Mr. Mondo

Some of the techniques employed in the film are great, though that is not one of the parts that I like. The film has a great soundtrack, great ending and a good performance from Dawson’s James van der Beek, though in no way as good as Christian Bale in American Psycho. It is a film that is good, but does not hold up to repeated viewings. 3/5 (originally 4/5 on first viewing)

This is a very hard film for me to form an opinion about for a number of reasons. Firstly, I am from Cheshire and was a student in Manchester, so this film is part of the history of the area where I have lived and worked. I am a fan of ‘New Order’, ‘Electronic’, ‘The Other Two’ and ‘Monaco’, so it is part of the history of the bands of love, though I am also a fan of ‘Depeche Mode’, ‘U2’, Billy Mackenzie and ‘INXS’, which may or may not be an important factor as well in my review. As this is a ‘cinema’ thread and not the one in the ‘indie’ section, I think on this occasion I must try to detach my love of the music contained within from that of the narrative, and not base my opinions on the icon. Even though I was expecting great things from this film, I did not like this kind of ‘social realism’ at all. I found the film a chore to watch and was thankful when it was over. I was not entertained by the narrative even though this may have been the definitive story of all the events that had happened. I think it was because the film was directed by an iconic photographer, it was more like observing an art installation rather than the ‘gripping’ feature it should be or maybe it was simply because that 1960s style social realism is not something I would be normally bothered about. I do not know what everybody’s opinions are on films such as ‘Cathy Come Home’, but I know if ‘Control’ was showing on ‘Film4’ and I had switched on to it unaware at a non-musical point, I know I would have switched over to ‘Dave’ before the five minutes was up. Also, I did not care for some of the acting especially as the offstage portrayal of the band made them look more like rejects from Jarvis Cocker’s ‘Bad Cover’ video than ‘Joy Division’. I know the filmmakers would not want to go to heavily down the ‘looky-likey’ route, but I felt there was something missing from some of the characters that we know. However, whilst Bernard looked like he was ‘Dick Grayson’ waiting for ‘Batman’ and with a drummer picked up at random from ‘The Tasty Fish’, the film did have good portrayals of Curtis and Hook, though Wilson and Gretton were awful. Not only would the film have benefited by having Paddy Considine as Gretton here, but actually it would have been better having Steve Coogan’s ‘mock’ (turtle) Tony Wilson as well. At this point, with these characterisations, it was starting to feel like I was watching Lucas and Walliam’s ‘Rock Profile’ on an old black and white television, whilst ‘Crackerjack’ laughing from the younger members of the audience did not help matters. Even though there was a level of immaturity coming from the back rows, where rude words were concerned, it is good to see that the film attracted a large number of teenage viewers, though as Curtis is like Manchester’s Cobain and with Factory still a huge part of Manchester’s ‘mythology’, it is culture that students are very aware of here in this part of the country. Whilst I would not recommend this film to anyone, apart from those students who would want end up ‘chin-stroking’ with C.P. Lee on a late night ‘After Dark’ arts discussion programme, I would definitely recommend the soundtrack. I would also recommend the excellent ’24 Hour Party People’, not only because it is more relevant to the rock history I have lived through, but because I feel that is a better filmed account of that history, even though in most cases it is the exaggerated ‘legend’ that is being shown rather than the actual truth. ‘Control’ – 2/5 The Soundtrack - 5/5 ’24 Hour Party People’ – 5/5

I wonder if the opinion was truncated before anyone called Liam was criticised.

After that show they revamped the format to ‘French Fields’ and situated the action in ‘France’, though I cannot remember if they actually filmed in France or if it was like ‘Allo ‘Allo and used just a mock-up.

Oh yes, ‘Alf’, who was another great Sparkes character. I forgot that he did him as it was very similar to that other ‘old giffer character’ called ‘Alf’ that appeared in the ‘Fast Show’. I think the two have got merged in my memories along the way into one character.

I think this should be in the ‘indie’ section as that is what the NME is all about. I would expect the ‘indie’ section is still the place where all the 18 year old students go, that is if the music scene is still anything like it was in the mid 1990s and when I was in higher education.

I do not know the song, but they must be very popular in the Manchester area, as the record stores have stocked loads of their singles and on the first day they were all sold out by 5pm.

What do you mean by obscure? As a great deal of the indie 80s and 90s acts that I like would be obscure to 16 year old and most of the acts they would think as being ‘cool’ would mean nothing to me. I do not think I could tell a ‘Jing Jong’ from a ‘Ting Ting’ if they were played back to back to me, and even if they had been played every week on Sunday night ‘Pure’ I think I would still be none the wiser.

Adele – Hometown Glory Has anybody else heard this song, which is picking up loads of airplay on Stuart Maconie’s show on Radio 2 recently. It’s an excellent haunting piano led tune from a vocalist who sounds a bit like an 1980s indie Amy Winehouse.

TV12a: ‘After Dark’ Remembered as that show where people sit around a table talking, ‘After Dark’ returns to ‘More 4’ as part of Channel 4’s 25th birthday celebrations. The show was an open ended discussion programme featuring a number of intellectuals, which went on from some time after midnight, till whenever all the guests ran out of things to say. I always thought that this was always a bizarre schedule filler, it was shown in the days before all the Quiz TV channels, and something that would always crop up in “What’s On Tonight? Nothing but…’ type of conversations. I am wondering if there is anybody who tuned in on a regular basis and managed to actually stay until the end of the show.

TV12: John Sparkes, Gregor Fisher in ‘Naked Video’ and ‘Absolutely’ Did anybody else here enjoy the two ‘Celtic’ comedy shows that were called ‘Naked Video’ and ‘Absolutely’, the ones that amongst the largely Scottish casts featured the Welsh comedy genius John Sparkes. Living in ‘Granadaland’, I only get the ‘Radio Times’ that has all the ‘North and Yorkshire’ programming in it, so I am not going to say that he is a lost comedy genius, just in case he is a major star on ‘S4C’, though to me he is. John Sparkes first came to my attention in the mid 1980s, as a member of the BBC 2 comedy sketch show ‘Naked Video’. Like the ‘Mary Whitehouse Experience’ and the ‘Flight of the Conchords’, the show was originally a radio show, and because I did not listen to them at the time, I do not know if the cast was all Scottish at that point, or also featured contributions from John Sparkes. As well as John Sparkes, ‘Naked Video’ also featured Tony Roper, Gregor Fisher and Elaine C Smith, faces who you might remember from the iconic Scottish comedy series ‘Rab C. Nesbitt’. In fact, ‘Rab C. Nesbitt’ was first seen in sketch form on the show and, as with the sitcom, was shown in his grubby headband and vest, talking in his broad dialect, a dialect which some people needed subtitles for to understand. Also making his debut on the show was another sitcom star, ‘The Baldy Man’, though his ‘Mr Bean’ type of adventures proved more successful when spun off into advertising. Both ‘Rab’ and ‘the Baldy Man’ were played by Gregor Fisher, whose other main character on the show was an anchorman for a local broadcaster, a television station called ‘OHBC’. In fact, if this station had been given a licence by the IBA to make it a real Independent Television station, then it would have beaten ‘Channel’ to the title of Britain’s smallest station, as ‘OHBC’ stood for the ‘Outer Hebrides Broadcasting Corporation’. I cannot remember if they had their own version of ‘Puffin Pla(i)ce’, but in a way predicted the future when small community channels and Gaelic language channels would appear on people’s electronic programme guides. From a Scottish view to one of Wales; and one of my favourite characters of all time. ‘Siadwell’ was an anorak wearing Welsh poet, a ‘complete bard’ in fact, who would sit in his room and tell tales of the week gone by. If I remember correctly he had an honouree O-Level from a local university, was given one shoe for a present and had a Gran who was afraid of the floor, which was because “it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the floor”. Unfortunately ‘Siadwell’ would not appear in all the series of ‘Naked Video’ because after a few series, Sparkes moved to another Scottish based comedy show, the one on ‘Channel 4’ that was called ‘Absolutely’. On ‘Absolutely’, Sparkes who play a number of recurring characters, though none were as brilliant as ‘Siadwell’, they were all great. Moving from the bedroom to the toilet, Frank Hovis was a ‘Northern Working Man’s club turn’ and gave his life’s perspectives from perched upon his lavatory seat. As you would have guessed from this set up, most of the humour for this section was ‘lavatorial’ in nature and very rude, though the actual observational style was not a million miles away from that of the ‘Welsh Bard’. Whilst Hovis was from the ‘backwards’ North of England, ‘Gwyneth & Denzel’ were Welsh. Here Sparkes played ‘Denzel’ and this character’s ‘Welsh-ness’ would be played up even more than with ‘Siadwell’. The sections would be filmed with subtitles so it looked like it was actually ‘S4C’ that you were watching, though the characters would be speaking ‘English’ and the subtitles would be in ‘Welsh’. These subtitles were not really ‘Welsh’ but an approximation of the Welsh language with lots of ‘fffff’s’ dropped in, whilst the characters would have trouble with their ‘woovres’ rather than having problems with their vacuum cleaners. This warping of the sound of local dialects, was also in affect in the sketches that were set in the small Scottish town of Stoneybridge, a town famous for its ‘Stoney’ stone bridge. Here the town council would try to promote the town in any which way they could, most famously producing a promotional ‘vi-do’ that would target French investors. This ‘vi-do’, or as I would be corrected by the council ‘vid-day-oh’, focused on a lot of the wonderful things that the town had to offer, such as their ‘stoneybridge’, a bridge that was made of stone. I would have liked ‘Stonebridge’ to have been spun off into a proper sitcom as it would have been like a Scottish ‘Royston Vasey’. On the other hand, the characters of ‘Mr Don and Mr George’ were briefly seen in their own sitcom before Jack Docherty became Channel 5’s ‘Letterman’ clone. I never really liked ‘Mr Don and Mr George’ in the show, preferring characters like the incredibly boring Callum Gilhooley and his ‘Honda Bike’ obsession instead.

I read it was upbeat 60s ‘R&B’ rather than ‘lover’s soul’.

I cannot comment as I am not a ‘muso’ myself and only have the songs to go off.

They were much better as ‘Kaja’ with Nick Beggs as vocalist. As for the question, I do not think I have anything to put here as there are no artists that I hate, there may be a number of records that I am not keen on but I do not have to listen to them, I can skip the track. On the other hand if ‘Girls Aloud’ release a brilliant record, my loyalties might be tested, but as they are a pop band it is more likely that Cheryl Cole and the two ‘Kim Wilde’ types will release solo singles first, and so I will not have to decide.

Why is that?