I was never too sure about this place ahead of time. It’s a bar, set in to the back of the IMAX theatre, itself in the sunken centre of the huge Waterloo roundabout. So I always expected to be met by the sight of what Gazz likes to call “Neck Beards” and people with “Haircuts”. These are people who think they are better than other people, because they know more about what they perceive to be, more intellectual subjects. Now, I can hold my own with intellectual conversational topics such as philosophy, history, and religion, but unless I’m talking with the right person, these typical academically rich conversations just bore me. I perceive an intellectual snob to be someone who gains entertainment of talking (very loudly) intellectually without caring who it is they’re talking to. Because this is a bar inside an independent cinema, screening the snobbily* perceived best of world cinema, the place is definitely 100% Neck Beard.

* The best of something can be judged in different ways, like an average. Is something better because less, but cleverer people like it, and can spew bullshit about why they like it? Or by straight numbers, even if those numbers are all proles only interested in colours, and moving shapes?

The period at which the reviewing would be done, was during its pub quiz. Because of the setting (a cinema), it’s a film quiz, and because it’s the BFI it’s about shit films that no real person has ever heard of.

So you’re aware of the type of bar it is, and the type of ego it feeds. But does this really matter? Not too much. Even whilst quizzling yourself, you don’t expect to win. If you’re not a pretentious-type film-nerd you’ll almost certainly come last (unless I’m also there with a team – who incidentally, were the only people to have worked on a real film), but freed from the pressures of a girlfriend demanding the right answer, you might just be able to have fun with it. Hey, suggesting one of their Soundtrack Round answers was the theme tune to Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is a laugh.

So what else is there to enjoy? Not really the sort of place that takes too kindly to drinking. Very expensive prices and not much of a selection meant Gazz and were both made to settle for what they had, at great expense. Even a small cup of nuts you could get for the price of a couple of sandwiches elsewhere. The staff aren’t worked hard enough to really care about serving people that well, or quickly. And I definitely wouldn’t advise getting into a conversation with any of them judging by the quizmaster’s positioning on my annoy-o-meter.

BEER SELECTION: Only a few options depending on your tipple. You’re told what to like, and you’d better like it.  **

COST OF A ROUND: Most I’ve paid for a bottle of cider anywhere, and it was a small bottle! *

STAFF: Someone dropped a glass, and no one cheered. No One! (only us). **

FOOD: Didn’t see a menu. Snack food you’re paying as much as the drinks. *

SKIRT RATIO: Film-nerds means skinny, jacketed types, all body hair and bad skin (men). If you do see a girl, 79% chance she’s a lesbian. A boring lesbian. *

Overall: You can make the quiz enjoyable if you really try, but this isn’t what a pub, bar, café, cinema, or anything else should be. *

Film Café @ IMAX - Waterloo - Brought to you by James Wormald -