Prince Charles Cinema

Coordinates: 51°30′41″N 0°7′49″W / 51.51139°N 0.13028°W / 51.51139; -0.13028

The Prince Charles Cinema (PCC) is a repertory cinema located in Leicester Place, 40 metres north of Leicester Square in the West End of London. It shows a rotating programme of cult, arthouse, and classic films alongside recent Hollywood releases – typically more than ten different films a week on two screens (285 seats downstairs and 104 seats upstairs). It also hosts the sing-a-long version of The Sound of Music, which has been shown on a regular basis for over five years, as well as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Joseph. The cinema has achieved a cult status amongst fans, sticking out as the only independent cinema in the West End.

History

Constructed between 1961 and 1962, the building was built by Richard Costain Limited for Alfred Esdaile and designed by Carl Fisher and Associates. The building originally functioned as a theatre with a distinctive 'satellite dish' curve to the floor of the stalls. The venue later operated as a porn cinema whose screenings included the UK's longest run of Emmanuelle, as well as Caligula.

Charles, Prince of Wales

Charles, Prince of Wales (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948), is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II. Known alternatively in Scotland as Duke of Rothesay and in South West England as Duke of Cornwall, he is the longest-serving heir apparent in British history, having held the position since 1952. He is also the oldest person to be next-in-line to the throne since Sophia of Hanover (the heir presumptive to Queen Anne), who died in 1714 at the age of 83.

Charles was born at Buckingham Palace as the first grandchild of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. He was educated at Cheam and Gordonstoun Schools, which his father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, had attended as a child, as well as the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After earning a bachelor of arts degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, Charles served in the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976.

In 1981, he married Lady Diana Spencer and they had two sons: Prince William (born 1982) later to become Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Harry (born 1984). In 1996, the couple divorced, following well-publicised extra-marital affairs. Diana died in a car crash in Paris the following year. In 2005, Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who uses the title Duchess of Cornwall.

The Prince

The Prince (Italian: Il Principe [il ˈprintʃipe]) is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus (About Principalities). However, the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. This was done with the permission of the Medici pope Clement VII, but "long before then, in fact since the first appearance of The Prince in manuscript, controversy had swirled about his writings".

Although it was written as if it were a traditional work in the mirrors for princes style, it is generally agreed that it was especially innovative. This is only partly because it was written in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin, a practice which had become increasingly popular since the publication of Dante's Divine Comedy and other works of Renaissance literature.

The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the effective truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. It was also in direct conflict with the dominant Catholic and scholastic doctrines of the time concerning how to consider politics and ethics.

Tommy Wiseau

Tommy Wiseau (/wɪˈzoʊ/) is a director, screenwriter, producer, and actor based in the United States. He is best known for The Room (2003), which has been described by many critics as "one of the worst movies ever made" and has gained cult film status. He also directed the 2004 documentary Homeless in America and the 2015 sitcom The Neighbors.

Personal life

Wiseau is secretive about his early life. In various interviews he has claimed to have lived in France "a long time ago", asserted that he grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, US, and described having "an entire family" in Chalmette, Louisiana. In interviews following the release of The Room in 2003, Wiseau gave an age indicating that he was born in 1968 or 1969. Actor Greg Sestero claims in his 2013 memoir The Disaster Artist that his brother's girlfriend obtained copies of Wiseau's US immigration papers and found that Wiseau was born "much earlier" than he claimed, in an Eastern Bloc country in the 1950s.

In The Disaster Artist, Sestero asserts that Wiseau intimated to him—admittedly through "fantastical, sad, self-contradictory stories"—that he grew up somewhere in communist Eastern Europe, and as a young adult moved to Strasbourg, France, where he adopted the name Pierre and worked as a restaurant dishwasher. According to Sestero, Wiseau described being wrongfully arrested following a drug raid at a youth hostel, and being traumatised by his treatment by the French police—an experience that led him to arrange passage to America to live with his aunt and uncle in Chalmette, Louisiana. Wiseau subsequently moved to San Francisco, California, where he worked as a street vendor selling toys to tourists near Fisherman's Wharf.

Prince

A prince is a male ruler, monarch, or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. Prince is also a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess. The English word derives, via the French word prince, from the Latin noun princeps, from primus (first) + capio (to seize), meaning "the chief, most distinguished, ruler, prince".

Historical background

The Latin word prīnceps (older Latin *prīsmo-kaps, literally "the one who takes the first [place/position]"), became the usual title of the informal leader of the Roman senate some centuries before the transition to empire, the princeps senatus.

Emperor Augustus established the formal position of monarch on the basis of principate, not dominion. He also tasked his grandsons as summer rulers of the city when most of the government were on holiday in the country or attending religious rituals, and, for that task, granted them the title of princeps.

The title has generic and substantive meanings: