Withnail and I

west

"two pound ten a tit , and a fiver for his arse "

Art immintating life , as a young actor working for franco zephirelli bruce robinson is showered  groped and tongued on the casting couch .....

vale

west said:

mudslide73 said:

vale said:

& i suppose the big universal theme dilemma is whether you choose to go down with your impossible dreams, or 'settle for less' in return for something you can cash in. idealism v pragmatism.
show me a musician who ever dared to dream big at some point, who hasn't eventually had to wrestle with that one...

This is true in so many ways. When everyone you thought would be in it forever goes off and gets a job in a bank. "Working in a bank Colin!" oops wrong film. 

apologies to vale , and props to mudslide for highlighting what i skimmed , this is on the money and i think why ive identified with this film for all these years and my own life experience .... i cannot watch the end without empathy and emotion ....

though ostensibly a 'black comedy' (of sorts) there's also a rich seam of mute despair, grim wistfulness & pathos never far from the surface humour. it's a maudlin & jaded screenplay at heart.
hamlet's soliloquy at the end is the punchline but it's woven right through.
 
Uncle Monty "I sometimes wonder where Norman is now. Probably wintering with his mother in Guildford. A cat, rain, Vim under the sink, and both bars on. But old now, old. There can be no true beauty without decay."

west

vale said:

west said:

mudslide73 said:

vale said:

& i suppose the big universal theme dilemma is whether you choose to go down with your impossible dreams, or 'settle for less' in return for something you can cash in. idealism v pragmatism.
show me a musician who ever dared to dream big at some point, who hasn't eventually had to wrestle with that one...

This is true in so many ways. When everyone you thought would be in it forever goes off and gets a job in a bank. "Working in a bank Colin!" oops wrong film. 

apologies to vale , and props to mudslide for highlighting what i skimmed , this is on the money and i think why ive identified with this film for all these years and my own life experience .... i cannot watch the end without empathy and emotion ....

though ostensibly a 'black comedy' (of sorts) there's also a rich seam of mute despair, grim wistfulness & pathos never far from the surface humour. it's a maudlin & jaded screenplay at heart.
hamlet's soliloquy at the end is the punchline but it's woven right through.
 
Uncle Monty "I sometimes wonder where Norman is now. Probably wintering with his mother in Guildford. A cat, rain, Vim under the sink, and both bars on. But old now, old. There can be no true beauty without decay."

gentle entropy ....

vale

Uncle Monty "are you a sponge... or a stone?"

one of the all-time greatest chat up lines ever. the verbal equivalent of pushing on a closed door to see if it's locked.

or in Uncle Monty's case, to see if there's enough play that it might give under a bloody good shove.

chrishill901

What a great film, one of my favourites. I don’t think is hasn’t aged well either, I’m only 29 and saw it for the first time about 15 years ago

’If I spiked you, you’d know you’d been spoken to’ - a genius line!

i had the privilege of interviewing the wife of the late Richard Griffiths who played Monty. She’s a wonderful lady and even though we’d set up the camera and lighting, conducted the interview and packed up in less than an hour she insisted we stay for lunch as we had driven so far to speak to her. She had put together a huge spread (which was delicious) and just talked with such pride about his career, reminiscing about all of the films he had been in and the experiences (obviously a lot about Harry Potter!) I asked her what his favourite film to have been in was and without hesitation she said it was Withnail & I; apparently he loved the film and it was one of his favourite experiences appearing in it so we talked about Withnail & I for the rest of lunch.

as a fretboard relevant aside he was a keen guitar player in his spare time, she said he loved to play and had a nice Les Paul and a few acoustics.

west

Great you got to do that  chris !

love richard griffiths , loved him in bird of prey , he did a sweeney a minder and a morse . he was fab in the history boys !  and great L/E in pie in the sky , 65 was no age ;(  ....

west

my actress friend was in a production at the grand wolverhampton recently  , her dresser / wardrobe mistress has withnails Coat ......

crunchman

ICBM said:

Blaendulais said:

All Along the watchtower playing as they leave Kilburn in a Jag ! Jimi would have been proud if it was used as a music video

[warning: nerd content ahead ]

One thing that irritated me about it is that the Jag could have been no more than ten years old in 1969, and wouldn’t have been anywhere near that ratty and rusty.

Bridgehouse said:

@LuttiS  - I agree. I think 87 was a terrible film year apart from withnail and I 

84 Charing Cross Road
Angel Heart
Barfly
The Big Easy
Broadcast News
Cry Freedom
Dirty Dancing
Empire Of The Sun
Fatal Attraction
Flowers In The Attic
Full Metal Jacket
Good Morning Vietnam
Hellraiser
Hope And Glory
La Bamba
The Last Emperor
Lethal Weapon
The Living Daylights
The Lost Boys
Moonstruck
Personal Services
Planes, Trains And Automobiles
A Prayer For The Dying
Predator
Raising Arizona
Robocop
The Running Man
The Sicilian
Sign O' The Times
Someone To Watch Over Me
Spaceballs
Tin Men
The Untouchables
Wall Street
The Whales Of August
White Mischief
Who's That Girl
The Witches Of Eastwick

... and that's just some of the ones I recognise from the list of 'notable films' for 1987 on Wikipedia. I don't like all of them, I haven't seen them all - in fact some of them are not my kind of thing at all - but they're pretty much all 'good' films. (Well, maybe the last couple aren't .)

How on earth can you have a list of 1987 films that doesn't include The Princess Bride?

I watched Withnail sometime in the late 80's and didn't like it all all.  The Princess Bride on the other hand is one of the greatest films ever made.

LuttiS

crunchman said:

How on earth can you have a list of 1987 films that doesn't include The Princess Bride?

I watched Withnail sometime in the late 80's and didn't like it all all.  The Princess Bride on the other hand is one of the greatest films ever made.

Wisssssss!

Great film! Miracle Max ftw!

west

also not on that list is ,

wim wenders wings of desire ...

woody allens radio days ...

babbets feast ...

sieata  with a miles davis marcus miller score ..

prick up yor ears ,

greenaways belly of an architect ...

alan clarke's rita sue and bob too ...

stevn kings salems lot ( more like a tv movie ..

sammy and rosie get laid

boormans fabulous hope and glory ( bowl a googly )

i really love some of these films and have repeat watched some several times , but non are as quotably or give the same pleasure / misery  for me as withnail and i ....

TheMarlin

Saw it once, thought it was a pretty good low budget British movie. 

ICBM

west said:

also not on that list is ,

boormans fabulous hope and glory ( bowl a googly )

That one definitely is, for good reason . Brilliant film, and one that I would like to see again.

vale

west said:

my actress friend was in a production at the grand wolverhampton recently  , her dresser / wardrobe mistress has withnails Coat ......

My best friend at art college got her first proper post graduation job with Angels, the massive London costumiers, & she used to tell me that happens almost more often than it doesn't.

These things (& wigs) very often cost a bomb to make (sometimes using vintage period fabrics, expensive woven tweeds & silks, embroidery & rare brocade) & are sometimes only need for a couple of hours shooting. So to rent by the day/hour makes audit sense.
Big ticket US productions can afford to underwrite new tailor-made wardrobe as they expect to recoup & profit, but the day shooting stops is when the costumiers come a-hunting.

http://www.adam-ant.net/images/bme/11.jpg

http://www.adam-ant.net/bme.html

west

"I remember my first agent, Raymond Duck. Dreadful little

Israelite. Four floors up at the charring cross and never a job at the top of them ...... "

pintspiller

Lost Boys was on that list. Great at the time, I thought. Saw it recently. It was shite. It was like a shite pop video.

Paul_C

The weird thing about The Princess Bride for me, is that while it has (according to Wikipedia) a running time of 98 mins, it feels like it goes on for ages. I've seen it two or three times and there's always a point where it feels done but then carries on for another half an hour.

west

I went on holiday by mistake ... literally ...

english_bob

west said:

I went on holiday by mistake ... literally ...

I was at a wedding at the weekend. We were supposed to leave the kids with my parents for the day, but there had been some confusion about dates or something and they'd arranged to go to France so we had to make other arrangements.

I ended up explaining the whole saga several times during the day to different friends of ours, using the phrase "they went on holiday by mistake" each time. Not one person got it. I need different friends.

west

I went round me mates moms who said quick caravans free ! i did cheat and pop back for a few thigs but then had a glorious week by the sea side on a blue flag beach in the sea twice a day bliss , no predatory uncle monty , no poacher but some farmers ....

starwarsnosebleed

west said:

I went round me mates moms who said quick caravans free ! i did cheat and pop back for a few thigs but then had a glorious week by the sea side on a blue flag beach in the sea twice a day bliss , no predatory uncle monty , no poacher but some farmers ....

Did they have a ‘randy bull in’t top field’??