This week on the treadmill (ok, actually the elliptical, but same idea), the movie showing on my iPad was Pirate Radio. I was pleasantly surprised, given the tepid reviews that it had gotten. If nothing else, it restored my faith in movies about boats, something which that piece of crap Titanic (still haven't gotten through it completely) had shattered. At any rate, Pirate Radio wasn't a great movie, but it certainly had it charms. First of all, don't rent it for the plot, which is scanty at best. The ending shows that there wasn't a plot really worth wrapping up--kind of a British mix of Footloose and Taking Woodstock (god, that sounds dreadful). Despite that, this is a good, character-driven movie for those who love classic rock (me!) or are addicted to BBC shows (me!). Featuring actors from the IT Crowd, Coupling, Shaun of the Dead, as well as Geoffrey Rush, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the movie is a shaggy dog of a story. Although the movie can't decide what it wants to be, if you take it for what it is, you'll have fun. It recontextualizes rock and pop music; I love hearing great music someplace other than on a dinosaur rock station. If nothing else, the end credits will speak to anyone over 40, whose teenage years were spent shuffling through album covers and imagining a future where pop music would be better than it is today.
Posts
