A COCK AND BULL STORY (2005) D- Michael Winterbottom
Was an alternative title offered by Laurence Sterne to his masterpiece Tristram Shandy (double entendre intended), a book they said was impossible to film. But one of Britain’s cleverest directors, Michael Winterbottom, wasn’t listening. But how to do it? Winterbottom decided on a film-within-a-film method, taking his inspiration from Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Truffaut’s Day for Night, and casting Steve Coogan as Tristram and Rob Brydon as his uncle Toby, playing themselves whilst attempting to make a period piece in a variety of English country houses dotted around the Norfolk countryside.
Did it work? Most critics agreed that it did, and once I got my head around Winterbottom’s method, I did too. Coogan is good enough to make you forget about Alan Partridge (even if some characters keep reminding him of his most famous creation), and his double act with Rob Brydon, which is reminiscent of the series they later made together, called The Trip is often hilarious This, presumably, is where the idea for that series came from.
Verdict: this is what Millennial Brit cinema is all about: Intelligent, funny and insightful.
THIS IS ENGLAND (2006) D- Shane Meadows.
A kid (a brilliant Thomas Turgoose) barely in his teens fights off the bullies who taunt him about his father’s death in the Falklands War. His courage is noticed by older lads, and word gets back to a local BNP organiser (an early outing from Stephen Graham) who decides to take him under his wing. Adolescence is an impressionable age, and soon our lad is going on all the marches and demos...
Shane Meadows and Stephen Graham recently came together again to make the brilliant TV series The Virtues about a man scarred by sexual abuse in childhood, but it is well worth it to see the impact they made when this film came out in 2006. While working in a very different way from Michael Winterbottom, Shane Meadows has established himself, like the latter, as one of the most talented directors in British cinema. And when he works with Graham, it seems he can do no wrong. One of the best British films in the last 20 years.
GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974) D- H P Halicki
Not to be confused with the much later remake starring Nick Cage, this film is ostensibly about a gang of car thieves who are commissioned to steal 48 luxury cars in 5 days. The key to what this film is really about can be found in the opening credits, where top billing is given to “Eleanor”, who turns out to be a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1. And it is she who is taken through her paces, and then some, when the police catch up with the gang leader, who then embarks on one of the longest and most dramatic car chases ever committed to film. Everyone has seen the car chase in Bullitt, and the car vs train chase in French Connection, but surprisingly few people have even heard of this cult classic, the pet project of HP Halicki, who himself, somewhat ironically, died 20 years later in a car smash.
A notable collector’s item.
A kid (a brilliant Thomas Turgoose) barely in his teens fights off the bullies who taunt him about his father’s death in the Falklands War. His courage is noticed by older lads, and word gets back to a local BNP organiser (an early outing from Stephen Graham) who decides to take him under his wing. Adolescence is an impressionable age, and soon our lad is going on all the marches and demos...
Shane Meadows and Stephen Graham recently came together again to make the brilliant TV series The Virtues about a man scarred by sexual abuse in childhood, but it is well worth it to see the impact they made when this film came out in 2006. While working in a very different way from Michael Winterbottom, Shane Meadows has established himself, like the latter, as one of the most talented directors in British cinema. And when he works with Graham, it seems he can do no wrong. One of the best British films in the last 20 years.
GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974) D- H P Halicki
Not to be confused with the much later remake starring Nick Cage, this film is ostensibly about a gang of car thieves who are commissioned to steal 48 luxury cars in 5 days. The key to what this film is really about can be found in the opening credits, where top billing is given to “Eleanor”, who turns out to be a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1. And it is she who is taken through her paces, and then some, when the police catch up with the gang leader, who then embarks on one of the longest and most dramatic car chases ever committed to film. Everyone has seen the car chase in Bullitt, and the car vs train chase in French Connection, but surprisingly few people have even heard of this cult classic, the pet project of HP Halicki, who himself, somewhat ironically, died 20 years later in a car smash.
A notable collector’s item.
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