The wankest film idea ever conceived? Danny Boyle's Ed Sheeran Beatles thing

[SteveDave]

Kevin Eldon, surely?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIA_NVFnXZ8

No.

[Bobtoo]

Does Curtis admit to nicking the idea from Goodnight Sweetheart?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Mark Kermode loved it, it made him laugh, it made him cry, it made me want to live in a world without him in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T8lQp1hp5o

[the science eel]

Mark Kermode loved it, it made him laugh, it made him cry, it made me want to live in a world without him in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T8lQp1hp5o

Kermode's as reliable as the sunrise. I'm off to see it next week then.

[BlodwynPig]

Mark Kermode loved it, it made him laugh, it made him cry, it made me want to live in a world without him in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T8lQp1hp5o

From interviewing Herzog to this...can fuckers be consistent. I think David Lynch even has poor taste in some departments.

[Captain Z]

I hope they make the sequel where nobody remembers Harry Potter and at the end he discovers that nobody can remember Dr Who, so they make that film and at the he discovers nobody can remember William Shakespeare, so they make that film and at the he discovers nobody can remember the London 2012 Olympics, so they make that film at the end he discovers that nobody can remember Stonehenge...

[Ferris]

We live in the reality where nobody remembers Chicory Tip.

Probably not a great film in that really

[mothman]

Full plot synopsis on Wikipedia. Fuck me.

[BlodwynPig]

We live in the reality where nobody remembers Chicory Tip.

Probably not a great film in that really

I was listening to their only album just yesterday

[Replies From View]

Wasn't that the vet in League of Gentlemen?

[popcorn]

Got suckered into seeing this in a classic "at home with mum on a bored weekend evening" scenario.

I really like the premise, Boyle has made some good films and I don't necessarily hate Curtis, so I went into this with an open mind, but it ended up being exactly as bollocks as I expected. Ed Sheeran really is a uniquely irritating figure, and you have to put up with a lot of him. The romantic dilemma is bizarre - why won't the girl just give up the dayjob for her millionaire boyfriend, or at least just wait a few weeks until he's back home? - and its resolution more bizarre still, with her boyfriend happy to give her up.

The worst thing is the handling of the what-if premise. It wastes so much of what could be the fun of that idea. The terrible frustration of trying to get the songs exactly the way you remember them, but not being able to persuade the drummer to play it the way Ringo played it. The enormous possibility of perhaps a modern audience not being interested in the Beatles if they heard them for the first time. All that sort of thing.

I would have ended it by having Paul and Ringo turn up, tell him they knew he plagiarised it all, but shrugging and confessing that exactly the same thing happened to them, and that they plagiarised it all too from someone else only they remember. If the idea is that these songs are just sort of magically inherently great and will turn anyone into a superstar (a questionable idea but whatever), the idea that they never belonged to the Beatles either would have been appropriate. They just get passed across the universe for ever.

The Harry Potter joke at the end would have made sense if his wife had been a struggling children's author, but as it was was no more significant than the discovery that no one remembers cigarettes either.

[McChesney Duntz]

If the idea is that these songs are just sort of magically inherently great and will turn anyone into a superstar (a questionable idea but whatever), the idea that they never belonged to the Beatles either would have been appropriate. They just get passed across the universe for ever.

I always thought that was the (probably unintentional) clever conceit behind Marty McFly's supposedly inventing Chuck Berry in Back to the Future - after all, if he learned it from Chuck Berry and Chuck Berry learned it from him, then presumably nobody invented it - it's a fact/force of nature, which makes perfect sense to me.

(Which also would explain "My Ding-a-Ling" as early evidence of global warming.)

[Monsieur Verdoux]

yeah i also just read the Wikipedia synopsis and fucking hell lads

[BlodwynPig]

Got suckered into seeing this in a classic "at home with mum on a bored weekend evening" scenario.

I really like the premise, Boyle has made some good films and I don't necessarily hate Curtis, so I went into this with an open mind, but it ended up being exactly as bollocks as I expected. Ed Sheeran really is a uniquely irritating figure, and you have to put up with a lot of him. The romantic dilemma is bizarre - why won't the girl just give up the dayjob for her millionaire boyfriend, or at least just wait a few weeks until he's back home? - and its resolution more bizarre still, with her boyfriend happy to give her up.

The worst thing is the handling of the what-if premise. It wastes so much of what could be the fun of that idea. The terrible frustration of trying to get the songs exactly the way you remember them, but not being able to persuade the drummer to play it the way Ringo played it. The enormous possibility of perhaps a modern audience not being interested in the Beatles if they heard them for the first time. All that sort of thing.

I would have ended it by having Paul and Ringo turn up, tell him they knew he plagiarised it all, but shrugging and confessing that exactly the same thing happened to them, and that they plagiarised it all too from someone else only they remember. If the idea is that these songs are just sort of magically inherently great and will turn anyone into a superstar (a questionable idea but whatever), the idea that they never belonged to the Beatles either would have been appropriate. They just get passed across the universe for ever.

The Harry Potter joke at the end would have made sense if his wife had been a struggling children's author, but as it was was no more significant than the discovery that no one remembers cigarettes either.

Christ, whoever bought this account needs banning

[mjwilson]

I've seen a few reviews now basically saying this is ok but has one terrible scene near the end where it all goes to shit - anyone want to spoil what that scene is so I don't need to watch this?

[popcorn]

I've seen a few reviews now basically saying this is ok but has one terrible scene near the end where it all goes to shit - anyone want to spoil what that scene is so I don't need to watch this?

Read the Wikipedia plot synopsis.

Clue: Robert Carlyle in prosthetics.

Also it's not "ok", it was an obvious 1/5 shitheap quite early on imo.

[kidsick5000]

Read the Wikipedia plot synopsis.

Clue: Robert Carlyle in prosthetics.

Oh good grief. No synopsis needed. I know where that's going.

[kidsick5000]

Does Curtis admit to nicking the idea from Goodnight Sweetheart?

On The One Show (thanks to The The One Show Show podcast) he said that 'someone' came to him with the idea and a script at which point he quickly said: 'Don't tell me any more, I wish to write it myself'.

On one hand, that sounds like the old advertising ploy of I overheard it on a train. Because he pointedly avoids giving them a name.
On the other, he's (hopefully) paid off someone for their base idea, even if he has been a bit cheap by saying 'don't tell me any more because, I'll have to pay for it.'

[olliebean]

Well that makes him sound like a cunt. Imagine taking your script to him, and he instantly dismisses it without reading so much as a page, as not possibly being as good as the script he's going to write from your idea.

Jack Barth is co-credited on imdb with "story by," so perhaps it was his script that Curtis rejected out of hand.

[Shaky]

To be fair to Curtis, he has revealed elsewhere where the idea came from. For all his faults I don't think he's trying to pull a fast one.

[mothman]

So this other person maybe woke up one day and finds nobody remembers that great film where nobody remembers the Beatles, so decided to sell the idea to Richard Curtis?

[greenman]

The worst thing is the handling of the what-if premise. It wastes so much of what could be the fun of that idea. The terrible frustration of trying to get the songs exactly the way you remember them, but not being able to persuade the drummer to play it the way Ringo played it. The enormous possibility of perhaps a modern audience not being interested in the Beatles if they heard them for the first time. All that sort of thing.

I would have ended it by having Paul and Ringo turn up, tell him they knew he plagiarised it all, but shrugging and confessing that exactly the same thing happened to them, and that they plagiarised it all too from someone else only they remember. If the idea is that these songs are just sort of magically inherently great and will turn anyone into a superstar (a questionable idea but whatever), the idea that they never belonged to the Beatles either would have been appropriate. They just get passed across the universe for ever.

For this reason I didn't feel the original idea was especially terrible, if it hadn't been written by Curtis I'd maybe have held out some hope that even the trailers were a bit of misdirection selling a basic concept the film moves beyond.

[popcorn]

Nah the basic premise is funny and neat. It's a fun "what if" kind of idea, like Groundhog Day.

Even though everyone who's ever had a bash at writing songs has had the same idea at some point. But that's OK.

[kidsick5000]

To be fair to Curtis, he has revealed elsewhere where the idea came from. For all his faults I don't think he's trying to pull a fast one.

It's a very business approach. He's bought (again, hopefully) the concept and that's it.
Where that original script and Curtis' version crossover becomes coincidence and does not require a writing credit.

There are people that pitch concepts to studios all the time. I'm not sure you can make a living on it unless you're deep in the system

[kidsick5000]

I think the concept is a very difficult one.
The Goodnight Sweetheart version is easier. Time travel to before the song was created and impress everyone with your music. But the world has no knowledge of Beatles? You either keep it so surface you don't let the audience think too much about it, or you go down a dark hole of really trying to rewrite history without a major cultural moment. What happened to music?
(Ps. Why hasn't Goodnight Sweetheart been given the movie treatment? Ryan Gosling as Gary Sparrow? It has hit written all over it)

[BlodwynPig]

Nah the basic premise is funny and neat. It's a fun "what if" kind of idea, like Groundhog Day.

Even though everyone who's ever had a bash at writing songs has had the same idea at some point. But that's OK.

No it's not. Did Chris Morris die for nothing?

[Replies From View]

Nah the basic premise is funny and neat. It's a fun "what if" kind of idea, like Groundhog Day.

Do you think the basic premise of "The Invention or Lying" is funny and neat?

[Mister Six]

Nah the basic premise is funny and neat. It's a fun "what if" kind of idea, like Groundhog Day.

Yeah, il have your back on this. There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea. It's all in the execution.

[greenman]

You look at Groundhog Day itself of course and despite its potential being obvious in retrospect it does start off as a fairly light comedy with a bit of romance and was sold as such in the trailers.

[popcorn]

Do you think the basic premise of "The Invention or Lying" is funny and neat?

I've just looked it up and yes I do. Have I fallen into a trap?