Marc Chacksfield steers us to this Guardian review of the film Legend, which the reviewer, Benjamin Lee, describes as “overflowing with bad dialogue,” “disappointingly shallow” and suffering from “a major lack of atmosphere and an overwhelming stench of inauthenticity.”
Oh dear.
However, as Mr Chacksfield points out, the film’s marketing team has done what it can with this somewhat unflattering two-star review.
Via Mr Eugenides.
🙂
That, sir, is true genius.
Now that is what I call marketing!
It’s a dark art.
I read your post and wondered why the Graun was reviewing a movie from 1985! Hadn’t heard of the new one.
Something similar happened with the Guy Ritchie flop ‘Revolver’ ten years ago. The posters came out with the endorsement ‘Film of the Year’ from the ‘Sun’, which was the only positive comment on said turkey.
Someone did their homework and read the Currant Bun’s review of Ritchie’s Kabbalah epic. The ‘Sun’ slated the film just like every other critic. So where did the puff-piece come from.
The answer was found in the innocuous remarks of a Page 3 girl whose write-up included the fact that she was an extra in ‘Revolver’, and that she was looking forward to watching it. ‘It’s going to be the film of the year’.
There was also the publicity surrounding the Queen musical ‘We Will Rock You’, which was widely panned for being derivative shite (hey, the script was written by Ben Elton). But the posters included the phrase ‘Foot-tapping fun’ from ‘The Independent’. The reality? The Indie’s critic was talking about Queen’s music, but basically recommended buying a CD of their greatest hits, rather than wasting the time and money to see the musical.
Two of my least favourite things:
1) Films in which one actor plays a pair of twins.
2) Anything to do with the Krays. (‘Proper gents they was, you could walk the streets in them days…’)
I might be skipping this.
“Films in which one actor plays a pair of twins.”
David Cronenberg’s “Dead Ringers” (1988) might be the exception which proves that particular rule. It is truly grotesque and disturbing but like much of Cronenberg’s (*ahem*) “output” it remains a “must-see”.
Films in which one actor plays a pair of twins.
Surely you make an exception for The Belles of St Trinian’s…?
I mean, come on.
Oh, BTW: Congratulations to HM the Queen on the occasion of becoming the longest reigning monarch.
Now just hang in there a while longer, so we don’t have to deal with King Chuckles.
And whilst not playing twins exactly, rather several members of the same family:
‘Anything to do with the Krays. (‘Proper gents they was, you could walk the streets in them days…’)’
I still rate the Python’s sketch on the Piranha Brothers as one of their finest. A nice combination of surreal genius (‘Spiny Norman’) and a satire on the British public’s tendency to venerate vicious little thugs (exemplified by the minor houdlum’s willful amnesia over the unfortunate incident in which Dinsdale Piranha nailed his head to the floor).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZkWL-XvO0U
Nailed it to the table if I recall correctly, ahh no, that was the second little scrote’s wife to the coffee table. Vince Snetterton-Lewis and Stig O’Tracey being the hoodlums in question being nailed to the floor. Vince was also tied to the back of a tank and “taken for a scrape around to Dinsdales…” A classic indeed.
Surreal genius indeed.
It’s been a while, but I recall Burton’s crack at the Krays, Villian as being rather good. If you like that sort of thing.
The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee responds to the marketing chutzpah above: “I might still dislike Legend but I like its marketing team. If only they could have written the script.”
Anything to do with the Krays. (‘Proper gents they was, you could walk the streets in them days…’)
Seconded. I remember that tramp Barbara Windsor (who enoyed a one-night stand with one of them) gobbing off on TV about how “they was real gentlemen, always held a door open for a lady”. Nice if you were a loose TV star, less so if you were a publican trying to run his business unmolested. One thing I hate worse than thugs is apologists for thugs.
One thing I hate worse than thugs is apologists for thugs.
Speaking of which…
‘I remember that tramp Barbara Windsor (who enoyed a one-night stand with one of them) …’
I’m presuming it wasn’t Ronnie.
I was born in 1972, so I’ve always wondered why there’s still such a love affair with the 60s.
Perhaps it’s because in the UK the 1960s has the reputation of being like the 1970s, but only slightly less awful.
I was born in 1972, so I’ve always wondered why there’s still such a love affair with the 60s.
Perhaps it’s because in the UK the 1960s has the reputation of being like the 1970s, but only slightly less awful.
Well, for apparently very good reason, the sixties have the reputation of having been absolutely, utterly completely horrible.
Quite by contrast, the Nineteen Sixties are remembered for being a very interestingly good time of improvement and expansion. Keeping in mind that arguably the 1960s ran from November 22, 1963 through to August 9, 1974, the 1960s then shifted into the Nineteen Seventies . . .
The big and ongoing problem that we’re all having to deal with from there is that instead of having everything continuing to grow and increase, we had the Nineteen Seventies then descend into the Nineteen Empties, the all time, absolute, butt ugliest decade of the 20th century—the further development of the personal computer was really nice, but even that started in the late ‘Seventies, and still didn’t make up for the fiascoes of the ‘Empties . . .
I was born in 1972, so I’ve always wondered why there’s still such a love affair with the 60s.
I was born in 1954, graduating high school in 1972, and wonder what part of the 60s you’re talking about. From 1960 which was still the late 50s in manner of music, dress and politics to 1963-65 shift 66-68 shift 69-72 … each small group of years contained radical shifts in culture and events — the 75-80 was worst in “malaise” and I considered the 80’s as a time of climbing out of that abyss (during which, my kids were born 79, 81, 83 & 87).
The Manson Family, Black Panthers, Symbionese Liberation Army (did so much for Symbia by freeing Patty Hearst), the drug culture, disintegration of the familly (thank God for that one, eh?), political assassinations, the mainstreaming of big time terrorism, beginning of the media’s obsession with juvenile baby boomers, oh I could go on and on. Such good times. Yeah, they were a gas-gas-gas.
Hal may be right about the “60s” [sic] culturally running from the Kennedy assassination through to Nixon’s resignation.
As for the love affair, there’s practially every minority movement comparing their struggle to the 1960s civil rights movement, the overuse of the -gate suffix, and quite a fair number of movies and TV shows set in the 60s, compared to the 70s or 80s. There also seems to be a meta-context that of course the culture of the 60s was interesting and cool, but the 80s were supposedly just horrible culturally, something apparently having to do with Reagan and Thatcher being the heads of the US and UK governments or something.
Yeah, man. They were a couple of boring squares, ya dig?
. . . Symbionese Liberation Army (did so much for Symbia by freeing Patty Hearst), . . . .
Ah yes, that would be why I and my neighbors got to watch an army of cops marching in and out the door of one of the houses just up the block from the house I was living in at that time . . .
. . . the 80s were supposedly just horrible culturally . . .
. . . there certainly have never been and will never be any lucid claims that any of the costuming from the ‘Empties ever had even the slightest trace of taste or style . . . and then from there the age of an individual is irrelevant: Those sorts of infantile twits who started out at the beginning of the ’empties as the preppys and then segued into being called yuppys are still around and now they’re called hipsters.
. . . something apparently having to do with Reagan and Thatcher being the heads of the US and UK governments or something.
. . . My overall reaction to Reagan and Thatcher is that having a detailed look at ’em can be rather interesting.
For Thatcher, earlier this week I did finally have a look through Tory! Tory! Tory!, and I was definitely nodding along in agreement as the narrator spelled out the several rather blatant and increasing errors which piled up and finally brought her down.—and I was rather amused to note that of the Conservative cultural references in TTT, by the time I was watching TTT, I had actually already seen some of Spitting Image, all of Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister, and all three of the House Of Cards trilogy . . .
For Reagan, back when there used to be a large Renaissance Faire in the bay area, I did a very particular gig with the nobles guild, staging a meeting of Elizabeth I’s Privy Council.
In the gig, Francis Walsingham had a proposal for the Council. He stated that a French ship had run aground on the English coast, and among the matters found on the ship was a signed contract for the creation of cannon to be cast and delivered to the Spanish. Walsingham stated to the Council that as commerce and the carrying out of contracts is a Good Thing(tm), then therefore quite obviously A) the clear duty of the Privy Council was to make certain that the Spaniards did indeed receive those cannon, because B) the Council did after all have the resources of a certain Scottish ship captain—here’s where I stepped in.
What I pointed out to the Council is that 1) I am Scottish and not at all English, and therefore clearly the Spaniards will be quite unconcerned with my being in command of a French ship. 2) A cousin of mine runs his own foundry, and thus is quite capable of casting the cannons for the Spanish, using the most exacting and precise casting techniques. 3) As I would then be in charge of 3a) completing the contract, 3b) delivering the carefully constructed cannon to the Spanish, and then 3c) collecting an absolute Spanish buttload of Spanish gold—accept no substitute—therefore 4) I would be quite capable of hauling ass out of harbor and being far over the horizon as each very carefully created cannon proceeds to rupture and detonate at the first test firing, killing every Spaniard within several yards range.
And thus, noted Walsingham, having successfully sold arms to the Spanish enemies of England, the Spanish gold would thus be delivered to the heroic Dutch revolutionaries in the Spanish Netherlands—because after all, clearly the heroic Dutch revolutionaries are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers . . . or some phrase like that . . . .
Oh, hell yes, the Privy Council voted for Walsingham’s and my proposal, of Walsingham, the Privy Council loves his ass.
Hal may be right about the “60s” [sic] culturally running from the Kennedy assassination through to Nixon’s resignation.
Finally, as far as assorted eras, at one point elsewhere I did map out the patterns I’ve noticed of the twentieth century . . . Lemme know what you think of the following:
The Edwardian era—1901 through 1914/7/28
WWI— 1914/7/28 through 1918/11/11
The Twenties–1918/11/12 through 1929/10/29
The Thirties—1929/10/30 through 1939/1941, depending
WWII—1939/1941, depending through 1945/9/2
The Fifties—1945/9/3 through 1963/11/22
The Sixties—1963/11/23 through 1974/8/9
The Seventies—1974/8/10 through 1980/1/20
The ‘Empties–1980/1/21–1993/1/20
The Nineties–1993/1/21–2001/1/20
I think for the 70s, you mean they should end with Reagan’s inauguration in 1981.
And the 90s probably end on September 11, 2001.
I think for the 70s, you mean they should end with Reagan’s inauguration in 1981.
Yes, definitely the inauguration, so yes, the date would be ’81.
And the 90s probably end on September 11, 2001.
Interesting idea . . .