Pirate Radio

[Bourne101]

http://l.yimg.com/k/omg/us/img/11/61/8773_4733273995.jpg?y=660&x=616&q=75&n=0&sig=SuPRWggqfTOcLwwHg_PLMw--

Directed by Richard Curtis

Written by Richard Curtis

Genre: Comedy

Plot Outline: In the 1960s a group of 8 rogue DJs on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic, played rock records and broke the law all for the love of music. The songs they played united and defined an entire generation and drove the British government crazy. By playing rock 'n roll they were standing up against the British government who did everything in their power to shut them down.

Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh

Rated R for language, and some sexual content including brief nudity.

Runtime: 116 minutes

Looks decent. I'll check it out.

[overwatch]

Well it' already on dvd here. I thought that they were trimming the movie and then re-releasing it. But by the looks of the length. It's no different.

[Monotreme]

I saw this movie back when it was out in theatres here months ago and still had the UNFATHOMABLY better title "The Boat that Rocked". I kind of liked it then - I thought it was funny and endearing and entertaining, if at the same time both forgettable and quite a mess in terms of consistency, sticking with the same characters, and an actual plot beyond the initial set-up and the admittedly awesome characters (and acting). The soundtrack is naturally fantastic, but overall, this is nowhere near as good or as compelling as Love, Actually. I would have been interested in seeing a edited-down version that is a little more focused and features less sub-plots that go nowhere, but as overwatch already said, the runtime looks to be just about the same, so I don't really know what the deal is.

[Bourne101]

Since you guys brought up the runtime thing, I went to some other sites to check the runtime, and the runtime for the American theatrical version is indeed shorter. It's 116 minutes now.

[Cronos]

Boo at the title change. But yay for an awesome film, entertaining story, very funny with a great cast. As for a time difference, wouldn't that just be the whole PAL to NTSC conversion?

[Tweek]

I thought it was still called The Boat That Rocked! :confused:

I might see it.

[ilovemovies]

Good cast, good director. So then why does it look so meh?

[drc5145]

I'm seeing it this saturday so I'm pretty excited.

[Frosty_86]

Im gonna try and catch it this weekend. It'll be worth seeing just because of the cast.

[drc5145]

I just got back from seeing it. Too tired to write up a comprehensive review but I will say it's a fun romp at the movies. It's a flawed but still fun film that works as a love letter to 60's music and that age of rebellion. Monotreme is right in that there is not much of a plot and inconsistent. My problem with it is that it simply moves way too fast and doesn't offer enough development as I'd like to have seen. One possible reasoning behind that could be because it's meant to reflect the lightning fast pace that Rock and Roll carries with it during those times and as such, becomes a problem. Even it's meant to be that way, I still see it as a flaw in an otherwise fun romp. I can forgive that for what it does well in giving us fun characters and and a fantastic soundtrack to boot complimenting the life of a wacky pirate radio ship crew.

For the sake of comparison, it reminded me quite a bit of Zombieland in it's utter silliness pf it's setting and characters and it's fast paced energy. Although Pirate Radio wasily had the better soundtrack of the 2.

8/10

[SAI]

I also saw this AGES ago, here in the UK, as The Boat that Rocked. Here's the review I wrote at the time.

The Boat That Rocked
Dir: Richard Curtis
Cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans,
Nick Frost, Tom Sturridge, Kenneth Branagh

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zCGbA5Pv0PI/Sclq0p-vUBI/AAAAAAAABpk/VbKAwDEZAAc/s400/The+Boat+That+Rocked.jpg

Blackadder co-creator Richard Curtis’ latest is set in 1966, a time when, despite the revolution taking place in pop music, the BBC played less than two hours of rock n roll and pop each week. The gap was filled by pirate stations, broadcasting from ships in the North Sea. The Boat that Rocked is a multi-stranded comedy set on a fictional ship, broadcasting Radio Rock.

The 60’s were a time of revolution; musical, social and political, you probably wouldn’t think that Richard Curtis, writer of Notting Hill and writer/director of Love Actually was the filmmaker best placed to celebrate that, and you’d be completely right. The Boat That Rocked, like all Curtis’ films, is all surface. We’re told how important this music was, but we never get any feeling of why, there’s no sense of personal connection with the music, even from the many DJ characters. That’s not to say the music isn’t great, it is, almost every scene has a brilliant, brilliant song as its score, but you’ve heard every single one of them in movies before, and Curtis uses them with such bludgeoning obviousness that rather than being excited to hear what the next classic will be you can almost play guess the soundtrack. The only time the music really works is when Wouldn’t It Be Nice is played, and that’s only really because I LOVE that record.

Richard Curtis is clearly not a director. Like Love Actually before it the visuals of The Boat That Rocked are solidly uninspired and uninspiring. The only memorable shots in this movie are those that you remember from other movies – a sinking boat sequence that is so redolent of Titanic that James Cameron could fairly sue, recurring sequences of people listening to Radio Rock that are all but lifted from The Truman Show, Hoffman’s character presenting his radio show, staged almost exactly like the first sequence (in a radio station) in which he appears in Almost Famous. Otherwise it’s evenly lit, studio bound, devoid of directorial personality, and deeply tedious to look at.

http://thereeladdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/boat-that-rocked.jpg

Curtis can, however, write, which makes it all the more disappointing that Boat’s screenplay is so staggeringly substandard. If you are British the film has one funny line, if you aren’t that goes down to zero, because the funny line relies on some cultural knowledge. One of the larger problems is that, Like Love Actually, there is so much going on in this movie that there’s never any real focus. Love Actually at least, by being essentially a series of vignettes, had some stories that worked in themselves, Boat doesn’t, it’s as if Curtis just threw all his poorly defined characters together and expected something funny to happen organically. It’s through line is probably meant to be a coming of age story for Carl (Sturridge), but Carl is so unspeakably dull as a character and Sturridge brings so little charm and presence to the table that there’s nothing to be interested in. Worst is a deeply offensive three-minute scene revolving around Nick Frost’s portly DJ attempting to sneak Sturridge into his pitch-black bedroom so that Carl can lose his virginity to the unsuspecting floozy who is actually waiting for Frost. This is all played for laughs, but I couldn’t escape the notion that I was now expected to laugh at two men who were, basically, planning a rape. If I hadn’t been going to see a second film directly after this one I may well have walked out then.

I hesitate to describe most of the performing here as ‘acting’ because most of the cast just riff on their established personas, with Bill Nighy and Ralph Brown coming off as especially lazy. Those who don’t are either comatose (Sturridge), decorations (January Jones) or hamming outrageously (Branagh). The exception, inevitably, is Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Apparently when Nighy heard that Hoffman was to be in the film he told Curtis that he was in awe; that Hoffman was “a changeling”, and so it proves. Hoffman is an object lesson in the skill of a truly great actor. His dialogue is just as stodgy and overwritten as everyone else’s, but his utter sincerity and seemingly bottomless talent makes even the worst moments play. A film as bad as The Boat That Rocked is an odd place to find final proof that Hoffman really is the greatest of his generation, but it offers some small compensation for the rest of the film.

With its incredibly digressive narrative - is it about the government attempting to shut down pirate radio, Carl’s coming of age, the rivalry between the Dj’s? Boat is both massively overlong (it could stand to lose 40 minutes, and the cuts are easy to see) and has an annoying mix of tones from stunningly unfunny farce with Branagh’s uptight MP and his aide ‘hilariously’ named Twatt (oh, my sides) to cloying sentimentality about Carl’s discovery of his Father. There’s no consistency, and that, added to the nagging feeling that Curtis has nothing deeper than “Pop music is good” to say makes the film entirely unengaging. I wish I could say with conviction that there are better comedies in the cinema right now, but there are better ways to spend two hours. If you want to laugh just get your DVD of Ghostbusters down and watch that again, if you want to here some great 60’s music then go out and buy some albums, but don’t watch The Boat that Rocked.

[bigred760]

I'm looking forward to seeing this. I could give a damn about the title change; I'm loving the cast, the director/writer, and the trailers and TV spots have had me cracking up.

[Strider]

I'm looking forward to seeing this. I could give a damn about the title change; I'm loving the cast, the director/writer, and the trailers and TV spots have had me cracking up.

My thoughts exactly.

I'm so there.

Strider

[revela]

i would say one of my all time favorites.

[Z_oasis]

Just got back from seeing this flick. I have to say, it gave me goosebumps everytime an amazing song came on. To start with, the story is basic structure yet to me fills fresh still. The characters take awhile to remember them by name...
Before this slips my mind, what is GREAT about the movie is that no one sticks out (in a good way) Its a great Ensemble and it really felt like being in the central character shoes as he joins this crew who've been doin their thing for a long while and you just feel welcomed in. Thats what i really liked about it personally..
Then comes the music (which as a 23 year old, i was supposed to be alive during the 60s) and what an Amazing soundtrack it is. Each song i believe was chosen wisely and perfectly..
As my mind races, its hard to stay on track but all in all, each part of a movie was great. The music flowed, the story was spot on, the characters we unique (Hoffman can do no wrong and was suprised by Nick Frost as well) And the humor was hilarious, especially the ongoing ones. And the clothing kicked ass.

4/5

[PSUDelVec]

7.5/10

Just saw this movie tonight and I got to say, it was a lot of fun. Great soundtrack and a pretty decent cast make this a recommended film for any fan of classic rock and roll, or music in general. It's a sort of love letter to rock, much in the way Almost Famous was, though it admittedly never achieves nor does it aspire to reach the heights of Cameron Crowe's film. Philip Seymour Hoffman is always welcome in a film, as is Bill Nighy. PSH channels Lester Bangs one more time as the DJ that truly seems to get the power of music.

Truthfully, if you're not a fan of this sort of music, you could probably skip this flick. But if you don't like this sort of music, then I'd call into question your taste. But if you're anything like me... have some tissues ready, because the fate of the vinyls might break your heart. I groaned out loud when I saw Dylan's The Times They Are A Changin' lost forever.

[bigred760]

This movie hooked me from the get go. It's simply just a lot of fun to watch and for the most part, listen to - in that the soundtrack is awesome. There's really not a whole hell of a lot going on on the actual boat but shenanigans by the great cast, most of whom play disc jockeys. Those that don't simply live on the boat having a great time with the dj's. The shenanigans are hilarious and make the movie that much more fun to watch. Thrown into the mix are the British politicians trying to stop the rock n' roll radio stations and a somewhat cliche coming-of-age story that takes place on the boat. But the real reasons to check out the movie are the cast and the great music played throughout the film.

8/10