This post has been a long time coming (well since last Wednesday 17th March) because it’s been quite hard to know where to start. Such was the fantasticyness of the Jameson Cult Film screening of MOON at the Royal Institution in London.

As you may recall, we first raised a call to arms back in January 2010 when we discovered via our old friend Ben Mortimer that Jamesons were running a vote off between MOON, Donny Darko & War Of The Worlds (1953). The prize being a screening of the winning film at a very prestigious venue, The Royal Institution, London. So, we spread the word via all means possible to encourage all MOON fans to vote, and blow me down, we scored a massive 59% of the vote and won!!. Our gobs was smackered, and we started to get in touch with the wonderful Jameson account Manager Mr. Mauricio Samayoa from We Are Social to find out the what was what’s.

Now, we knew MOON was popular, and as all true cult films do, it has quickly grown beyond it’s initial theatrical and home releases to build a fantastic following of lovely people (like you, you’re my favourite btw), but I don’t think even Jamesons were prepared for the demand on tickets, as word spread on our platforms of choice (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs) the initial demand for ticket registration caused the hosting server to take a breather & nip out for a cup of tea FANTASTIC 🙂

The fantastic team at Jameson Cult Film Club got going with making arrangements, and as much as we were aware of the venu and some details of the evenings events, there were some suprises (from both sides) that elevated the evening beyond what any of us could have hoped for.

Do you mind if I takes a breather? Thanks, I’ll just grab a mug of splosh, you have a look at these rather good pics from @unclewilco and I’ll get back to you just underneath in 5 mins? Ta 😉

Good aren’t they? Hopefully give you an idea of the effort that both Jamesons & The Royal Institute went to, to create a very special evening.

We all started arriving at around 18:30 for a 19:00 start with a great buzz building outside, and what an honour it was to enter the building that has born witness to some of the greatest scientific discoveries for more than 200 years! Members of the public entering these hallowed halls is no surprise however, as the RI supports public engagement with science through a programme of lectures, the most famous being those you may have seen (or been lucky to attend) on the telly box at Christmas, funnily enough called the ‘Royal Institution Christmas Lectures’ Check out their site for events and details on the most famous exhibit, a reconstruction of Michael Faraday’s laboratory.

Upon ascending a curving marble staircase to the 1st floor, it soon became clear why we were there though, corridors lit in a mysterious spacey green tint, beautiful space ladies with silver hair directing us towards the Space Bar where we were met by a superb array of Jameson Whiskey beverages, I plumped for the ginger, but I did hear mention of some kind of pickle licking thing en all? It was not all guests though. When Jamesons put on these events, they pull out all the stops, we had surly looking Sam Bell 2 walking about (chap refused to crack despite being provoked) and a sad Sam 1 reclined on a sofa looking worse for wear (he was also spotted later tending his plants) This all added to the atmosphere of the evening, along with the decking out of the place as MOON base Sarang, entrances to the main auditorium labelled BAY 1>3. Plenty of Lunar Industries signs up as well to make it clear where we were.

The building of atmosphere continued into the main auditorium. As we took our seats and looked up at th screen we were greeted by the site of an astronaut suspended from the ceiling, an animatronic one we all assumed, until he was lowered to the floor and made his exit, in slow motion, zero gravity style, big applause.

Lights down and we were eased into the screening itself with a support short ‘Blake’s Junction 7‘ very funny, disturbed by my feelings towards MacKenzie Crook as Servalan though!

Then we got the main feature, Duncan Jones’ MOON, and time to sit back and marvel at the achievement of team MOON, to make such a fantastic film, with such tight budget constraints, and create an instant cult classic. I also had to prevent myself from tapping MOON’s very own Benedict Wong on the shoulder each time he appeared on screen to say “that’s you that is” as he sat in front of me, cause, well, he knew that 🙂

Was great to discover afterwards that 2 of the peeps I went in with were seeing MOON for the first time (lucky buggers) and met many more afterwards the same, all mighty impressed with the film, and Sam Rockwell’s stunning performance 🙂

So with all the effort and surprises from Jamesons and the fantastically helpful Mauricio Samayoa how could it get any better after that? Meeting people, that’s what. Sharing a drink and a real life chat with some of the wonderful tweeters and bloggers we’ve all been talking to about MOON for the last year, up to this point.

But most of all, we were honoured to have MOON cast & crew with us for the screening as well.

• Lunar Industries Thompson, Benedict Wong
• Visual Effects Supervisor Gavin Rothery
• Art Director Hideki Arichi
• Visual Effects Editor Barrett Heathcote

So I’d like to thank them all especially for coming,to the screening, icing on the cake (to go with the moon dust the Jamesons ladies was dishing out)

I’m sure I’ve missed stuff out, it was an incredible evening and i can’t recommend attending a future Jamesons Cult Film Club enough, they really love film, and go above and beyond to provide a very memorable experience. Follow them on Twitter for future announcements, and check their site for details on previous / future screenings HERE

And what a wonderful experience it was to hook up with people through social networks and combine with minimal communication to end up with such a FANTASTIC evening.

We also managed to catch up with the MOON crew for a video interview conducted by Ben Mortimer and filmed by James Cuff which is being edited as I type, so we’ll wang that up later if that’s ok.

Thanks to EVERYONE involved in the evening, especially all of you who loved MOON, voted, and came to the event 🙂