Dream Movies
Mar. 14th, 2008 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmOh dear – I was quite looking forward to seeing Get Carter on TV, and then it goes and turns out to be the one with Sylvester Stallone instead of Michael Caine, transplanted to America. Yes, I know, it’s happened often enough. The War of the Worlds, The Wicker Man, The Birds, they’ve all made that transatlantic trip. But has it ever been done the other way round? How would people in the United States feel if they opened their TV guides to see....
Alan Bennett’s Die Hard.
It’s just another ordinary day at Frampton Regis Post Office and General Store, until a group of masked ruffians burst in. At first it seems they’re after the pensions, but it soon becomes clear that their real object is to thwart the planned by-pass, scheduled to run straight through a nearby area of Special Scientific Interest. They stage a sit-down protest, refusing to leave until the Council sends someone to “talk seriously” about it. But they have reckoned without Special Constable John McVitie. McVitie had only popped in for a packet of macaroons, and happened to be bending over to remove his cycle clips when the assault began, and was thus out of sight behind the greeting cards. Now, armed with nothing but his trusty ballpoint pen and regulation notebook, he must take on the forces of NIMBY.
Wight
In Wight, writer-director Spinney Oglander plays a bespectacled, neurotic tour guide. An Islander through and through, he has never set foot on the mainland, and sees no reason to do so now. Despite a good job telling visitors the history of Carisbrooke Castle he feels fundamentally unfulfilled, as he frequently explains to his longsuffering GP. That is, until he meets daffy Cynthia Chaplin, his opposite number at Osborne House... Stunningly shot, and full of the Jutish humour for which Oglander is renowned (“I saw a grey squirrel once. On black-and-white TV, it was”) Wight is a landmark film – and indeed the real star is arguably the Island itself. Sit back and prepare for a breathless open-top bus ride through its many vistas, from the moneyed sophistication of Cowes to the louche insouciance of Blackgang Chine.
Once Upon a Time in the West
“Thar’s tin in them thar hills,” cries old Padstow Pete, the grizzled “character” who haunts St Austell bus station. But before he is able to tell anyone exactly where, he— [that’s enough stupid films. Ed]
Alan Bennett’s Die Hard.
It’s just another ordinary day at Frampton Regis Post Office and General Store, until a group of masked ruffians burst in. At first it seems they’re after the pensions, but it soon becomes clear that their real object is to thwart the planned by-pass, scheduled to run straight through a nearby area of Special Scientific Interest. They stage a sit-down protest, refusing to leave until the Council sends someone to “talk seriously” about it. But they have reckoned without Special Constable John McVitie. McVitie had only popped in for a packet of macaroons, and happened to be bending over to remove his cycle clips when the assault began, and was thus out of sight behind the greeting cards. Now, armed with nothing but his trusty ballpoint pen and regulation notebook, he must take on the forces of NIMBY.
Wight
In Wight, writer-director Spinney Oglander plays a bespectacled, neurotic tour guide. An Islander through and through, he has never set foot on the mainland, and sees no reason to do so now. Despite a good job telling visitors the history of Carisbrooke Castle he feels fundamentally unfulfilled, as he frequently explains to his longsuffering GP. That is, until he meets daffy Cynthia Chaplin, his opposite number at Osborne House... Stunningly shot, and full of the Jutish humour for which Oglander is renowned (“I saw a grey squirrel once. On black-and-white TV, it was”) Wight is a landmark film – and indeed the real star is arguably the Island itself. Sit back and prepare for a breathless open-top bus ride through its many vistas, from the moneyed sophistication of Cowes to the louche insouciance of Blackgang Chine.
Once Upon a Time in the West
“Thar’s tin in them thar hills,” cries old Padstow Pete, the grizzled “character” who haunts St Austell bus station. But before he is able to tell anyone exactly where, he— [that’s enough stupid films. Ed]
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 12:14 pm (UTC)I also fancy an island horror film: They came from the Mainland!, detailing the valiant struggles of the few surviving Vectians to fight off the awful invasion of tourists (or maybe grey squirrels) who bring their awful Mainland ways (like driving faster than 27 mph), and want to wipe out everything that the island stands for.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 04:10 pm (UTC)Chilling.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 03:39 pm (UTC)Not much of an elevator pitch, but it'd be better than U571. Or that film about Bletchley in which the Pole is the traitors, despite the fact that they were instrumental in enabling us to crack the bloody thing in real life.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 04:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 05:40 pm (UTC)I did actually have a surprisingly long cross-purposes conversation with someone who was talking about Poole Harbour when I thought they were talking about Pearl Harbour. It got increasingly bizarre until the penny dropped.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 07:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 05:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 07:09 pm (UTC)Oooooooooooh! SLY!!
Date: 2008-03-15 02:41 am (UTC)