dead]

Anyway check out Token Homo. I have loved it. You could love it too. Future listings can be found here.