julian_craster

<<There is no musical section at all>>

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT ?

Wolfgang

I do not think it is wise to complain - if we have to put up with some crappy documentary so that BBC has 'excuse' to put on some British films then so be it. If they perceive it as successful they might do another season and it is getting films on that counts.

Foster twelvetrees

Sorry to disagree but I think otherwise. Firstly there should be no need for an 'excuse' to put good British films on. Secondly, I want a decent well made documentary, not a second class, money saving space filler. The BBC should take the criticism construcively and do something better next time.

Wolfgang

That is how it is going these days - we will only get significant numbers of British films on in seasons so viewers can either be realistic in this respect or idealistic and possibly blow it. If it attracts too much criticism it will be regarded as failure.

Foster twelvetrees

I agree that 'dumbing down' is at it's zenith these days and TV companies are quite ashamed to do anything that might be considered intelectual as it alienates the audience, however, it's only by protesting to the TV companies that they will realise that they are not giving the audience what they want. By keeping quiet we tacitly give them credence that everything is ok.

D Cairns

What's to stop us complaining about the show but including praise for the season of films that goes with it? In fact, the gist of the complaints could be that there should always be great film seasons on, and we don't need a second-rate documentary to justify them. So the BBC can save money AND fulfill its remit.

batman

Bugsy Malone?

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"

Foster twelvetrees

Well my feedback to BBC2 did include some positives - namely the welcome coverage of the area to start with and the choice of films. Neertheless my comments also included 'could do better!'

Torquemada

Funeral in Berlin's better.

D Cairns

I probably prefer both IPCRESS and BILLION $ BRAIN to FUNERAL, but they're all good.

None of them benefits by being cropped to 16:9, especially IPCRESS which is one of the most stylishly composed films ever.

Torquemada

I like Billion Dollar Brain til Palmer goes to Texas and it's all down hill from there. I thought the story for the Ipcress File was very much of the time and has dated worst of the three.

Brief Encounter

LONDON TOWN?

batman

Never seen it, but I just looked it up on IMDB and I wish I had!

Bats

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"

ChristineCB

We've had a rather poor set of reviews for our week's showing of Norman Wisdom's WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE - as predicted - but no one sounded negative toward Norman. Our distributors said they'd look for good prints of his superior films for our 2008 festivals.

While this 4-weeks of 22 Brit films doesn't match BBC's quantity, "it's as good as we can do" here on the frontier. And the incredible buzz generated by MAN IN WHITE SUIT, LAVENDER HILL MOB and others fills up the theatres for films they've never heard of (like GOOSE) or seldom seen (BECKET as SRO for it's scheduled 3 shows and they did 3 more, all sold-out, with only word-of-mouth notification). I think one of our Second-Run Dollar-Theatres will pick up the print for another few weeks.

I do not think there is any 'exotic' appeal occurring - no one's going to see Alec or O'Toole because of that. And too many people are too young (like me) so it's not some Power Of Nostalgia that's herding them and their money into these theatres. It's the great films. I don't get the sense that any of these audiences are rejecting "going to the movies", like I hear about on a weekly or monthly basis. It's just that the monsterplex owners haven't a clue about giving audiences Good Films instead of Bad ones.

Torquemada

I saw him not so long ago coming out of the doctors, he's looking a bit frail nowadays.