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March 29, 2024, 11:30:03 AM

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Moviedrome

Started by kalowski, June 07, 2020, 05:01:52 PM

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kalowski

I discovered so many great movies through the Moviedrome of Cox and Cousins.

http://www.kurtodrome.net/moviedrome.htm
What have you seen and what do you want to see?

Shit Good Nose

#1
Seen all of them as I was with it right from the beginning to the very end (although a lot of them I haven't seen since their Moviedrome airing).  It was a HUGE chunk of my film education, as it was for most film fans of my generation.

Absolutely HATED Mark Cousins on it, and still find him an absolute bore who is massively up his own anus, but I stuck with it anyway.

As I've reported several times on here before, I met Cox once in the 90s at one of the NEC Memorabilia fairs.  He was minding his own stall (as most of the celebs in attendance did in those days), and I asked him why he left Moviedrome.  The Beeb said that they would no longer include any foreign films in the schedule, which is something he disagreed with (and had big arguments with them for several months whilst they were trying to renegotiate contracts) and eventually he told them to do one.  Mark Kermode was offered it, but refused for the same reason, and then they went to Jonathan Ross, but he was already doing the Film show on BBC1 and was too busy with other things.  Cousins was third choice and he accepted.  Cox was also more interested in talking about the privatisation of British Rail and getting people to sign his petition (which I duly did) than his own work.


Just over half of the intros (both Cox and Cousins) and a couple of outros are on YouTube if you're interested.  I've downloaded all of them for posterity and in case the Beeb gets cunty and demands them to be removed.

Egyptian Feast

What a list! I can remember watching a lot of the items in the 1991-1994 series and the odd earlier one. I still have the tape with The Late Show's Zappa special and Moviedrome's showing of 200 Motels from summer 1993, which got me into FZ and was rewatched many times.

It was an education indeed, and was never the same after Cox left.

El Unicornio, mang

I loved this show, distinctly remember the 1988 one with The Fly (1958), which terrified me. Strongly considering watching all the ones on this list I haven't seen before.

Handy mix of about 60 of the Alex Cox ones as mentioned

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8IGJjukTzc&list=PLbFbLvJse3mqCpkGvCf7i9yFXdMD8k9LR

They've been up since 2006 so probably pretty safe

phantom_power

Yeah this is where I got my alt-cinema education and watching those intros gives me a massive nostalgia rush. This and The Incredibly Strange Film show pretty much defined my taste in film I think

Egyptian Feast

Very tempted to recreate a series of Moviedrome with those YouTube links. Scrolling down that list, I could vaguely remember watching quite a few of those, then Fiend Without A Face popped up. Treasured memory. The climax had teenage me squealing with delight.

Nothing Lasts Forever was a weird one. I hadn't heard of it before despite the cast and Cox's intro went along with the idea that it was a real lost movie from the 1930s. That's one I should probably catch again if I can find it. I'm sure I'd appreciate it a lot more now.

Egyptian Feast

Quote from: phantom_power on June 07, 2020, 07:14:11 PM
This and The Incredibly Strange Film show pretty much defined my taste in film I think

Snap!

Blumf

As always, in our semi-regular Moviedrome threads, here's the accompanying guides to the Cox era:
https://bristle.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/moviedrome_1.pdf
https://bristle.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/moviedrome_2.pdf

Loved the Alan Cox ones, can't stand Mark Cousins in general, but the films were always good.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Blumf on June 07, 2020, 07:43:37 PM
Loved the Alan Cox ones

I didn't see those ones.

WINK

Blumf

Yeah, loved his work on the Linux kernel as well as Young Sherlock Holmes.

greenman

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on June 07, 2020, 05:11:40 PMAbsolutely HATED Mark Cousins on it, and still find him an absolute bore who is massively up his own anus, but I stuck with it anyway.

Looking back on his intros they seem like there some forgotten fast show character.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: greenman on June 08, 2020, 03:30:46 AM
Looking back on his intros they seem like there some forgotten fast show character.

From memory he was always sniffy about the genre and more mainstream films to the point where he seemed annoyed about having to introduce them.  Cox was always more even-handed (although I still remember his intro for Manhunter, a film he's always hated and been very critical of along with his outspoken criticisms of Michael Mann).

El Unicornio, mang

He seems to have mellowed a bit about that these days

Quote"I don't believe in the idea of guilty pleasures. The word guilty is inappropriate for me, when I like something, I like it wholly. When I saw the first Mamma Mia film, I loved it and wrote about this, about loving it, and there was no sense of guilt about it at all. So I don't accept the premise. It's a middle-class, cultural idea that you have to put something in quotation marks to make it easier, like you're superior to it but you can still enjoy it. I'm not superior to anything I enjoy. Did you see Paul Schrader go to a Taylor Swift concert? There were people who rolled their eyes at that, which is the perfect example."

https://hotcorn.com/en/movies/news/favourite-movies-mark-cousins/

Shit Good Nose

I'll, somewhat begrudgingly, acknowledge that his Story of Film is essential reading and viewing for any film buff.

SteveDave

The 19 year old me saw "Society" on Moviedrome. I had some strange dreams that week. I then showed to all and sundry when it came out on DVD and got some very odd looks.

kalowski

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on June 07, 2020, 09:49:52 PM
I didn't see those ones.

WINK
"No, I've not seen him fight Chuck Norris in Enter The Dragon I've seen him fight Chuck Norris in Way Of The Dragon"

dissolute ocelot

Cox's time, especially his later years, have a reputation of being just a bunch of obscure Westerns. But there's a ton of great films in all genres: lots of Godard, Solaris (the original), Un condamné à mort s'est échappé, Ace in the Hole, Mishima, Five Easy Pieces, Kiss me Deadly, Rebel Without A Cause, Terminator, Carrie, Brazil, as well as some shittier but still enjoyable cults like Psychomania, Girl on a Motorcycle, and Q The Winged Serpent. And some great westerns: Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Ulzana's Raid, The Beguiled, etc.

The idea that you could schedule a 3-hour-long Russian art movie at 10.30 or whatever on a Sunday night and expect people who've the week before tuned in for Manhunter or Whatever Happened To Baby Jane is mind boggling.

It seems looking at the lists that Cousins did far fewer films in shorter runs, and while some were on point, from Le Samourai (gangster cult) to All That Heaven Allows (queer cult), there's also a lot of more mainstream recent releases like Prêt-à-porter, Carlito's Way, and Clockers.

The Roofdog

Never saw an Alex Cox one but looking at that list I've got very strong memories of 14 year-old-me watching Westworld, The Fly & Blue Collar on the shitty portable I was allowed in my room for the first time, pissing about with the volume every time I thought I heard my parents on the stairs as I wasn't supposed to have it on so late on a Sunday, so I was apparently onboard as soon as Cousins was. Properly transformative. That's the proper way to watch a film, none of your HD surround sound nonsense.

greenman

I'm guessing I'm not alone in quite often thinking I'm watching something for the first time only to have memories of some childhood moviedrome viewing come back.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: phantom_power on June 07, 2020, 07:14:11 PM
Yeah this is where I got my alt-cinema education and watching those intros gives me a massive nostalgia rush. This and The Incredibly Strange Film show pretty much defined my taste in film I think

Not forgetting Mondo Rosso

Marv Orange

Quote from: phantom_power on June 07, 2020, 07:14:11 PM
Yeah this is where I got my alt-cinema education and watching those intros gives me a massive nostalgia rush. This and The Incredibly Strange Film show pretty much defined my taste in film I think

Absolutely agree, this and channel 4's film scheduling was a fantastic discovery as an early teen. I do wonder how the popularity / viewership of these kind of films will fare in the future, will it go back to a word of mouth thing as there is too much choice/content to navigate? There is just so many subversive ideas in these films it would be a shame to have them forgotten.

phantom_power

Remember the Channel 4 that had Marx Brothers  seasons at Christmas and Hal Hartley seasons, American indie film seasons and various other seasons of interesting films that you wouldn't see anywhere else at that time? What happened to you man, you used to be beautiful

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Yeah. I know it sounds like misty-eyed middle-aged man nostalgia, but Channel 4 really was brilliant for stuff like that in the '80s and '90s. And, as previously mentioned, Jonathan Ross deserves a whole heap of credit for introducing people to so many cult films and filmmakers. Say what you like about the man, but The Incredibly Strange Film Show was such a great, mind-expanding series.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on June 15, 2020, 11:42:00 PM
Yeah. I know it sounds like misty-eyed middle-aged man nostalgia, but Channel 4 really was brilliant for stuff like that in the '80s and '90s. And, as previously mentioned, Jonathan Ross deserves a whole heap of credit for introducing people to so many cult films and filmmakers. Say what you like about the man, but The Incredibly Strange Film Show was such a great, mind-expanding series.
I think most of it is on Youtube and it's still brilliant. The Ray Dennis Steckler episode in particular is a favourite.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on June 15, 2020, 11:46:20 PM
I think most of it is on Youtube and it's still brilliant. The Ray Dennis Steckler episode in particular is a favourite.

And here it is!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFbhf9mjPO0

HAVANAGILA

Quote from: phantom_power on June 15, 2020, 09:01:40 AM
Remember the Channel 4 that had Marx Brothers  seasons at Christmas and Hal Hartley seasons, American indie film seasons and various other seasons of interesting films that you wouldn't see anywhere else at that time? What happened to you man, you used to be beautiful

The one I remember most fondly is Cinema Cinema!, their 10pm Saturday night showings of all manner of old and new French films, which must have had at least 2 or 3 seasons (a quick Google didn't come up with much). I was way too young (12-13) to properly appreciate many of them, but that's where I got to see Nikita and my beloved Delicatessen for the first time, as well as more established fare like Jules et Jim and La Dolce Vita. And then there was the downright saucy stuff like La Lectrice (like I say, I was 12-13 at the time).

Amazing now to think that was standard for Saturday night TV. But I'm so grateful to have had it at that age.