Comments on: Enemy Within by Roger Cottrell http://www.picnic-publishing.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/08/20/enemy-within-by-roger-cottrell-2/ Picnic Books Sun, 22 May 2011 14:10:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: ROGER COTTRELL http://www.picnic-publishing.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/08/20/enemy-within-by-roger-cottrell-2/comment-page-1/#comment-307 ROGER COTTRELL Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:38:17 +0000 http://www.picnic-publishing.co.uk/blog/?p=82#comment-307 Hi Taxi Driver, So you're God's Lonely man, huh? Got to admit its my favourite Scorsesd and Scharder movie but I am intrigued by yoir blog. As a point of information this ISN'T the webmaster but is in fact roger Cottrell who ran the author's blog at Picnic lats week. ENEMY WITHIN is being published by Picnic in the spring (insofar that we still have seasons thanks to global warming). I did look at your film list and was very relieved that you don't endorse torrent sites or knock off DVDs. They're crippling independent filmmakers of which I am one and there's little enough National lottery funding etc for British films as it is. I also thought your list of war films was a bit ecclectic. For example, you have some excellent war movies there but SAVING PRIVATE RYAN isn't one of them. It begins with spectacle then presents the rest of the film (with all this brothers in arms sentiment that Speilberg goes for) as a kind of anti-climax. This explains why Speilberg had to go back to film school to learn his Aristotle and why MUNICH is his best film. Even SCHINDLER'S LISt is less effective as an anti-fascist movie than ESCAPE FROM SORBIBOR because it invests illusions in benevolent capitalists (the way that Spielberg invests it in the United States) while Sorbibor was an inspirational story of a mass working class insurrection in the tradition of KANAL. There's a rake of war movies that I want to get my hands on to go with THE CRUEL SEA and BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (both featuring the underrated Jack Hawkins) and I agree that LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is a classic - though a grittier movie about Lawrence needs to be made in the wake of Lawrence James's important biography (his one of Allenby is good, too). I really want to get hold of copies of THE INTRUDER (also with Hawkins) THE HILL (based on the novel by Ray Rigby) and a gem of a film with Michael Caine called PLAY DIRTY. If you know where I can get my hands on these please let me know. ROGER Hi Taxi Driver,
So you’re God’s Lonely man, huh? Got to admit its my favourite Scorsesd and Scharder movie but I am intrigued by yoir blog. As a point of information this ISN’T the webmaster but is in fact roger Cottrell who ran the author’s blog at Picnic lats week. ENEMY WITHIN is being published by Picnic in the spring (insofar that we still have seasons thanks to global warming).
I did look at your film list and was very relieved that you don’t endorse torrent sites or knock off DVDs. They’re crippling independent filmmakers of which I am one and there’s little enough National lottery funding etc for British films as it is. I also thought your list of war films was a bit ecclectic. For example, you have some excellent war movies there but SAVING PRIVATE RYAN isn’t one of them. It begins with spectacle then presents the rest of the film (with all this brothers in arms sentiment that Speilberg goes for) as a kind of anti-climax. This explains why Speilberg had to go back to film school to learn his Aristotle and why MUNICH is his best film. Even SCHINDLER’S LISt is less effective as an anti-fascist movie than ESCAPE FROM SORBIBOR because it invests illusions in benevolent capitalists (the way that Spielberg invests it in the United States) while Sorbibor was an inspirational story of a mass working class insurrection in the tradition of KANAL.
There’s a rake of war movies that I want to get my hands on to go with THE CRUEL SEA and BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (both featuring the underrated Jack Hawkins) and I agree that LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is a classic – though a grittier movie about Lawrence needs to be made in the wake of Lawrence James’s important biography (his one of Allenby is good, too). I really want to get hold of copies of THE INTRUDER (also with Hawkins) THE HILL (based on the novel by Ray Rigby) and a gem of a film with Michael Caine called PLAY DIRTY. If you know where I can get my hands on these please let me know.

ROGER

]]> By: Taxi Driver Movie http://www.picnic-publishing.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/08/20/enemy-within-by-roger-cottrell-2/comment-page-1/#comment-304 Taxi Driver Movie Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:43:11 +0000 http://www.picnic-publishing.co.uk/blog/?p=82#comment-304 Hello webmaster, what made you want to write on Enemy Within by Roger Cottrell? I was wondering, because I have been thinking about this since last Friday. Hello webmaster, what made you want to write on Enemy Within by Roger Cottrell? I was wondering, because I have been thinking about this since last Friday.

]]> By: ROGER COTTRELL http://www.picnic-publishing.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/08/20/enemy-within-by-roger-cottrell-2/comment-page-1/#comment-221 ROGER COTTRELL Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:43:06 +0000 http://www.picnic-publishing.co.uk/blog/?p=82#comment-221 Hi Kim. I enjoyed reading your blogs, too. No, I don't think things have become more comfortable since the 1980s because we;re still living under the same Thatcherism that came to power in 1979. I do think that certain writers might be more comfortable and have lost their edge, like Richard Curtiss, who's somehow gone from BLACK ADDER to NOTTING HILL but am reluctant to explain these things in terms of personal psychology. The last really good comedies on British TV that I recall would be RAB C. and RED DWARF although there's a really good one called STILL GAME about a group of old boys in Glasgow that should be bigger than it is. I used to live on an estate like that in Paisley. Meanwhile, watching the likes of Alexi Sayle, who was brilliant if a total Stalinist in the 1980s, slag the miners' strike just makes me squirm. So his Stalinis world collapsed with the USSR, he must have been a sap to have illusions in the USSR and Communist Party in the first place. saly, I feel the same way about Trotskyism these days but have not yet taken the Peter Hitchens route in becoming a professional reactionary. What saddens me about alternative comedy in the 1990s is that it lost its political edge but tried to be falsely risky by drug references and references to bodily functions by which time it rated poorly even against old wave greats like Les Dawson and Morcome and Wise. I think the answer's simple. As with crime fiction they reduced their anti-capitalist critique to an anti-Thatcherite one and once the bitch was gone, they lost their bearings. As New Labour were a government in waiting from 1995 how could you possibly deride British capitalism when that lovely Tony Blair was about to be prime minister - proclaiming the class war over! That's the impasse we're in now. The war in Iraq was a wake up call to some writers and Jimmy McGovern was first out of the traps with the best CRACKER in years. But none of the writers raging against the war have any real focus. Then, there's the plain old problem of censorship, with the government once more threatening the BBC with privatisation, a real terms reduction of the license fee and Murdoch's 10% share of ITV making it more bland and orientated to the US market. ROGERx Hi Kim.
I enjoyed reading your blogs, too.
No, I don’t think things have become more comfortable since the 1980s because we;re still living under the same Thatcherism that came to power in 1979. I do think that certain writers might be more comfortable and have lost their edge, like Richard Curtiss, who’s somehow gone from BLACK ADDER to NOTTING HILL but am reluctant to explain these things in terms of personal psychology. The last really good comedies on British TV that I recall would be RAB C. and RED DWARF although there’s a really good one called STILL GAME about a group of old boys in Glasgow that should be bigger than it is. I used to live on an estate like that in Paisley.

Meanwhile, watching the likes of Alexi Sayle, who was brilliant if a total Stalinist in the 1980s, slag the miners’ strike just makes me squirm. So his Stalinis world collapsed with the USSR, he must have been a sap to have illusions in the USSR and Communist Party in the first place. saly, I feel the same way about Trotskyism these days but have not yet taken the Peter Hitchens route in becoming a professional reactionary. What saddens me about alternative comedy in the 1990s is that it lost its political edge but tried to be falsely risky by drug references and references to bodily functions by which time it rated poorly even against old wave greats like Les Dawson and Morcome and Wise.

I think the answer’s simple. As with crime fiction they reduced their anti-capitalist critique to an anti-Thatcherite one and once the bitch was gone, they lost their bearings. As New Labour were a government in waiting from 1995 how could you possibly deride British capitalism when that lovely Tony Blair was about to be prime minister – proclaiming the class war over! That’s the impasse we’re in now. The war in Iraq was a wake up call to some writers and Jimmy McGovern was first out of the traps with the best CRACKER in years. But none of the writers raging against the war have any real focus. Then, there’s the plain old problem of censorship, with the government once more threatening the BBC with privatisation, a real terms reduction of the license fee and Murdoch’s 10% share of ITV making it more bland and orientated to the US market.

ROGERx

]]> By: Kim Fleet http://www.picnic-publishing.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/08/20/enemy-within-by-roger-cottrell-2/comment-page-1/#comment-215 Kim Fleet Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:36:12 +0000 http://www.picnic-publishing.co.uk/blog/?p=82#comment-215 Hi Roger, I've been finding your blog extremely thought provoking and I've been reflecting on changes in TV drama since the 1980s. Not only was it a time of 'gritty' drama but also a time when comedy underwent a revolution (Comedy Club, The Comic Strip) that we don't seem to have any more. Do you think that's because people have got more comfortable, and think life is more stable, or do you think it's purely because reality TV has pushed out riskier series? I miss Edge of Darkness and the Professionals, too! Kim Hi Roger,
I’ve been finding your blog extremely thought provoking and I’ve been reflecting on changes in TV drama since the 1980s. Not only was it a time of ‘gritty’ drama but also a time when comedy underwent a revolution (Comedy Club, The Comic Strip) that we don’t seem to have any more. Do you think that’s because people have got more comfortable, and think life is more stable, or do you think it’s purely because reality TV has pushed out riskier series?
I miss Edge of Darkness and the Professionals, too!
Kim

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