I'm a big fan of Steve Coogan and loved Alan Partridge. I am also a big fan of many other british comedies of the same mode. I saw this film two days ago and I can say with my hand on my heart that it was one of the worst films I have ever seen. Me and the 5 other people I saw it with just couldn't believe what we had just seen, it was shocking, a complete let down.
shareLooks like you went in expecting Alan Partridge The Movie - no wonder you were dissapointed! - fear not, young Nathan, for that very film is currently in production . . .
shareI definitely wasn't expecting an Alan Partridge movie (especially since I just saw this on BBC, years after its initial release and even more years after the finish of Alan Partridge). This film was just flatly awful. It was unfunny, uninteresting and extremely pretentious. It was entirely without merit and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone (except perhaps if they were unable to find their sleeping medication and were looking for a suitable substitute).
shareCouldn't agree more, I went along to the the cinema a few days ago with my girlfriend who is a big Steve Coogan fan, and we were both dissapointed. We weren't expecting Alan Partridge but a good film.....so bad. I have heard a few people say it was brilliant, but they are Coogan fans and are in denial of how bad it really was.
shareI'm more of a Rob Brydon fan than a Coogan fan and I LOVED this film - am I in denial too roryeverett?
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If you liked Nicholas Cage in Con Air, versus his movies such as Leaving Las Vegas, Matchstick Men, Honeymoon in Vegas, Adaptation, etc. then you should be blacklisted from theaters! Maybe people should have to be tested for movie licenses, much like drivers licenses?
I just watched TS tonight and liked it very much. I'm not as enthusiastic as I was over 24 Hour Party People but then again there are very few movies that I find more enjoyable than 24PP. If i was more familiar with the book - say maybe more familiar with the book than steve coogan was in the movie - then I'm sure I'd appreciate this movie even more. I think everyone did a great job on this movie and that makes it a highly respectable piece of work in my opinion.
I agree with that one shouldn't choose a movie because of the actors. Because a good actor acts the role he's given - and changes into whatever personality he is supposed to play.
The typecasting the other poster relies upon is what you get with bad actors, who play themselves all the time because they can't play a role.
It seems we're getting less good actors, more bad actors, and more people being content with this.
I agree with that one shouldn't choose a movie because of the actors.There are movies I would avoid because I, rightly or wrongly, don't like the actors.
It seems we're getting less good actors, more bad actors, and more people being content with this.When you say, less good actors, do you in fact mean fewer good actors, because there is a difference? share
It seems we're getting less good actors, more bad actors, and more people being content with this.When you say, less good actors, do you in fact mean fewer good actors, because there is a difference?
I wasted an evening watching this tripe. It would have been better to have sat at home scratching my balls.
shareThis film was absolutly CRAP!! There was no decent storyline. The jokes werent even half funny. i nearly fell asleep. Whoeva thought that this wud b gud shud lose their job coz they r stupid!
shareI came out the cinema just thinking, "What was the point of that film??"
shareWorst film of all time??? You should see Bewitched starring Nicole Kidman (or maybe not!!)
shareHow anyone can say this is the one of the worst film of all time is beyond me. Go watch Day of the Dead 2: Contagium. Then we'll talk.
Seriously, there's so much bad stuff out there. Even if you don't like it, it's not one of the worst of all time.
Really? Worst film you ever saw? Well, my next one will be better. Hello? Hello?share
It's a bit sad that people keep expecting the same thing over and over from a performer once they have come to love one character or creation of theirs. This film might be a bit self-referential in places, but all in all it is a brilliant, brilliant comedy. Don't mind if you don't get the Shandy/Barry Lyndon spoof/inside banter stuff. It's a great character study from Coogan, a very underrated actor. After the reeking heap of dung that was "9 Songs", I was was pleasantly surprised to see something so funny and demanding coming from Winterbottom.
share"After the reeking heap of dung that was "9 Songs", I was was pleasantly surprised to see something so funny and demanding coming from Winterbottom."
Indeed!
24 Hour Party People - GREAT !!!
Code 46 - CRAP (ish) !!!
9 Songs - CRAP !!!
A Cock and Bull Story - GREAT !!!
Wonder which way he will go next? - only time will tell . . .
this film definitely requires a taste for irony and self-referential humor. this is by no means a masterpiece, or even a particularly artful film - but, winterbottom didn't intend for it to be so. it's his joke film, and i think he's earned it, and a certain filmgoer will love it. the new york audiences were in stitches from start to finish. i guess complex ironies, and self-awarenes,s being the contemporary styles of humor, have not caught on with everyone. but to make a statement like you've made just makes you look ignorant.
shareYou see, herein lies the problem.
You are patting yourself on the back for 'getting' the irony. You are comparing yourself with a 'New York' audience.
Basically you're saying 'well of course the proles won't get it, ha ha, bless them', and then going to the bar and buying a Magners to congratulate your own posterior.
'Complex ironies' - yes, you are clever! I spotted them! I spotted them!
You are forgetting that because something considers itself 'highbrow' does not automatically mean it is well executed. Art is not above criticism because it is 'art'.
I got the irony. I also thought it was fairly dull, and the timing of the delivered lines was poorly acted / edited. At the end of the day I wasn't really entertained.
You may accuse others of making themselves look ignorant. I accuse you of making yourself look like a pretentious self important twat.
Good day!
:)
"If you disagree with me, convince me. Don't just throw a rock at my head."
Some movies you have to work for to appreciate. I'm tired of the Emporer has no clothes sort of comment. There is real depth in this movie, good Lord. The telling of the story is a comment on the nature of life. That we have plans that all come to naught, that weaving a narrative thread about life is impossible, and if done a manufacture, that the story of life is about the distractions along the way. Work and you can get something out of movies like this, it's not about "getting the joke." It's about considering a work of art and applying it to your life. That's a lot to ask, and you can say, I'm looking for a diversion from life not life itself, that's valid. But it's absurd to dismiss a film without going through that exercise, and you have to know that the people that do get something out of a film are not ALL lying to themselves to feel important. It feels good to think that, but it's just not true. There's work out there to be done. It's rewarding work.
shareYou mixed up Code 46 wth 24 Hour Party People...
Code 46 was indeed a great film....24 Hour Party People was masturbatory.
Well I wasn't expecting anything but a funny movie and it wasn't...in fact I was just so bored that stopped watching it...:/
Now do me a favor and stop trying to read things that aren't there into peoples opinions.
Yeah, I'm sure you could do a lot better with your marvellous grasp of the English language.
I fought in the Indie wars! I couldn't save Menswear, I couldn't save any of them!
What a redundant statement.
shareI hope you're responding to some comment earlier than that which you appear to be: otherwise, you seem to have no notion of redundancy, but think that invoking the term makes you appear intelligent.
And this is far from one of the worst films of all time. I think it would have been better had they not (with attempted pomo irony) made what seemed concessions to people who weren't going to find Sterne's humor to their taste anyway. But I enjoyed this movie, and (contrary to those who can't imagine that anyone has different sensibilities than their own) I'm not pretending that I did merely to lord it over hoi polloi who enjoy Bruckheimer crap.
I enjoyed the film, thought it was a good film and laughed all the way through. It was however, as nothing when compared to Bruckheimer's "The Rock".
I am hoi polloi and proud.
It's such a clever film. Unfortunately lost on the OP. The concept alone is great. My take was as follows:
Originally, it was a series of novels. The novels are about a man's life. But this man, when telling his story, adds so much extra context and backstory, that he isn't even born until the third or so book of the series. It's so circumlocutory that we are removed from the story a great deal. It takes a long time to say anything as there is always a bit before that we need to know first. It is indeed difficult to tell the story of a man's life.
Then we come to the film, which does the exact same thing again. It is a film about the filming of a film about the novels (mouthful). This removes us from the story even further, and makes it even harder to tell.
The humour is very dry and I agree that it is dull at times, but this is part of the brilliance of it ('dull' can be funny, think 'The Office', 'Human Remains' etc.). I thought it was brilliant.
I strongly disagree with the opinion that it's 'one of the worst films of all time'. I think that's an obscene thing to say. Whoever holds that opinion didn't understand the film. If you understood the film, but were expecting something that required less thought/more obvious/more similar to Coogan's other stuff, then you'd be able to call it bad, but not 'one of the worst films of all times'. That particular, extreme opinion could only really apply to those who just straight up didn't 'get it'.
I attempted to watch this, and had to turn it off half way through. The flow was terrible, and although I'm sure that it was done on purpose, for me it just wasn't funny enough to mask the sloppy style.
shareHonestly? You didn't even think the jokes were that funny? I was in tears by the end from laughing so hard. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it ended--I wanted more. I thought it was brilliant.
Best bit has to be Rob Brydon's impression of Steve Coogan..."There's nothing wrong with my libido!"
I'm going to assume that the ridiculously awful spelling was done purposefully as some kind of joke. I have trouble comprehending someone over the age of 8 writing that badly unintentionally.
"wud be gud shud"
You must really hate the letter O to omit it so frequently. Just reach up there with your right ring finger and press it once in a while. Is that too much to ask?
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Re: that last post about council estates
What a splendid "post-modern" juxtaposition between "low" and "high" culture; the illiteracy and ignorance of the "lower orders", contrasted with the elitist snobbery of the higher (or try-hard middle?) - united by a shared aggression toward and intolerance of each other.
Or it might be an age thing...
I didn't like the film much because I didn't find it particularly entertaining, illuminating or funny. I also think it failed to convey or reflect much of the spirit of the novel.
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Well put, but I'd question the validity of being so selective as to which aspects of "working class culture" are to be respected.
Anyway, I guess a lot of this "class" stuff is outdated; text-speak is no indicator of socio-economic status. This sort of "linguistic intolerance" has usually been a generational thing (rock'n'roll in the 50s etc.), but nowadays it's not even that clear-cut...
j-f-bargh, I think you're confusing book literacy with film literacy. There's a different set of skills involved in "reading" a film - therefore your point about literacy is pointless. Sterne's book is one thing - this is a film, so we apply a new set of values to it. It's true that this is no Partridge film, and those who are not "film literate" might expect it to be so. Well, that's just how people fall for trailers/marketing. You do yourself no favours with you neo-fascist diatribe - anyway, you know you're only doing it for shock value, no-one who likes film can operate with your mindset. Stick to objective film reviewing and stop being so down on people. And I'd steer clear of Croydon if I were you.
sharePurley has the most expensive house prices in the country apparently. Can't be that bad then.
shareI'm not surprised that anyone who considers spending a night at home scratching his balls as a viable option didn't like this film. After all, there were actual multi-syllable words and everything. Personally I came to this film with no opinion of Steve Coogan whatsoever and enjoyed it. Perhaps that's the key--judge a movie on its own merits and not on preconceived notions. But then I return to the "scratching my balls" remark and realize that that's probably not the real problem.
shareI wasted an evening watching this tripe. It would have been better to have sat at home scratching my balls.
It might have provided more edification than your opinion of the film, you obviously put as much intellectual effort into watching it as you did writing the comment. I can only imagine the cast and crew's relief that someone of your calibre rates it so poorly, they can consider their job done well. Pillock.
shareI don't understand this...I don't understand it all.
Don't normally post in imdb but I came to have a look at the forums here after watching the film today.
I thought it was ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.
As a film, PLOT and so on...it was a mess. But...it was extremely watchable and really so funny.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD
Loved the hot chestnut scene
Loved the "intro" and the "outro"
Loved the scriptwriter's interest in his Lamb Shank
Loved Brydon playing Coogan in the style of Roger Moore
I can honestly say that the audience I was with (about 80 - it's a small picture house) loved it!
Chris.
I thought it was delicious. As a response to the novel, it was dead on, and the sense of fun was very Sterne-ian. Not for everybody, clearly, but that was never in the cards. Sterne's book isn't for everybody either. And I notice that the people who are trashing the film aren't saying a word about the novel. I gather none of them has read it, which is clearly part of the problem.
shareCheers! I hate to say it, but perhaps they don't understand where the film is coming from in the first place. I know it sounds elitist, but there's no other way to put it. It's a film based upon a classical literary work after all.
And seriously... worst film of all time??? I could spend a lifetime arguing that one...
I thought it was one of the best films I've seen in the last decade. A triumph! The bit with the sailors on shore leave was genius. The sub-plot featuring the undercover cop has to be one of the most intelligent, unique, pieces of cinema this century.
I recommend this movie to all that haven't seen it. Take a friend, or a lover, and giggle all the way through. But be warned, I found it so funny, I *beep* my panties.
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People who think that they are more intellegent than than they really are seem to love it though,
Hzars all round.
Actually, I'd say people who think they're more intelligent then they really are hated it.
It's a hilarious film. You can enjoy it whether you know Coogan, Winterbottom, Shandy, Alan Partridge or any of them or not. What's with all this fetishizing of Partridge or Winterbottom anyway. WHO the F cares?!?! Y'all sound like Jennie. Jennie the PA, not Jenny the GF. Didn't anyone notice how funny it was when she started going on and on about movies that no one else knew about or cared about? Next time some of y'all blather on about one specific director or character created by an artist, stop talking for a second and you might register the blank looks on your listeners' faces. That's when it's time to shut up. Of course, if you aren't as cute as Naomie Harris, they've probably already walked away.
"Worst movie of all time"... does that guy work at comic book shop in Springfield?
You're just mad that you're not as intelligent as the people who think they're more intelligent than they really are.
I think we should see if the people that think they're less intelligent than the people who are more intelligent than the people who think they're more intelligent than they really are liked the movie. Those people are clearly the best movie critics.
then how come every review i have read has said it's a great movie? It might just be you, not the movie.
shareAll those people who disliked "A Cock and Bull Story".
Do you know of Neville Chamberlain? Prime Minister of Britain during the late 1930's? Do you know when he came back from meeting Hitler and was standing at London Airport holding a piece of paper in his hand saying "I have Herr Hitler's assurance that there will be peace in our time!"? That was the last time anyone was as wrong as you are now.
The hot chestnut scene. Brydon's mocking of Coogan's voice. Brydon playing a scene opposite Gillian Anderson using Roger Moore's voice. Mark Williams' pedantic history expert. The womb. The Al Pacino duel. All hilarious and some very well acted, well written and well done scenes pricking at Coogan's vanity and his dilemma over being the star and being the family man. This movie was fantastic.
The abortive(!) attempts to demonstrate the forceps, the disastrous suggestion of putting the Widow back in and calling Gillian Anderson, the quiet tears of the costumer at having to deal with the ridiculous issue of the relative heights of the lead actors' heels (or the placement of pockets on an 18th century coat), the passionate rants of the production assistant who is more cultivated about cinema than anybody else on the set (and the sad scene where her anecdote about Bresson's "Lancelot du Lac," which really does have a point, falls absolutely flat with her audience of the movie "professionals"). Jeremy Northam's harried, I'm-dying-here, director. I was so happy that they let Toby do his "argumentum ad fistulatorium" (his whistling of "Lillabulero" whenever he doesn't want to answer a question). I was so delighted when the screen went black (as the soundtrack continued) in a discussion of the black page in the novel marking Yorick's death. I thought the Nino Rota music creeping in along with all the Handel was divine. I had a simply wonderful time.
shareYes I whole-heartedly agree with you ducdebrabant. Only, i feel a lot of the jokes will be completely lost on a popular audience not so refined as ourselves.
shareYou mean people like ourselves who "are not as smart as we think we are"? I never thought you had to be Stephen Hawking to read Laurence Sterne. The book is funny. Some here think it's unacceptably pretentious to admit having read it, whereas the pretentiousness of condemning the film utterly, without having made the slightest effort to get hold of Sterne's rather slim volume first, is just "keeping it real."
shareI haven't read the novel this film comes from, but from what i've heard about it, it shows the film to be an interesting approach to an adaptation, catching the mood of the novel rather than just transposing the text to the screen. I loved the movie so i don't think you have to have read the book to appreciate the film. The humour was quite subtle, but i think audiences are more used to that due to shows like the office etc - any of those shows that are rooted in realism. i don't understand why some people seem to hate it so much. Some of the people i went to see it with weren't too keen on it - one of them said it was too postmodern for its own good, but that was what i liked about it. Its not cheesy Hollywood fodder, so i guess it just depends what kind of movies you're into.
"all that slept or walked between the vellum lids where for centuries they haunted and no longer are"
The problem is that if you don't understand what the book is about, you won't get the film. The book itself is about a man writing who keeps getting interrupted by real life while trying to write his memoirs. That's the way that the book is written. He'll start to tell his story, then ridiculous scenes take place in the middle and the story is interrupted.
So, to go into it thinking that it's just a film about the making of a film based on a book is missing the punchline. It's a film about making a film about a book about writing a book. It's not SUPPOSED to be about Tristram Shandy. The novel never was about this life. It was about how he tried to write about his life and finding that life got in the way.
I think that even if you don't want to read the book, you should at least familiarize yourself with it enough to know the basic plot, or you'll miss the best bits. If you don't even have the attention span to read an Amazon.com blurb, then you should restrict yourself to the latest Jackie Chan blockbuster.
suzanne_pitcher hits the nail on the head here. The entire concept of the film is that the novel on which it's based is unfilmable. Sterne was writing tongue-in-cheek before that was even an expression. The joke of the film is that the film is a joke - to say it revolves on a gag or several gags is ludicrous. This is exactly the sort of clever, witty film making that is severely lacking from an industry that takes itself way too seriously. I think Michael Winterbottom does fair service to the book, himself, and the film industry simultaneously.
And I'm not going to make any derogatory comments about intelligence or taste. Only that just because you didn't like this movie doesn't mean it isn't good.
Well, I just read some of the comments here, and suzanne's was particularly helpful. It helps explain the narrative's shapelessness, something that STEPHEN FRY in the film, described as "amorphous".
Still -- and however audacious an endeavor it is -- I can't help but feel that WINTERBOTTOM misses the mark. And that's coming from someone who has seen EVERY single film this director released since WELCOME TO SARAJEVO and found some redeeming qualities in all of them, even those largely reviled by public and critics alike like 9 SONGS.
The saving grace of the movie though is the huge cast of actors (love them all!) and the intermittent wit on display... otherwise... it's rather underwhelming overall...
WINTERBOTTOM didn't miss the mark as far as I was concerned, nor all the reviewers, nor the brighter contributors here, nor the audience at the Prince Charles last Friday, who applauded at the end. We thought the film worked on very level, from the intellectual to the knockabout.
I'm keen to get the DVD so I can see it again (and watch the Coogan/Wilson interview in full in the Special Features, as promised in the movie).
Incidentally, a nice touch to cast Kieron O'Brien from "9 Songs" as a tabloid journalist, given the tabloids' interest in that movie.
"I don’t like the term torture. I prefer to call it nastiness."
Donald Rumsfeld
It is always nice to see thoughtful posts here. Thank yoy Suzanne. I agree that some familiarity with the book will probably add to appreciation of the movie. I remember reading the book many years ago as an assignment in an english class. I remember reading the book but almost nothing about the book. This will give a clue to both my agedness and the impression the book made on me way back then. I did however go over a plot synopsis on the interweb before wathcing the movie, and I believe I got more out of the movie for having done that.
sharei loved this film, i have no idea why, i never knew it was from a book until i saw the film, (tho i may just have to read it now), i just saw the trailers and thought "that could be good".
i didnt know what it would be about, i didnt know what to expect but the banter between Coogan and Brydon and the beginning got me hooked, and the end got me in stitches too.
we had fun trying to remember who all the other actors were and what films we knew them from, we had fun trying to work out what was film, what was documentary and after that, what the hell anything was. All in all, we had no preconceptions, no expectations, and i think it was all the better because of it.
a damn funny, subtle, good old fashioned british comedy. its about time we got away from the hollywood blockbuster and gave people a film to think about.
Slim? Isn't it nine volumes of roughly 200 pages each.
sharethe sad scene where her anecdote about Bresson's "Lancelot du Lac," which really does have a point, falls absolutely flat with her audience of the movie "professionals").
Two things here:-
1. Much of the novel turns around Sterne's notion of "Hobby-Horses" - his characters are so obsessed with one particular thing (philosophy with Walter, fortifications with Uncle Toby) that nearly all the conversations they have are at cross-purposes. Jenny's "Lancelot du Lac" speech and all the stuff about Fassbinder was a cute updating of that (while being in itself about the failure to connect, yet another layer of meaning).
2. Tristram Shandy's own wife in the novel is referred to as "Jenny".
"I don’t like the term torture. I prefer to call it nastiness."
Donald Rumsfeld
After WW2, there was peace, though it was arguably no longer the time of Neville Chamberlain and Hitler.
Also, Bush was at least as wrong about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as Hitler was about peace in our time, if not more so.
I tried. I tried to like it. I tried to give it a chance. 40 minutes into the movie, I was still not entertained and popped it out of the DVD player. It is now peacefully en route back to Netflix, where it will undoubtedly delight or crushingly bore somebody else.
As for the argument- why are you guys so adamant about how WRONG people are? What bothers me the most about this thread is the amount of badmouthing going on. People are allowed to have opinions, you know. I've read with interest why people think it is great, while I still agree with people who think it is awful. There is no such thing as a wrong answer when it comes to opinions, only when it comes to math. So stop being jerks and hear people out without attacking them.
Well, I love A Cock and Bull Story, too - but I'm afraid comparing those who don't as being as wrong as Chamberlain when he said at London Airport "I have Herr Hitler's assurance that there will be peace in our time!" isn't a very convincing analogy.
(1) He wasn't at London Airport (in those days at Croydon rather than the later Heathrow) - he was at Heston aerodrome, a smaller airfield mainly used when fog closed Croydon.
(2) His speech at Heston didn't include mention of any phrase remotely like "peace in our time". The nearest he got was, "We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again."
(3) However, later the same day he made a speech outside 10 Downing Street that did include something along those lines...but what it actually said was, "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time."
All of which is a bit pedantic, I know, but I HATE people getting it wrong time after time after time - "peace in our time" comes from England's 16th/17th Century Book of Common Prayer: "Give peace in our time, O Lord."
It's postmodern before there was any modernism to be post about!
Like the book, the point of the film is that truth is a slippery customer, and resists a simple narrative structure. Chuck in a few gags, don't stress the plot too much, and you've got a film for people who have no in-built *beep* detectors.
The problem is that it's EASY to make a film that doesn't cohere. Any old idiot can do it, as Winterbottom has proved time and time again. 24PP is meandering rubbish, 9 songs is literally abysimal, and C&BS is only saved by Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, who are funny enough to carry it. But those who point to the funny scenes, and there are plenty, are just missing the point: it's supposed to be a film. So can we please stop lauding BAD films? It's very funny, but still ultimately a bad film.
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this film was poo poo
shareWell, I'm fast enough to be able construct a grammatical question, unlike your second question! I'm also fast enough not to resort to ad hominem points against someone you have not the first inkling about.
I love it when people defeat their own "arguments". Just goes to show that there is no shortage of *beep* out there.
no offense, but your own "arguments" were nothing but statements that ultimately were nothing but your own _opinion_. i loved this film, and find it ludicrous not to be lauding it. i have to say, i think either you didn't get it, or it wasn't your cup of tea, which is fair enough; don't come with crap like "So can we please stop lauding BAD films? It's very funny, but still ultimately a bad film."
i managed to follow, and thoroughly enjoy, the film, and i don't see myself as any sort of elitist brainiac at all; nor did i see it because i am a steve coogan-fan at all.
it boils down to personal preferance, so relax.