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“Pirate Radio” Will Never Sink
Nov 18th
Will Never Sink
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
PIRATE RADIO is based on the fact that back in the Sixties the British government–meaning “the Establishment”–didn’t approve of rock ‘n’ roll music, and so it wasn’t allowed to be played on traditional radio stations.
As a result of that ban, “pirate” radio stations developed, some even broadcast from ships anchored off the coast of Great Britain and thus outside the law and safe from the long arm of the Establishment. This is one story, which takes place in 1966.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays The Count, an American disc jockey on one such ship in the North Sea playing rock ‘n’ roll music 24 hours a day to an enthusiastic audience, one of whom isn’t Sir Alistair Dormandy, played by Kenneth Branagh, a government official who spends his time in the film trying to shut down the radio station by the end of the year.
This causes the following response: “They can’t shut us down. We’re pirates!”
There is one woman on board, Felicity, but that is okay, because she is a lesbian, or as one character says, she is “of the lesbionic tendency.”
Serving as the catalyst to the story is Carl, a young 18-year-old lad who has been kicked out of school and sent into the care of his godfather, Quentin, who owns the pirate-radio ship and is also in charge of running it.
Carl’s father had sex with his mum and then left without leaving his name or address, and the search for the identity of Carl’s father is a subplot of the film.
Now, you might think that life aboard a ship would be cramped in terms of a story, but we have many colorful characters, and occasionally Quentin arranges for adoring female fans to be brought aboard in order to meet their favorite deejays–if you know what I mean.
Also, the music might not be historically accurate, but it is great nonetheless.
One disc jockey even gets married, which allows his wife to come live aboard with him, but that causes more problems than he bargained for.
The film doesn’t exactly have a TITANIC ending, but it might be the only time that the expression “rock ‘n’ roll” brings tears to your eyes and a smile to your lips.
PIRATE RADIO also shows that rock ‘n’ roll will never sink.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Pirate Radio – Movie Trailer
Nov 13th
In mid- to late-’60s Britain, an unusual yet colorful subculture sprang up and thrived as a product of the upswing in British pop music, only to meet its doom within a few short years. Though the BBC functioned as the country’s main source of news and music, its programmers offered very little airtime to rock & roll — which left an overwhelming need unfulfilled. In response, small bands of “pirate” radio enthusiasts set up broadcasting towers on boats just outside of English boundary waters, and transmitted signals to an estimated 25 million listeners, 24 hours a day and seven days per week. Unsurprisingly, the DJs who took charge of these broadcasts could rival just about anyone in terms of flamboyance and outsized personalities. With Pirate Radio (released as The Boat That Rocked in the U.K.), writer-director Richard Curtis (Love Actually) travels back to the Swinging Sixties and takes a headfirst plunge into this colorful realm.The story opens in 1966, aboard a rusty fishing trawler christened Radio Rock and equipped with pirate broadcasting equipment. Here, the slightly daft elitist Quentin (Bill Nighy) presides over a motley crew of joint-toking, sex-hungry disc jockeys including Dave (Nick Frost), a heavyset boob who nevertheless considers himself a hot property with women and loves to chase skirts; “The Count” (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an American DJ who aspires to be the first person to drop an F-bomb over the British airwaves; the gloom-laden Irishman Simon (Chris O’Dowd); bonked-out hipster Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke); womanizer Mark (Tom Wisdom); Angus (Rhys Darby), a New Zealander whom nobody likes; and the only female member of the group, lesbian cook Felicity (Katherine Parkinson). These misfits pull off quite a show — enough of one that they attain the status of national idols for the youth culture — but the super-conservative government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) detests the whole business and will do almost anything in his power to shut them down.
“The Men Who Stare at Goats” Surrealist Insanity
Nov 12th
Surrealist Insanity
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS is based on the 2005 nonfiction book by Jon Ronson, and it is a comedic look at real-life events about a top-secret branch of an experimental U.S. Army unit called the New Earth Battalion, which was created to change the way that wars are fought.
As the film says at one point, the Army was investigating how love and gentleness could win wars, and a notice at the beginning of the film says, “More of this is true than you would believe.”
Full disclosure: You might need to have served in the military in order to appreciate the full impact of this film. Otherwise, you might dismiss it as a fantasy instead of an honest account of just how cockeyed and wacky life can be in the military, even in the midst of a war.
In other words, young audiences today will probably not enjoy this film as much as older people who actually spent time in the military, as I did for three years back in the Sixties.
Most of the film takes place in 2003 in Iraq, but we also get flashbacks that show how the New Earth Battalion came to be and some of the training and experiences of recurring characters.
George Clooney plays Lyn Cassady, one of the Jedi Warriors, as they called themselves, and the most gifted psychic that another character who had served with Cassady had ever met.
That character tells Bob Wilton, a reporter played by Ewan McGregor, about the New Earth Battalion and says, “We were trying to kill animals with just our minds.”
That is where the title comes from, because in the early days the unit had a secret goat lab, and the men would try to kill a goat just by staring at it.
Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey also star in the film, and Wilton meets them all after he first meets Cassady in Kuwait and they travel into Iraq to accomplish Cassady’s secret mission.
CATCH-22, the 1961 novel by Joseph Heller that was made into a 1970 film, captured the surrealist insanity of World War II Army life during that war.
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS is the CATCH-22 of the war in Iraq, and as the film says, more of it is true than you would believe.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
