Stuff You Just Don't Get.

[nmrfox]

Extras left me cold. I'm not a huge film fan so many of the references went over my head and I just found it plain dull.

[Guy Profumo]

Re: The Goons, always loved them, my Dad got me into them in the early '70's and a school mates parents had loads of the recordings. If you want the finest comedy sketch ever (IMHO), then go to YouTube and put in "What time is it Eccles?"

I second that, and commend this motion to the House.

[Various Artist]

Is everyone else sniggering every time they see a reference to “the Nolans” in this thread?

I’m a fan of both - the filmmakers and the Irish signing troupe.

Yes.

Though I didn't realise they'd done such sterling work for the deaf community.

[Patrick Thistle]

Presumably the 2003 version? 'Cos if not, y'know, grounds for divorce and all that.

NO! The original.

I was quite upset.

[Felicity, I guess so]

I laughed a lot at Fawlty Towers as farce as a kid and when I saw them again more recently I began to see subtext that had passed me by (Basil and the major discussing car strikes etc) and appreciated it more as satire of a certain kind of British small business mentality and it still stands up as choreographed, well-written physical and verbal comedy, too. I agree that python is now out of context and often ages badly.
As for blade runner, mucho mucho wrongness here.
Into Stella, as I call it, is a huge pile of sentimental crap- I was angry at being manipulated, hated it.

[Eggchaser]

The goons seem to have sowed the seeds of their own future demise. They only really make sense if you remember that everything you see is a reaction to the incredibly stultifying culture of the time, much like Monty Python. Where silliness, or absurdity is seen as an act of rebellion. That's certainly how people saw it at the time, but that's not entirely clear to us today, because this sort of thing really caught on, changed the culture and made itself a bit redundant, and a good chunk of it comes across as childish silliness for silliness's sake.

I think the demands of having to come up with script after script on Spike Milligan's already frail mental health didn't help. He helped create a monster and then it savaged him on a regular basis.

[Satchmo Distel]

I have a vague memory of Michael Bentine's Potty Time - WTF was that? They also did a shit Tellygoons thing in the 60s IIRC.

The Pink Panther - surely Sellers did far better work but if you mention Sellers to "the person in the street", 9 out of 10 will blurt out Pink Panther. Actors mainly remembered for their inferior work...

[Amor de Cosmos]

The Tellygoons wasn't too awful. IIRC It used the original radio soundtracks with puppets acting the characters.

[Jah Womble]

Potty Time was fun, in my recollection - Bentine's models and contraptions were kind of fun just before tea.

[Bored Of Education]

I have a vague memory of Michael Bentine's Potty Time - WTF was that?

Brilliant children's TV, that's what it was.

[Hot Pepsi]

I watched Chinatown for the first time because it was free on Prime and because it seems to be universally regarded as one of the best films of all time.

I couldn’t stay interested nor do I understand why critics think it’s a flawless script.

It moved really slow without much action. The whole plot about the dam and the “water wars” was more interesting than the murder bit or any of the characters. John Huston’s character turns out to have raped his *own child* but does not get any kind of satisfying comeuppance. Indeed the ending didn’t resolve anything at all.

Nicholson is good enough, but Fay Dunaway was overacting a bit throughout. It felt like it was all done on a soundstage rather really in LA, which it’s supposed to be about (by contrast, the LA films of Michael Mann have a sense of place that this does not). And I couldn’t figure out why it’s called Chinatown. Chinatown is barely in the film except at the end, and even then it feels incidental and irrelevant to the story.

I don’t imagine I’d want to watch it again, but perhaps if I get a chance to see it on a big screen I might. What am I missing?

[Amor de Cosmos]

I will never understand why people use "slow" as a term of criticism. Is it because everyone under fifty was brought up on a diet of MTV vids? It's essentially a European film set in the US. As such it's pace is just fine. It's been awhile since I last saw it but I always enjoy Nicholson's laconic performance as the 'tec who never has a clue what's really going on. Yes Fay overacts (she usually does) but she's supposed to be a neurotic incest survivor, so it seems kinda appropriate. Huston doesn't get any comeuppance because the rich never do. Their world is a different place with different rules, outsiders might get to visit but they can't change anything as in Chinatown.

It's worth seeing for all those reasons plus some wonderful details, such as Polanski's cameo as the knife wielding "dwarf." "Hey there kitty-cat!..." Nicholson spending the rest of the film with a Band-Aid under his nose is one of many nice touches.

[Hot Pepsi]

Slow is a nicer way of saying tedious. If nothing is really happening, then what’s the point of telling the story? I was brought up on a diet of MTV vids and my brain is inherently very impatient, but I like a number of other older films - Rear Window or Casablanca for example.

I watched it on a tiny screen so that made it harder to stay focused or care. Maybe I’d like it better in a theater.

It felt to me like it needed a shorter middle but a longer ending. I wanted to see how Jake - and the city - processed the whole sordid mess. Or maybe I’m just used to films having that.

I liked Ron Howard’s dad as the sheep-herder in the scene at city hall.

I also learned that the Pig & Whistle is still operating. Sounds like a good place.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I'm glad someone said 2001. B_O_R_I_N_G.

[Hot Pepsi]

Some psychologist should study how and why different people get bored of different films or music. Because I have a hard time seeing any pattern. There are films I don’t like that, at least superficially, appear to be very similar to ones I do like and vice versa and this seems to be the way for most people.

Vegas could take wagers on how films will rate with critics - both metacritic and individual ones.

2001 is an example of an older slower movie that I *don’t* find boring. And yet I can see how others do.

But again, it only works on a proper screen. When I bought my first HD television, it was one of the first things I watched on it and it was magnificent.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Slow is a nicer way of saying tedious. If nothing is really happening, then what’s the point of telling the story?

It felt to me like it needed a shorter middle but a longer ending. I wanted to see how Jake - and the city - processed the whole sordid mess. Or maybe I’m just used to films having that.

Without wanting to get philosophical, "nothing" happening is impossible. Even in Warhol's epics, such as Empire, something is going on. But specifically Chinatown is Polanski's noir movie, and like all good stories in the genre, there's never a happy conclusion. Lack of fulfillment is part of the deal, as it is with Chandler, Hammett, Cain and the other masters. To do otherwise would just be wrong.

[Patrick Thistle]

I sometimes feel I live in the only house in Britain where nobody gives a fuck about Strictly Come Dancing.

[Hot Pepsi]

Without wanting to get philosophical, "nothing" happening is impossible. Even in Warhol's epics, such as Empire, something is going on. But specifically Chinatown is Polanski's noir movie, and like all good stories in the genre, there's never a happy conclusion. Lack of fulfillment is part of the deal, as it is with Chandler, Hammett, Cain and the other masters. To do otherwise would just be wrong.

Well, that’s why I dug up this old thread - to learn stuff like that.

Not literally nothing. It’s more of a vague feeling of “flatness.” But perhaps that feeling only comes because I’m so used to their being more obvious character and story arcs. And, as you say, the authors are, in an almost Seinfeld-esque way, trying to skewer that convention, probably because it didn’t ring true to them. Perhaps doing that in the 30s or even 1974 felt jarring and revolutionary, whereas in 2018 it just feels really sad and that’s why I’m struggling with it.

I like Hammett’s style more than the content, I think. Same with Hemingway. I shall investigate that further. I haven’t got into Chandler much yet but I hope to. In the rain. Alone.

[Squarewheelbike]

I sometimes feel I live in the only house in Britain where nobody gives a fuck about Strictly Come Dancing.

You are not alone!

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Can someone explain janet street Porter to me? I have only become aware of her in the last 10 years. what did she do in the previous 60 or so before that.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Well fifty-odd years ago she was grooving to the Yardbirds at the ricky-tik in Antonioni's Blow-up.

(In the red and yellow pants and silver coat @ 2:05)

[Hot Pepsi]

You are not alone!

I despise all those kinds of shows.

[3 Colours Red]

Can someone explain janet street Porter to me? I have only become aware of her in the last 10 years. what did she do in the previous 60 or so before that.

Pretty much the same but with massive Dennis Taylor bins on.

[ad hoc]

She's one of these people (one of the first perhaps) who was famous but no one knew why. Famous for being famous like a proto Kardashian without the arse but with a massively annoying voice. Not big time famous, but the kind of famous that got you onto Celebrity Squares or Blankety Blank

[Felicity, I guess so]

By the 80s she was a BBC producer supposedly inventing “yoof tv” then editor of ‘the independent’