Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Film Splice: Twenty Four Hour Control


You may be thinking - "Hang on, it's not time for an episode of Cue the Film", and you'd be right.

Welcome to our first Film Splice - a minisode (although, it's not quite as mini as it could be) in which Stephanie and Chris take time out to discuss the two related rock biopics "Control" and "Twenty-Four Hour Party People". Don't expect reviews, just a chat and some fascinating facts and the occasional sidetrack about BBFC movie ratings in Great Britain and films with unsimulated sexual content. As a result, we may be a little more explicit than usual.

Click this link to listen to Twenty-Four Hour Control

Two films, a pair of Tony Wilsons, a brace of Rob Grettons, a couple of Martin Hannetts and even a Gillian Gilbert or two, and finally Sam Riley and Sean Harris as Ian Curtis. Walk in silence.

17 comments:

Chris JC said...

And I WAS right about "The Belgian Boiler"!

PalmerEldritch said...

is that something i should look up on UrbanDictionary.com and then recoil in terror from?

Chris JC said...

Nah - fear not. I only refer to this:

"boiler n a rather unattractive woman. The word was mentioned in Deborah Curtis's book Touching From a Distance, her memoir of life with Ian Curtis of Joy Division. While their marriage was breaking down, Ian was having an affair with a European woman whom the rest of the band supposedly referred to as "the Belgian boiler".

English2American.com

As for the song She's Lost Control - it DOES appear in "Control" - when Deborah goes to see Joy Division perform (for what I think is the only time during the film). And, of course, it's the tune you see the band recording and subsequently listening to in the car in Twenty-Four Hour Party People.

mb said...

Awesome job Chris and Steph - really enjoyed it!

mb said...

I got nothing important to say - just felt like being #5

Chris JC said...

MB - is today not a public holiday in the US, then? We have a four day weekend here, with bank holidays on Good Friday and today on Monday.

mb said...

It is a holiday for some (like my wife) - alas not for me. Generally, most small private companies (like the one I work for) only take off the Major holidays + perhaps Labor Day (in Sept.) and Memorial Day (in May? I think).

I would have loved to have recorded with you fine podstuds!

Cue the Film Podcast said...

you can come next week its zecker films lol
well we reecord on march 7th lol

Emily said...

march? I mean we recor d on april 7th again, not march 7th haha

Chris JC said...

Until we perfect time travel, we won't be able to record on March 7th 2008.

Unless, of course, we live long enough to still be around when they rotate the calendar and star again.

As Emily was saying, ext time it's the canon of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker and some of their solo films such as BASEketball and Rat Race (although I don't think any of us will be rooting for Scary Movie 3 & 4 or Ghost - even with those amazing Mike Jittlov created "evil spirits").

Anything that gives me a reason to watch Top Secret!, Airplane! all three Naked Guns and the Kentucky Fried Movie is good in my book.

BIG JIM SLADE!

Anonymous said...

Stephanie got to speak in this one! I love it when Steph talks. There is something beyond post modern when I hear an Alabama drawl speaking about Brit-punk rock.

Chris JC said...

I still have a complete soft spot for this episode.

Total guilty pleasure, and I got to put in all of Atmosphere as well as do the single most creative piece of editing I've ever done, which hopefully is completely unnoticeable.

Emily said...

what? no great editing on the bank job? hahahahaha

Chris JC said...

Don't get me wrong, there's some fairly seamless editing in that, too - as you know from how much poorly debated political argument I removed, but the first movie clip from Control finishes with the most complex bit of editing I've ever done.

It literally wouldn't have been possible on old cut and splice hardware, so thank the world for Sound Forge.

Chris JC said...

Repeating myself somewhat there.

Trevor McFur said...

Enjoyed the splice, especially the (brief) conversation about the rating systems. I really can't figure out why NC-17 is such a kiss of death, at least box-office wise, for films in the U.S. It's not like there's no market for intelligent adult-oriented films. Do people really think that NC-17 means pornography?

I watched Lust/Caution recently, and really didn't like it (thought it was incredibly dull outside of the sex scenes (which, btw, I believe were unsimulated), and I didn't buy her falling for him), but I agree with Steph that the graphic sex was necessary for the film. The only film that I've ever seen where the sex was obviously unsimulated was Intimacy, which really wasn't a bad film. It's about 2 strangers having an affair, based purely on sex, and the fallout from that (since at least one of the two is married with children). I might not be remembering exactly, it was a few years ago.

Chris JC said...

Apart from one sexual act (which, from watching the film, is clearly not simulated) there is no other "real" sex in Intimacy - people just got confused as a result of one bit of unsimulated sex.

As I recall, there is no confirmation about the status of the scenes in Lust, Caution. There are only a couple of shots which seem unsimulated but even they could probably be done with some actors who are very comfortable with getting bits of themselves near each other.

For the real deal there is Shortbus which does feature the naughties (in possibly a few more ways than a general audience felt comfortable with*) but also features horrible characters and pitiful attempts at humour, or there's the one I mentioned in the episode, Michael Winterbottom's own 9 Songs which is very naughty and yet rather sweet.


*translation: there are also gays