The Boat That Rocked

Set in the 1960s, The Boat That Rocked (2009), revolves around the illegal radio station “Radio Rock” – a ship floating somewhere unknown in the North Sea.

Young Carl (Tom Sturridge), arrives on the pirate radio ship, to stay with Captain and godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy) in a bid to put his life back on track after being expelled from school.

The station’s crew includes American DJ “The Count” (Philip Seymour Hoffman), womaniser Dave (Nick Frost), “King of the Airwaves” Gavin (Rhys Ifans) and a rather silent “Midnight Mark” (Tom Wisdom).

What follows is a tale of sex, drugs, romance, and of course, rock ‘n’ roll, with the Government – including a fantastic minister called Twatt – trying hopelessly to bring the ship and it’s broadcastings down.

The film, written and directed by Richard Curtis, is absolutely brilliant with a classic 1960s soundtrack to match.

The humour is laugh-out-loud funny and you’ll find yourself rooting for the ship’s survival all the way through.

Nick Frost and Rhys Ifans are particularly brilliant in their roles, but above all, the whole film will have you rolling around laughing while searching for your mini-skirt and your go-go boots.

Reviews And Shoes rating: 9/10

“The Boat That Rocked” is an ensemble comedy in which the romance takes place between the young people of the ’60s and pop music. It’s about a band of rogue DJs that captivated Britain, playing the music that defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, preferred jazz. The Count, a big, brash, American god of the airwaves; Quentin, the boss of Radio Rock — a pirate radio station in the middle of the North Sea that’s populated by an eclectic crew of rock and roll DJs; Gavin, the greatest DJ in Britain who has just returned from his drug tour of America to reclaim his rightful position; Dave, an ironic, intelligent and cruelly funny co-broadcaster; and a fearsome British government official out for blood against the drug takers and lawbreakers of a once-great nation.

imdb

The boat that rocked… really rocks! This movie goes straight to my top 5 of 2009. It’s funny, original and poetic. The soundtrack is just amazing. One word… Epic! A must-see movie.

Rhys Ifans was hilarious… even better than when he played Spike in Notting Hill, Bill Nighy is always great, Kenneth Branagh is hardly recognizable and Tom Sturridge was a good discovery.

MaryG

]]> http://mxncinema.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/the-informers-2009/ Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:43:56 +0000 MxNCinema http://mxncinema.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/the-informers-2009/

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expected release date

………drum roll………

Nov.19.2010

AND THERE ARE TWO PARTS!!!!  Yeahhhhh David Yates is the director again! He has done so well on the other ones,and movies have grown so well with the charactersthe growth. Also, Rhys Ifans will be playing  Xenophilius Lovegood and Bill Nighy is going to be the new Rufus Scrimeour. Which is kinda funny since they were both just in Pirate Radio. The ending to this series is going to be EPIC and so bittersweet.

1. “Date Night” is a comedy featuring Tina Fey (“30 Rock”) and Steve Carell (“The Office”). They try to revive their marriage by going out on a date. Hilarity ensues after they are mistaken for another married couple who owe people money. If, like me, the comedic veterans aren’t enough to convince you to watch the movie, “Date Night” also stars rapper Common, Mila Kunis (“That ‘7os Show”), Mark Wahlberg (“Four Brothers”) and James Franco (“Pineapple Express”).

2. “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” also centers on a marriage on the rocks and a married couple on the run. This time around, though, Hugh Grant (“Notting Hill”) and Sarah Jessica Parker (“Sex and City”)  are placed in the witness protection program after seeing a murder. I’ve seen this trailer in theaters several times and every time, someone reacts to the last part of the trailer. Indeed, the laughs start once they relocate to Wyoming …

3. “Kick Ass” follows newcomer Aaron Johnson as he decides to become a superhero even though he has no powers. The tone of the film is similar to the humor in several Owen Wilson movies, such as “The Darjeeling Limited.” Christopher Mintz-Plasse, of “Superbad” fame, also stars. Johnson can also be seen in the John Lennon-film, “Nowhere Boy.” Its trailer is over here.

4. Acclaimed actor James McAvoy can next be seen in “The Last Station,” which focuses on the life of famed author Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer). The trailer doesn’t reveal much else, but the film does have a 7.3 star rating on IMDb.com. The film’s early release is supposedly a ploy to secure Plummer an Oscar nomination in next year’s weak Best Actor race. McAvoy’s real-life wife, Anne Marie Duff, as well as Oscar favorites Helen Mirren and Paul Giamatti co-star.

5. Focus Features is set to release “Babies,” a documentary which chronicles one year in the lives of different newborns around the world, namely Tokyo, San Francisco, Mongolia and Namibia.

Edward Norton, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Robert Pattinson, Vanessa Hudgens, “Toy Story 3,” romantic comedies (Amy Adams! Nicholas Sparks!), potential Oscar nominees (George Clooney! Emily Blunt!) and more after the jump.

6. Hollywood takes another stab at “Beauty and the Beast” with the adaptation of Alex Flinn’s novel, “Beastly.” The teaser trailer is so abrupt that I’m not excited to see it in theaters. Relative unknown Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens (“High School Musical”) star.

7. “Season of the Witch” reteams Nicolas Cage with “Gone in 60 Seconds” director, Dominic Sena. This heart-pounding action movie takes us with a band of knights who are tasked with moving a powerful witch to a monastery. Ron Perlman from “Hellboy” co-stars.

8. Amanda Seyfried (“Mamma Mia”) sure knows how to pick movies — at least, chick flicks that I want to see. First, there was Nicholas Sparks’s “Dear John.” Now, there’s “Letters to Juliet.” Seyfried stars as a girl who’s engaged to Gael Garcia Bernal (“Science of Sleep”) but goes on an adventure with Christopher Egan (“Eragon”) and Vanessa Redgrave after she finds Redgrave’s letter to a long lost love.

IMDb.com states that Hugh Dancy was originally cast in Bernal’s role but dropped out, which is a shame. Anyone who’s seen him in “The Jane Austen Book Club” knows that Dancy would have been perfect in this movie albeit in Egan’s role. Oh, well. Cue Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”

9. Noah Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale”) once again gifts us with his zing-damn-oh snap (!) dialogue in “Greenberg.” Ben Stiller tries his hand at drama as a man in a mid-life crisis. Jennifer Jason Leigh (“Single White Female”) and Rhys Ifans (to be seen in “Harry Potter 7″) round out the cast.

10. “Crazy Heart” is another film with an earlier-than-scheduled release date. Again, the movie studio is trying to nab its star, Jeff Bridges, a Best Actor nod. Bridges (“Iron Man”) stars as a country music star who’s down on his luck until his path crosses with a journalist (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

11. According to IMDb.com, “Remember Me” is up by 658 percent in popularity this week. The most probable reason? Robert Pattinson (“Twilight”) is the star. He is joined by Pierce Brosnan (“James Bond”), Chris Cooper (“The Kingdom”) and Emilie de Ravin (“Lost”).

12. In “Leaves of Grass,” Edward Norton plays twin brothers who plot to kill their small town’s drug lord. The supporting cast includes Susan Sarandon (“Stepmom”) and Keri Russell (“August Rush”).

13. “Extraordinary Measures” is based on the true story of John and Aileen Crowley who race to find a cure for their dying child. Brendan Fraser (“The Mummy”), Russell (“Felicity”) and Harrison Ford (“Indiana Jones”) star.

14. “In Ireland, women can propose to men on the 29th of February.” This is the premise of “Leap Year,” in which Amy Adams (“Enchanted”) takes it upon herself to propose to her longtime boyfriend. Fate intervenes when she lands in Wales instead and runs into Matthew Goode (“Chasing Liberty”).

15. In “Grown Ups,” five childhood friends reunite after 30 years. The movie’s cast is a who’s who of comedy, namely David Spade (“The Benchwarmers”), Chris Rock (“Down to Earth”), Adam Sandler (“Spanglish”), Kevin James (“Hitch”), Rob Schneider (“Hot Chick”), Maya Rudolph (“Away We Go”), Salma Hayek (“Frida”) and Maria Bello (“Coyote Ugly”).

16. After failing to impress the girl of his dreams, Michael Cera (“Superbad”) decides to rebel in the comedy, “Youth in Revolt.” Justin Long (“Accepted”) and Zach Galifianakis (“The Hangover”) also star in the movie. Trailer no.1 and trailer no. 2 follow:

17. Soon there won’t be another Sparks’s novel to film, and the world as we know it will come to an end. “The Last Song” is Hollywood’s latest try at the author’s romantic novels. Miley Cyrus (“Hannah Montana”) stars as a rebellious teenager who, along with her younger brother, is sent to spend the summer with her estranged dad. Cyrus, also a musical prodigy, falls in love and makes amends with her father.

I guess that means two things. 1) We can look forward to Cyrus-filled soundtrack. 2) Supposedly, the studio thought Mandy Moore in two Sparks’s adaptations would have been too much. Nonetheless, Greg Kinnear (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and Kelly Preston (“Jerry Maguire”) lend the movie some credibility.

18. Maybe you’ve heard of James Cameron’s (“Titanic”) latest venture, “Avatar.” An adventure in another world and another time pits  human soldiers against an entirely new species. Sam Worthington (“Terminator: Salvation”), Sigourney Weaver (“Alien”), Zoe Saldana (“Star Trek”) and Michelle Rodriguez (“Girl Fight”) star.

19. It’s just a teaser trailer, but “Clash of the Titans” looks pretty amazing. Whoever created the score is some kind of genius. Liam Neeson (Batman Begins”), Ralph Fiennes (“Harry Potter”) and Worthington  are all part of the remake.

20. Catch the “Toy Story 3″ teaser and full trailers below:

21. Emily Blunt is “The Young Victoria.” From the looks of the trailer, Blunt (“The Devil Wears Prada”) will give another powerhouse performance as Queen Victoria. She is paired with Rupert Friend (“Pride and Prejudice”) as her Prince Albert. The ensemble cast includes Paul Bettany (“The Da Vinci Code”) and Jim Broadbent (“The Chronicles of Narnia”).

22. Clooney may have cinched another Oscar nomination with his performance in “Up in the Air.” In fact, director Jason Reitman (“Juno”), actresses Anna Kendrick (“Twilight”) and Vera Farmiga (“The Departed”) all have Oscar buzz surrounding them. Clooney is the guy that companies hire to travel all over the globe and fire people for them.

The film was originally meant to be a satire like Reitman’s “Thank You for Not Smoking,” but the recession called for a revamping of the movie. The first trailer below tells you more about the story, but the second trailer is by far the better one. Fasten your seatbelts …

Personally, I’m looking forward to “Up in the Air,” “The Young Victoria,” “Leap Year” and “Letters to Juliet” although I’d probably watch some, such as “Avatar” and “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” if my friends want to see them. What about you? Sound off in the comments!

//

At a crossroads in his life, Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) ends up housesitting at his brother’s home in Los Angeles. There, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with his brother’s assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig), an aspiring singer. Florence and Greenberg’s encounters lead to an uncertain and wonderfully vulnerable courtship.

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Theatrical Release:Nov 13, 2009

Pirate Radio is the high-spirited story of how 8 DJs love affair with Rock n Roll changed the world forever. In the 1960s this group of rouge DJs, on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic,… Pirate Radio is the high-spirited story of how 8 DJs love affair with Rock n Roll changed the world forever. In the 1960s this group of rouge DJs, on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic, played rock records and broke the law all for the love of music. The songs they played united and defined an entire generation and drove the British government crazy. By playing Rock n Roll they were standing up against the British government who did everything in their power to shut them down. The band of rebels is lead by The Count, played by the Academy Award Winning Philip Seymour Hoffman, Quentin the boss of Radio Rock, Gavin the greatest DJ in Britian, Midnight Mark, Doctor Dave and Young Carl who comes of age amidst the chaos of sex, drugs and rock n roll. The film features an unbelievable selection of music including The Beatles, The Stones, Beach Boys, Dusty Springfield, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson, David Bowie, Otis Redding, Cat Stevens just to name a few. The film is laugh out loud funny and speaks to the rock n roll rebel in all of us

Hi there, do you remember how awesome you thought Zoolander was the first time you watched it? No? Shut up, you’re lying.

Ben Stiller seems to have been continuously screwing his career up over the last 5/6 years or so, I mean, “Heartbreak Kid“, “Along Came Polly“, that film where he and Edward Norton were priests? Christ, before I typed this I had wiped that travesty from my memory, but now its back. Great.

Anyway, “Tropic Thunder” kind of made you remember that he is a pretty funny actor, and can work well with the right material. The trailer for his new ‘indie’ film gave me a warm feeling inside after a long cold horrible day. It may have been due to LCD Soundsystem’s “All my friends” playing in the background, or it may have been that the film could be good, and from a writer who wrote “The Life Aquatic” and adapted the screenplay for “Fantastic Mr. Fox” I hold high hopes. You’ll probably like it for a while too, until you start to hate it, and then ignore it. Much like the entire world has done with “Garden State“, and will soon be doing to “[500] Days of Summer“. The one thing it doesn’t have is an indie darling kooky girl in it, there’s no Portman or Deschanel, but give Gerwig a chance and she could just fit the bill (albeit will never steal my heart like Deschanel has).

Without further ado and with mixed fanfare of Cheers and Boo’s that would make an X Factor crowd blush, here’s the trailer for Greenberg (and yes, it’s a real shitty name for a movie).

AK47

Ben Stiller rarely motivates me into seeing a movie.  Even though he is in my favorite movie (guess what that is) and he did quite good in Tropic Thunder, I still don’t feel the need to see any of the movies that he makes.  This is an exception.  He looks quite good in this movie, although he looks like he’s lost a huge amount of weight.

This movie was written and directed by Noah Baumbach, who is insisting that he is a good director.  He’s probably right, but it does seem quite forced sometimes.  He did write The Life Aquatic, and he had something to do with the Fantastic Mr. Fox.  He seems to excel at depicting lost 30 year olds (that seems to be a big theme in movie and TV these days).  Anywho, this is another movie with that same situation.

Click the (very small) poster to watch the trailer.

From Apple.

- izi

It’s not clear whether someone asked him or not, but Richard Curtis seems to think that he is now responsible for presenting a vision of Britain that glows with progressive energy and infectious optimism. Not for him the kitchen-sink realism of Ken Loach or Andrea Arnold, or the hard-knock macho silliness of Nick Lowe. He’s more interested in treating the stuffy image of Britain as a curtain that can be pulled back to show a country that will be compelled to dance if someone plays the right song. Thanks are due for making British history as funny as he (and co-writer Ben Elton) did with Blackadder, but his dominance over British film and TV becomes hard to swallow as we are submerged under a tide of worthy feel-good pablum such as The Vicar of Dibley, The Girl in the Cafe, the TV adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s cutesy The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, etc. As with overworked screenwriter Andrew Davies, Curtis gets everywhere, and for those of us who would like British culture to contain more than slightly raunchy adaptations of classic novels or movies that make committee-driven American product feel like the works of Jean-Luc Godard, the ubiquity of these two men begins to feel a little oppressive.

The Boat That Rocked is Curtis’ most recent attempt at mythologising the British Experience, taking the fascinating story of Radio Caroline and reducing it to a bog-standard rebels vs. Empire tale riddled with dick jokes, unappealing caricatures, and a depressingly retrograde attitude to women. Actually, “jokes” is the wrong word to describe the zaniness that pervades the movie. There is never anything as concrete as a joke delivered. Instead there is a nebulous air of “humour”, an ambience that feels funny without ever doing anything amusing. It is to comedy as froth is to food. Unfortunately that froth is thinly spread over two hours of footage.

Giving a synopsis of the movie is simultaneously difficult and very easy. Difficult because a lot of small things happen that mean nothing in terms of plot, but easy as the central thread of the movie — youth vs. old age — is presented with Manichean simplicity. As with Radio Caroline, the movie’s fictional counterpart — the imaginatively named Radio Rock — broadcasts pop music from a boat moored somewhere in the North Sea to a large audience of young listeners. Unlike Radio Caroline, Curtis creates a scenario where the British government — and by association the BBC — have restricted the amount of popular music played on licensed national radio, and Radio Rock serves as a corrective to this by pumping out a non-stop barrage of The Who, The Small Faces, The Kinks, and the odd Motown/Stax classic for variety. Of course, the BBC played more popular music — and Radio Caroline less subversive music – than Curtis will admit. He operates in broad strokes, and fact will merely reduce the impact of his blunt message.

While the boat is populated with a menagerie of ill-defined “characters” (in both senses of the word) having the time of their lives, the establishment is painted as a group of out-of-touch, sour-faced nags, as grey as Steve Bell’s caricatures of John Major. It is painful to see Kenneth Branagh trying — and failing — to breathe life into the character of Sir Alastair Dormandy. Given no inner life to work with, Dormandy states quite clearly that he is trying to destroy pirate radio as he thinks it’s horrible and hates the thought of the public enjoying themselves. His unsubtle grouching is mostly aimed his equally hateful second-in-command, played by Jack Davenport. Much has been made of the name of this character — Twatt — though less note has been made of the decision to change the name of personal assistant Miss C from the original name of Miss Clit. Curtis must be more interested in displaying Twatt than acknowledging the existence of Clit, I guess.

That might explain why The Boat That Rocked is set in a retrograde world where women are sexually liberated enough that they don’t seem to mind being swapped around from one Radio Rock DJ to another as if they were soulless commodities. One excruciating scene shows DJ Dave (Nick Frost) attempting to deceive groupie Desiree (Gemma Arterton) into sleeping with virginal wallflower Carl (Tom Sturridge, looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights), the inference being that Desiree will be just fine with this because it’s all fair game and not actually non-consensual sex. Even Radio Rock proprietor Quentin (Bill Nighy) endorses this deflowering project, bringing his niece Marianne (Talulah Riley) onboard as a figurative virginal sacrifice to Carl, who is then seduced by Dave behind his back despite his earlier efforts to help the young man.

It’s the last thing you would expect from Curtis, and one suspects he is trying to pay homage to Carry On-style British sauciness, but his attempts to make this seem charming and empowering fail because the only contrast to this selfish behaviour is the colourless world populated by fun-hating automatons like Branagh and Davenport. It’s either grey cardigans or thoughtless sexual voraciousness, and you don’t want to be on the side of the squares, do you? It doesn’t matter if you treat your fellow man / woman with contempt, as long as you’re having a good time doing it. Besides, Curtis is otherwise politically correct enough to add an almost mute black kid (Ike Hamilton) and a lesbian (Katherine Parkinson) to the crew, because yay diversity! Calling the tone of the movie schizophrenic is putting it mildly.

It doesn’t help that Curtis’ cast of characters are unforgivably awful, and his impressive cast wasted. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rhys Ifans play egotistical buffoons who care more about upstaging each other than about the feelings of their colleagues, shunning feeble Omega-males Chris O’Dowd, Rhys Darby and Tom Brooke (playing Baldrick-surrogate Thick Kevin) as if tainted. Even Nick Frost’s innate likeability is not enough to make his character endearing, which says much for Curtis’ misunderstanding of tone. If only someone had taken Curtis to one side to explain a truth established a long time ago: there is nothing more tawdry and depressing than hearing an Englishman talk about sex. Memories of Robin Askwith peering through bedroom windows at horrified housewives in their underwear flash through the mind. If Curtis is trying to evoke memories of British sex comedies from the Sixties and Seventies, the pertinent question is: why in the world would anyone in their right mind want to do that?

If we’re meant to be attracted to this group of misogynistic grotesques, the reasons are lost in the edit, which could account for the majority of the movie’s flaws. Tales are told of an original three-hour edit, pared down to 135 minutes in the UK and 90 minutes in the US (where the title has been changed to Pirate Radio). The UK release seems so unfocused that it feels like Curtis lost track of all of the footage in the editing room and accidentally deleted the wrong scenes, leaving us with lots of pointless dancing and a disparate collection of second acts that have no context. As such it is hard to criticise the movie for its sexual politics or unappealing characters because we cannot know if these failings would have been resolved had the editing been tighter. Much as I don’t want to attribute gross negligence to a man who has been telling stories with some success (financial and artistic) for a long time, it’s apparent that The Boat That Rocked is not a finished product. Was Curtis bored with this project by the time of release? Did the shooting schedule run over due to all of the larks, leaving less time for post-production?

This stew of unresolved threads cannot be called a movie. It’s a themed sketch show, intentionally leaving the odd memorable moment adrift in a content-free tone soup of tone. Daisyhellcakes (whose affection for Curtis’ work was severely dented by this movie) observed that its poor-plotting and forced air of jollity were reminiscent of Mamma Mia, and she’s onto something, and not just because criticism of the subject matter comes with the risk of being labelled a humourless prude. Other than a subplot about Carl finding his father (played by Ralph Brown as a stoner, for a change), Curtis cannot bring any subplot to a satisfying conclusion and so resorts to Mamma Mia director Phyllida Lloyd’s trick of battering the audience with relentless upbeat exhibitionism. There are a seemingly infinite number of montages showing people dancing around their radios, cross-cut with shots of DJs yelling tedious insults about penis size at each other over the assorted Sounds of the  Sixties. If you thought Good Morning, Vietnam would have been a better movie without Robin Williams or the clumsy rhetoric about the horrors of war, you were wrong.

Perhaps Curtis has watched too many clip shows on Channel 4, and thinks that as long as he adds a couple of  scenes that resonate enough to get a mention in one of those time-wasting monstrosities then his job is done. The only moment that generates an emotional response is when Chris O’Dowd’s virginal DJ Simple Simon Swofford is jilted by his new bride (January Jones, not setting the world of comedy on fire with her two scenes). As she leaves him after seventeen hours of marriage to be with Rhys Ifans’ lothario Gavin, a heartbroken O’Dowd plays Lorraine Ellison’s gut-wrenchingly beautiful Stay With Me and mimes along, face contorted in pain.

Sadly, any hope that this scene will add an extra dimension by reflecting on the emotional fallout that can come with free love and — more importantly — what these characters actually think other than “Fab grooviness!”  is futile. O’Dowd seemingly forgives Ifans a few minutes later, and by the end of the movie he has found a new love interest whose boobs drive him into paroxysms of screeching joy. The calculation of Curtis is even more apparent when — during a credit sequence that features much of the leftover footage of the cast members dancing badly — Ellison’s breathtaking version of Stay With Me is replaced by a soulless cover version by Welsh squeak-merchant Duffy. Cross-media synergy pours from the screen, with Duffy’s impression of a jilted mouse providing the soundtrack.

Making this nostalgic movie in the Internet age — where we have a hither-to unheard-of opportunity to express ourselves or find like-minded individuals — there is potential here for an exploration of what it was like to live in an era when broadcasting thoughts and music from the fringe was a privilege of a select few willing to oppose the restrictive establishment. The Boat That Rocked is not interested in that, and shouldn’t be criticised for telling a different story. Nevertheless, what we get instead of an exploration of… well, anything, is a melange of disconnected anecdotes and an ill-defined shout of rage at officious nay-sayers who think they have the right to monitor and protect our morals. It’s impossible to tell if Curtis has anything substantial to say within the chaos of this edit, though it must be noted that his rush to paint the British government as the enemies of anything progressive means he has to attribute the formation of the pirate-radio-killing Marine Offences Act to a joyless villain with no soul. In real life the act was put into law by the Postmaster General, who at the time was Tony Benn, one of the most fearless and progressive politicians the UK has ever seen. Even though Curtis has made it clear that his movie is a fantasy, it’s still inspired by reality, and this misrepresentation of what Benn stands for leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

The Boat That Rocked is worth avoiding for many reasons: the relentless wave of forced glee, the depressing stream of witless dick jokes, the contrived Field-Of-Dreams-esque uplift of the final scene. However, beneath the whirl of colour and cheekiness  of his fantasy world is a mass of contrivance that betrays the far more interesting and complex tale of the battle between Radio Caroline and Tony Benn. Any serious message that could be derived from the very real conflict between the government and the motormouth DJs of 60s pirate radio has been drowned out by the endless Funn! ™, leaving us with a Cool Brittania promo vid that would have seemed hoary last decade. It’s a vapid exercise in nostalgia porn that wallows in the murkiest waters of seaside-postcard-esque British culture and reveals Curtis’ carefully sculpted reputation as a writer of sophisticated comedy is an empty PR fantasy. Other than the similarly regressive Lesbian Vampire Killers — a contender for worst movie of the decade — The Boat That Rocked is the most dispiriting British film released in 2009. Do yourself a favour and find a copy of Allan Moyle’s Pump Up The Volume instead. It features 100% less Rhys Ifans and has Leonard Cohen and Sonic Youth on the soundtrack. It’s good enough to make me moodily dance around my radio.

Oh, don’t even ask  about my NaNo progress– swine flu, a bust of a hurricane and a lost laptop cord have all conspired to keep my word count ridiculously low. But I am enjoying on extra benefit from my WIP: in researching Welsh culture, I have found a whole crop of lovely Celtic men to base my characters on! 

In honor of his new movie Pirate Radio, here’s Rhys Ifans:

Notei um grave equívoco nesse blog: a falta de indicação para o clássico Um Lugar Chamado Notting Hill.

Embora a importância do Spiiiikeee nas nossas vidas já tenha sido mencionada (veja aqui), não consegui entender como tinha deixado passar uma das melhores declarações de todos os tempos.

Simples, sincera e direta.

I’m also just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.

Vale pontuar que essa declaração torna-se ainda mais corajosa após o mocinho usar o forte argumento de que I live in Notting Hill; you live in Beverly Hills.

PS1: Vocês não adorariam ganhar de presente um original do Chagall?

PS2:  Porque, afinal, ”a felicidade não seria felicidade sem um bode tocando violino”.

PS3: A trilha desse filme é uma delícia, vai muito além de She e está, é claro, no Blip.

PS4: Esse é o filme preferido do Abelardo. Bjomesegue, Pref!

PS5: Quer ver o final? Indefinitely?

By Alexa Milan

3.5/5 stars

The U.S. release of “Pirate Radio” has been delayed for months, and when it was finally released Nov. 13, it was dumped quietly at the beginning of awards season. So given its release date issues, I was worried the second film from director Richard Curtis (after 2003’s “Love Actually”) would be a disappointment. But though the film has its flaws, it’s actually quite enjoyable.

“Pirate Radio,” originally titled “The Boat that Rocked,” is a period comedy set against the backdrop of 1960s rock n’ roll. Mainstream British radio stations refuse to play rock music, and pirate stations like Radio Rock broadcast 24 hours a day from boats. When young, inquisitive Carl (Tom Sturridge) gets expelled from school, his mother (Emma Thompson) sends him aboard the Radio Rock ship to stay with his godfather Quentin (Bill Nighy).

Aboard the ship, Carl meets the station’s popular DJs like flamboyant Gavin (Rhys Ifans), flirtatious Dr. Dave (Nick Frost) and rebellious American broadcaster The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Along with the rest of the station’s crew, the men introduce Carl to the rock n’ roll lifestyle.

The movie chronicles Carl’s coming of age experience on the ship and the eclectic gang’s day-to-day misadventures. All the while a conservative government official, Alistair Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh), tries desperately to shut down Radio Rock.

Overall, I really liked this film. The music in fantastic (ranging from The Who to Dusty Springfield), and Curtis captures the rock n’ roll atmosphere of the 1960s very well.

Everyone involved gives great comedic performances, but the standout of the bunch is Hoffman, who, since “Capote,” has quickly become recognized as one of the best actors around. He could sit in front of a camera for two hours with a paper bag over his head and I would still watch it. But the entire ensemble works well together, each character hilariously unique as individuals and as a group.

One of my biggest complaints actually has little to do with the film itself and more to do with its U.S. marketing campaign. The poster and trailers prominently state “inspired by true events.” Elements are loosely based on actual pirate radio stations that existed in 1960s Britain, but other than that, the story is completely fictional. It’s a great story, but it shouldn’t be marketed as fact when most of it is fiction.

Another complaint is the film’s running time, which at 2 hours and 15 minutes is a bit lengthy, especially for a comedy. It’s bearable because the characters are all so much fun to watch, but it nevertheless feels too lengthy at times. The story is also a bit incoherent sometimes, but overall it’s a fun time at the movies.

To all our listeners, this is what I have to say – God bless you all. And as for you bastards in charge, don’t dream it’s over. Years will come, years will go, and politicians will do fuck all to make the world a better place. But all over the world, young men and young women will always dream dreams and put those dreams into song. Nothing important dies tonight, just a few ugly guys on a crappy ship. The only sadness tonight is that, in future years, there’ll be so many fantastic songs that it will not be our privilege to play. But, believe you me, they will still be written, they will still be sung and they will be the wonder of the world.

– The Count

Pirate Radio is Americanized version of the British film, The Boat That Rocked that was released earlier this year across the pond. The television trailer advertised this movie as a single American deejay taking a stand to the British government. That is not entirely true. So much have been cut out that it makes the story boring. It did.

In 1966, radio stations in Britain play less than forty minutes of rock and roll music a day. There is a single boat called Radio Rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that broadcasts 24 hours of rock and roll.

A young man, Carl (Tom Sturridge) is sent to the boat, because he was expelled from school for smoking some grass. His godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy) is the owner of the pirate radio station. Carl is introduced to the various deejays there like The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Angus (Rhys Darby), Dave (Nick Frost), Simon (Chris O’Dowd), Mark (Tom Wisdom) and Bob (Ralph Brown).

Carl becomes one of the helpers with News John (Will Adamsdale), Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke), Felicity (Katherine Parkinson) and Harold (Ike Hamilton). The pirates want to stand up to the status quo.

The British government wants to shut down the pirate radio station by Sir Alistair Dormandy (Kenneth Branaugh). He thinks that the music is corrupting the youth to drink, fornicate, and experiment with drugs. His only mission is to shut down the radio station within a year.

Alistair enlists Twatt (Jack Davenport) to help shut down the station. First, they have it to illegal to advertise on the station. It seems to work, but the station brings back a retired deejay, Gavin (Rhys Ifans) to woo the advertisers back. The Count is threatened by Gavin’s arrival.

Alistair has grown impatient with Twatt “going for the jugular”. Twatt finds a way to shut them down when a fisherman’s distress call is blocked. They try to get the public on their side by January 1; pirate radio will be illegal because the endangerment of fisherman on the open seas, The Marine Offenses Act.

I thought that the movie was be about the the government trying to shut down the pirate radio station, but it’s not. I had to have these twists and turns about coming of age and paternity determination. It’s like a dead fish wrapped in the newspaper sitting on the deck for a week. PSH tries so hard to recapture his Lester Bangs persona, but it falls short here. The classic rock & roll music was the redeeming quality this movie.

Judgment: A watered down movie that doesn’t keep your attention afloat.

Rating: ***

On air. Off shore. Out of control.

By the film maker of Love Actually, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral – Richard Curtis the of Love Actually.  With Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Tom Sturridge, Talulah Riley, and Emma Thompson.

In the 60’s of the shore of England is a boat. With 8 moral-less DJ’s illegally broadcasting 24/7 to a nation of loyal fans who listen – in secret. The government is out to abolish them but that just will not stand. With crazy nights aboard they run into some bumpy waves.  To them music is everything and they are willing to die for it…literally.

Mark: So, how ’bout it then?….

Thick Kevin: I find alcohol rather sharpens my mind…

Thick Kevin: He is really really nice. He has alot of friends. He has long hair. He wears a dress. Really Nice………… Carl: Jesus?

Honestly one of the best of 2009 + an amazing soundtrack! Epic.

Gavin makes the young ladies of the United Kingdom quiver in "Pirate Radio".

(Richard Curtis, 2009)

November 14, 2009

by Joel Crary

Watching “Pirate Radio” is like taking part in a 135-minute high school cafeteria food fight. At first, you can’t believe everyone’s getting away with it, but at around the 30-minute mark you kind of become desensitized to the dessert-flinging and start to realize what a giant mess everything is.

A shame, because there is some great talent in the film. In an early scene, young Carl (Tom Sturridge) is introduced to the crew of the Radio Rock, and my grin widened as the character actors stepped forward: Nick Frost, Rhys Darby, Chris O’Dowd, Katherine Parkinson. These are people I know and love from television and film and to see them all gathered in one place gave me high hopes for “Pirate Radio”. As if things couldn’t be looking better, Rhys Ifans and Bill Nighy were on board, and the one and only Philip Seymour Hoffman looked to be performing a role akin to Lester Bangs in “Almost Famous”. One of the simple joys in life is watching Hoffman rock out to late 60’s era rock n’ roll music, an extensive playlist of which is present in “Pirate Radio”.

Unfortunately, these terrific actors spend almost absolutely no time at all talking about the music. We see them on their boat in the North Sea, broadcasting The Who and The Rolling Stones to millions of listeners, much to the chagrin of the British government. Each DJ has his own shtick in place to build a cult of personality and tempt scores of women onto the boat for a quick shag. We understand quickly that the pirate’s life is hedonistic and desirable and cool. But what about the songs? Why do these people feel it necessary to spend their lives at sea, other than the fact that rock n’ roll allows them to take advantage of their lifestyles?

Hoffman’s character, the Count, is a total lite version of Bangs. He’s an American DJ who came aboard the ship in the absence of Gavin (Ifans), a Brit who left for greener pastures in America. For whatever unexplained reason, Gavin has decided to come back and a rivalry grows between the two. It is a competition that should blossom out of a mutual respect, but respect for what? Where do these men come from? Besides a desire to ruffle the feathers of the powers that be, what fuels their drive to get rock n’ roll out to the masses? “These are the best days of our lives,” the Count tells Carl as the ship’s time at sea seems to be drawing to an end. Carl doesn’t believe him, and it’s no wonder.

The powers that be are tightly encased within Sir Alistair Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh), a government minister with a very precise haircut. Branagh puts in the film’s sharpest comedic performance. His second in command is Twatt (Jack Davenport), who digs up as much ammunition against the rogue DJs as he can to shut their operation down. It is a testament to Branagh’s brilliance that I laughed every single time he offered a bit of dialogue that played on his subordinate’s name (“Well done, Twatt”).

The film contains several storylines involving the loss of Carl’s innocence, the identity of his real father, the short-lived marriage of one character to a fan, and Dormandy’s efforts to shut the radio station down. Director Richard Curtis periodically gives us shots of young people tuning in to the broadcasts and eating up the words and music of the DJs, sneaking radios under their pillows and into bathrooms to indulge in their rock n’ roll fantasies. Things turn a bit hectic for the ship in the film’s conclusion with some nice camerawork and harrowing action.

“Pirate Radio” embellishes a lot on the practices of pirate radio stations of the era including Radio Caroline, but not a lick of this story is true. I liked the film’s energy, but it’s only sporadically funny and it doesn’t have an affection for the songs and records that a story like this should have. Released overseas as “The Boat that Rocked”, “Pirate Radio” suffers from editing problems that leave its characters to flounder. The DJs don’t seem to be serving any sort of socially important function, but are instead living selfishly for the glorification of their immature egos. Near the end of the Radio Rock’s short-lived seafaring career, each crew member throws their hands in the air and salutes rock n’ roll. They all know the moves, but no one knows the music.