Midweek Mention... Still Crazy

Still Crazy

Cris: Are you a giant panda or are you a giant rabbit?

Dan: Meow

Cris: Oh, it's a cat.

Okay.

Dan: but my onesie makes me a little bit crazy, doesn't it? Could say I'm still crazy Which is, it links so well, doesn't it into, I, I just off the top of my head that was the film I asked us all to watch. Yeah. This

Sidey: We've been clamouring for a Jimmy Nail review and finally it's here.

Dan: Crocodile Shoes. And I think

Sidey: have that single

Dan: in the Yeah, it's a good one.

Reegs: And I think if you're looking for another kind of spinal tap type movie, this is definitely not

Dan: This isn't it. This isn't it. But this was up for BAFTAs.

Sidey: Yeah, too. I don't think it, it could really have been saying it's stored out to be anywhere near as good as Spinal Tap,

Dan: Well, back in 1998, when this was released, who knows what was going through those crazy guys minds.

Because it's quite a cast.

Reegs: Yeah

Sidey: stellar, yeah. I mean, it's almost veers into Auf Wiedersehen Pet territory.

Reegs: Well, it was from some of the writers of that stuff, wasn't it? Clement I can't I didn't get their first names. But they were writers of comedies like Porridge and

Sidey: I mean, they literally got Jimmy now out of Auf Wiedersehen Pet. He's a fucking builder, basically,

Reegs: And the other one I

Sidey: Timothy Spall.

Dan: Same wardrobe. Just put him on, you know. Might have even just carved off some of those scenes from Alvido Zaynpet

Sidey: But it starts, let's talk about the film a little bit. It starts off with a bit of voiceover, doesn't it? Billy Connolly.

Dan: over

Reegs: He says history teaches us that men behave wisely and then he talks

Sidey: Well, only when they've exhausted all other avenues, I think,

is the quote, yeah

Dan: and it's it's surrounding a fictional rock band called strange fruit who after a couple of decades are being kind of requested to

Sidey: Well, we

Reegs: Well we see a lot of information about them straight away, yeah. We see the drug addled Oh, the replacement singer who's replaced the guy who died of a drug overdose, his brother who turns up absolutely off his tits, the extravagance of the show that they're putting on, everything conspiring against them, their arrogance and wanting to be higher on the bill, and who is it, Mott the Hoople, and some other stuff, and eventually it culminates in lightning striking the

Dan: stage. God saying no. Yeah. That lightning would come down and strike them so they couldn't. Continue their show and that was the last the fruits ever played.

Reegs: God got tired of all that seventies success. That's why he invented the Sex Pistols.

Sidey: that's quite a good line, I

thought. yeah, yeah.

Dan: No, there was real potential in the beginning. I thought, you know, you, you kind of get this, obviously it looks a little bit dated and things now, but so does spinal tap and that still made us laugh all the way through. Um,

so

the next scene we have The, Billy, yeah, we're in,

Sidey: Tony.

Reegs: We're following the band, yeah, and nobody knows, Tony is the brother, is he?

The, no.

Sidey: No, Tony was just the the

The keyboard

player who's kind of the least glamorous of the lot. He's working in Ibiza and no

Reegs: Ibiza and no one He's got a

Sidey: he's got the condom concession in Ibiza.

Yeah. But someone recognizes him. Someone, a holiday maker and placed him

Reegs: a joke on

Sidey: Yeah. And so he's very enthusiastic and it's not immediately apparent, but he's basically asked him to reform the band

Dan: The guy who recognises him, he's the one guy out of Blackadder, isn't it?

Sidey: Tim Kinnery?

Dan: recognise him, looked

Sidey: I didn't recognize him. He just looked like a nobody to me.

But he, but could well be, he

Dan: he was in Blackadder. But anyway, he recognised him, he's a friend of somebody who loved the band and they

Cris: No, he's the son and his dad used to organize that festival where they, they imploded. And

Dan: 20 years

Reegs: And they're talking about getting it on again 20

Dan: Knowles, the original runaround girl.

Sidey: So I can, I looked her up because I recognised her.

Straight away, I thought it was the lady who played Alan Partridge's wife. But I couldn't find that, and I was, I was arguing with,

like, IMDB because it wasn't in there but I was fucking convinced. Anyway, it's not.

But I still

Reegs: but I was fucking convinced.

Anyway, it's not. At least I

Sidey: least I looked mine up.

Dan: Yeah, more than I did. And then yeah, they're gradually getting the band back together. And, and, and just seeing they're all, you know, they're all kind of

Sidey: all nice. Well she goes, he

Reegs: Well, she goes, he goes to Les, who's that's Jimmy Nail.

Yeah. He's a successful roofer. And he's got like, you know.

He's got a very domesticated life that he seems happy with. He's

Sidey: built a successful

Reegs: thAt is, you know, that is all been part of it. And when he goes to see him, Tony's like afraid of heights. So he has to carry him down the ladder afterwards, which I quite

Dan: Yeah. He's

Sidey: to carry him down the ladder. What we're going to find out is because when we get introduced

to

Reegs: we're going to find out is because when we get introduced to the other, one of the other main characters, Ray, who's Bill Nighy's sort

Sidey: career Nadir , his confused,

Reegs: eccentric routine as a sort of burnt out, washed up rock star living in excess with his sort of foreign wife, model wife, trophy wife.

Thank you. And she like nags him and micromanages him and all that other stuff.

Dan: And

Reegs: And he replaced the lead singer who died in a drug overdose. And whose brother, Brian, is whereabouts unknown at this

Dan: Took, took over, but suspected? Yeah. Unknown or, or dead. They're not sure what happened to, to Brian, but so yeah.

Tony gets both of these guys on board. Of course. He goes to to to Les, but saying it's first because that would otherwise damage his ego because he's that kind of guy He needs to be seen as the man of the band the top man because he's the singer. But none of them are instantly You know Loving the idea of getting back, but

Reegs: did you enjoy Bill NA's performance in this 'cause it's like the pro, it's so like, but maybe this was the birth of it, but it's like so much when you think of what Bill Ye does, it's this, isn't it?

Sidey: It's sort

Reegs: They're sort of like confused, sort of bumbling, eccentric

type routine.

Dan: Yeah, there is

Cris: not

Dan: a lot of that.

Sidey: But we know, we're all students of music, we know that the crazy one in any band is always the drummer. Yeah. And Timothy Sport, his younger version of himself looks, he's like that dance player, he looks fucking ancient in this when he's supposed to be young.

And he looks fucking like shit when you find him in present day and he's constantly being hounded by creditors. I think the HMRC are after him.

Reegs: that's what he thinks, isn't it?

Sidey: But the, but

the is it not The first one

Reegs: first time he sees, yeah, I know.

Sidey: Anyway he's, he's basically on the run. He's he seems to owe money and he's just a fucking like complete hooligan.

He's straight away like, yeah. Brilliant. Let's get the band together. Anything to get outta here? You

Dan: Well,

Sidey: he's, bang up for it's,

Dan: he's doing in, he's working in a nursery, isn't he? And when they come to find him,

Cris: Well, a plant nursery,

Dan: yeah, plant nursery. And,

Reegs: That is a good clarification there,

Dan: yeah. And when they,

Cris: know, is that the same word

Dan: yeah, no, you're right. You're right. And he. Legs it out as soon as he realizes the band well, he's not sure what a band at the moment, he just legs it out, away from the tax, to the tax person, what he thinks is the tax person, runs into the band, who are driving down the road looking for him, and, oh, wow, and he goes, yeah, perfect, right, get band back together, let's go, and jumps

Sidey: so at first

Dan: on board.

Sidey: they're gonna have a get together lunch to because they haven't seen each other for 20 years really

Reegs: And there's all sorts of tensions, and

Sidey: and Karen

Has organized this but on the way she's also quit her job She's been sexually harassed at work and not had any support and so she's thought fuck this I've got an opportunity to go and like relive the glory days doing something I really want to do So but on the way for leaving to go to this lunch, he gets a fax.

This is been a fax time period saying that The only way she's been able to track down the missing fella is through his

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: which are being paid to

a Cancer

charity at the behest of, she thinks,

Reegs: Brian the brother.

Yeah. Yeah. So she thinks he's

Sidey: So she has to announce to the other guys that sadly he's not going to be joining them for lunch because he's dead.

Reegs: Yeah. And

Cris: that was also the love of her life

Dan: life. Love of her life. And also, the big reason why a lot of people would tune in to hear the Fruits again, because he was this charismatic kind of dude within the band. So, when they're looking a little bit Well, it's him and his brother.

Yeah. In

Sidey: gone. I don't know

if you were doing it, I mean, you could see all the references to other like real bands that

they were just like cherry picking and stuff.

Dan: Yeah.

And they're, they're, yeah, trying to, as I say, trying to get the, this band back together.

They're also looking for investment into it. They want to do a, a tour. They think one or two of them, particularly Tony and, and Karen, think there might be some legs in this. We get some money.

Reegs: Well, they go to the record company and they want to get their stuff reissued. Karen wants to get their stuff reissued. He's like, we're not going to do that, but do a European tour. I thought just to fob him off, but

Sidey: Well, she says tour student.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: and stuff.

He said no but I thought, hang on, I went to a university back in the day and that was the sort of bands that did fucking like shitty nostalgia stuff.

But anyway, they go on a tour of like real up and coming, i. e. shithole

bars around Europe.

Dan: like, where are they, Germany and Holland, they end up and, and heading

Reegs: Well, they, they, they, they haven't quite gone yet because they have to have the rehearsals and all that.

They do all the rehearsals. And Billy Connolly turns up with his treasure chest of memorabilia. I think he's financing part of the tour. Yes. And also they have to recruit a

edgy

new guitarist to come and join

Sidey: on.

Dan: Someone a bit younger. Someone that they can get excited about because the rest of them aren't very exciting. They

Reegs: But they introduce him playing some Jimi Hendrix on the guitar and it wasn't him playing it but it was very

Dan: Yeah, well Jimi was, wasn't he? He was

alright. I

Reegs: Oh and also Tony's got Jimi Hendrix's tooth on a necklace, hasn't he? He lost it in a bar fight or something, wasn't it?

Dan: That's right, and that's kind of his his Is pension really, isn't it? It's

Reegs: an unverified tooth. Can I have 25 grand for this tooth please?

Yeah,

sure.

Dan: Yeah. So they, they get the band back together, they start touring and typically,

Sidey: Well they rehearse, and there's

tension in the rehearsals because they're not great, although I don't think they sound any better when they're supposed to be good, but also

there's

a song that Les has written the dead former singer

Reegs: and he's

not

Sidey: and he's not been allowed to perform it or sing it himself and that's led to some tensions within the group so that we've given that little nugget

Dan: group. So they were given that little nugget. I can tell, Chris, it was

Sidey: Well they catch, they overhear him singing it, don't they? I can tell, Chris, probably a high point for you when Jimmy Nail was singing that

Reegs: singing

Cris: Oh, I nearly had a heart

Sidey: attack.

Dan: Yeah,

Reegs: But this is the biggest, the big conflict at the centre of the movie is Liz's resentment of Ray and Ray's like, self doubt as a consequence of it.

Sidey: he performs, we see him in the mirror, geeing himself up. Yeah. It's a trope that we've seen a million times in other films as

well.

Reegs: He's sort of got the funny hair thing going on and putting on guyliner and all that sort of stuff.

Anyway, so the bands, I mean, the gigs are pretty terrible at first, really, aren't they? And booked in all the wrong places. They call people headbangers, but they're clearly showing people with shaved heads, but they didn't quite have the guts to say skinheads or whatever for

Sidey: some reason. yeah.

Reegs: So yeah, how much of that It's not montage y, but there's a whole Well, in terms of, you were talking about the plot thing in Total

Sidey: right? Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: And this, again, is the same example of a very formulaic

Dan: Yeah, you know,

Reegs: a bit of the band getting better.

Dan: We're talking about this film. It's nothing new. It's very easy watching. You've got band so far, like, have split up. Get the band back together. Band of rubbish. We're going in a bit of a dip. And you know, Just the formula of, of the film, things are going to start picking up with one or two kind of little bits on the way.

And it doesn't disappoint in the fact that it disappoints,

Sidey: Well, well, they, they do end up fucking it off, don't they? They, they, it's just, they're not able to take it as far as they would like as the band is. And, but what turns the shock, the kicker is that Métis, what's his name? He's not dead. He has in fact been away writing with Nil and I.

Reegs: I.

Sidey: And he's I think he's in an he'd been

Reegs: Yeah. And

then decided to stay on as a

Sidey: He's doing one of those kind of Japanese gardens where everything yeah where

Dan: Brian Lovell is Bruce Robinson. We did

Reegs: miss, we did miss Ray, right? Ray and Les have a big argument after he goes all Phantom of the Opera on stage and gets a bit big for his boots. And then Ray goes off and buys drugs from

Sidey: Mackenzie,

Reegs: Mackenzie Crook yeah of The Office fame, and then takes some drugs, falls in the lake which they think is a plea for suicide, he has a vision also of Brian, also, anyway, helps him resolve the big emotional blah at the centre of the movie to set it up for

Sidey: off.

Did you see, did you see the bit where the tour bus breaks down and they see two hitchhikers? Two, I think, Dutch hitchhikers. Did you recognise the blonde girl?

Dan: Yeah, she was,

Sidey: was Donna Eyre. Donna Eyre.

Dan: Ey

Reegs: Donna Eyre.

Sidey: She once asked the Coors how they met

Reegs: brilliant.

Sidey: Amazing. Yeah.

Cris: I dunno who that is.

I've said

Reegs: were brothers, they were brothers,

Cris: No, I know, I know the band. I just don't

Sidey: was in Holyokes and she's in like the Ladd mags or of this time of

Cris: Right. Okay.

Dan: Yeah, Donna Eyre. That's right, yeah. So that, that's getting towards the climax, if you

Reegs: Well, that's a sign, actually. Donna Eyre is a sign, because they're, again, at many points in this ready to give up and then they're given a sign again to carry on because she's wearing a t shirt, coincidentally, of her dad's favourite band.

Dan: Which is Strange Fruit. Yeah, which is them,

Cris: Very

Reegs: them on.

Yeah, so we get the weird thing here, because there has been a sort of love thing going on between Tony and Karen, which the movie then just drops, so that she can go and talk to Brian, and then they never really resolve, or is it

Sidey: He peeks around the corner and is sad,

sad Tony, because he knows that she will never love him as much as she's and now that he's alive.

What did you

Dan: When you say it, it just brings up more

Reegs: Yeah, no, that bit, that bit was quite affecting. And especially as, because Brian is such a fucking space cadet as well. Like, just

Sidey: Yeah, he's the Sid Barrett, isn't he, of this story.

Dan: downer isn't he, of this story.

Well, there's the running thing of

Reegs: Well, there's been a running thing of this. The IRS coming after him and it turns out she wants to

Dan: she wants to do it. But this is

Sidey: Well, this is on the eve of the big gig, so they've kind of fucked it off. But now that they've met matey

Brian, they're gonna go ahead

Reegs: because

Sidey: because,

Reegs: Well, are you doing a Nazi salute? Sorry.

Cris: going to be noisy,

Sidey: on the scene, so they weren't gonna do the gig, or they hadn't told the guy. It's not very clear, is

Reegs: not very clear,

Sidey: they hadn't told the guy, or they had strung the boss man, the finance guy from the label, that yes, they would do this gig, but they hadn't told him that actually the star of the band wasn't around.

So now, so I think they were going to fuck it off. It was a bit unclear, it was a bit hazy this in the film,

but now that they? Yeah.

Dan: think that's why they missed out on the BAFTA. This, they couldn't quite sort out

Sidey: And so it all comes together that they will be able to perform, but they do, yeah, you're right. The press

Reegs: they talk to him about his drug,

Sidey: having a go. Him and he straw. He goes.

He goes off and they get shirted with the press and so it's unclear if he'll be able to perform because he's mentally obviously very fragile. And they go on stage and they're giving another like shitty lackluster performance.

Dan: Until Tony

Sidey: has a total, there's a total crisis of confidence on stage this time.

And this is where they have the really touching and emotional reconciliation with

Reegs: Yeah, that allows him

Dan: stage this time, and this is where they have been really touching on emotional reconciliation with Les.

He just looks, he's getting the fear, and he just hides off by one of the speakers. And then it's up to Tony. Yeah, Tony saves him, starts playing it. No, it's like he starts playing it first, doesn't he? On

Reegs: Oh yes, he does, yeah.

Dan: know, Tony

Reegs: him

Dan: gives it the first kind of chords. And then they look around and they go,

Reegs: What a powerful

Dan: Ah, well, this, there wasn't a dry arsehole in the house at this point, was there?

Cris: I was dripping.

Dan: yes. And yes, they, they, like, overcome,

Sidey: at this point, it, feels like it was a vehicle for Jimmy Nail to sing because he had a pop career at this time.

Yeah. Well, probably tailed off that a little bit.

Reegs: Well, it just sort of ends with

Sidey: There's lightning is the lightning about to come down again and she talks directly to

God. I think it says don't be a cunt and he isn't he stops the lightning. So that

was good

Reegs: And then Billy Connolly says how, basically how will they fuck it up this time? And then it ends. It was, considering what a formulaic it was, very confusing ending that, wasn't it?

Really, I

Sidey: they they thought have been dragging on too

long

Reegs: just had to end It

Dan: be. Also,

Reegs: also, as well, this is one of the most tightly edited movies I think I've ever seen. Like, every scene was just, like, flying through a thousand miles. I mean, literally, they were cutting every single part of the frame that they could because, It was like just, yeah,

Dan: A a lot of the time you, you look at a and you think, oh, I bet they had a lot of fun doing that. It didn't come through on this, did it? It didn't. You

Sidey: Cast your mind back to this is like nine. This is late 90s. So Brit pop called Britannia all that but coming to the end of that and it was that sort of time where if you just got a load of Brits together that people would lap it up because it was just that time and um it's a it's a like a who's who of of like actors from that period are all Brits you know um I.

Didn't hate it that much actually. I, I, it wasn't good. I mean, I was watching it kind of thinking everyone's gonna fucking hate this. I was just lolling at Jimmy Nail as an actor and musician. That's like, what is going on?

Dan: got quite

Reegs: on? He's got quite a good voice, don't you

Sidey: It's okay. Yeah. But if you consider what his background would have been to end up doing this, like it's pretty remarkable.

Reegs: this, it's pretty remarkable.

Dan: Well, any of them. I mean, Timothee Sporty was the same thing, wasn't he?

You know, Alveda, Zayn Pett and everything is where they got their big breaks. I, you know, I like these kind of movies that are very easy to watch sometimes. And they're, they're not too much, I know, you don't, not everybody does. They don't really challenge you. You know exactly where it's going. It is formulaic.

You know it's gonna have a,

Reegs: but it was so

Dan: or something. Yeah, there was, there was nothing original in there. Nothing that you hadn't seen anywhere else. before and done better. But still, despite all that, I wasn't, you know, unhappy watching it. I didn't have to pause it or fast forward or look at my phone.

I just

Sidey: Yeah. it's a breezy like 80 minutes.

Dan: Just carried

Reegs: I think it's just so offensively bland for me. It's so milquetoast and vanilla.

Sidey: What do you think, Chris?

Honestly, it

Cris: Well, I agree with you. I couldn't, I couldn't understand why they made it so many times that they would find a reason to fuck it up just so the movie gets longer instead of just after the first two kind of bits in when they go to Groningen and then, oh, ah, the bus breaks down and then he falls through the ice.

Mate, just make it a happy one at the end. Even the end is not

Reegs: But they rushed to get to the end and then the end is like this weird,

Dan: They didn't really deliver Yeah,

Sidey: of the I think one of the big big problems with musical ones like this is that the music is shit

Reegs: Yeah. Garbage.

Sidey: because if they were good, If

they were good at music, they would've been a real band.

Do you know what I mean? The people who've written the songs, they would've been real songs. And so you're trying to believe that this is a massive band from seventies, but it's shit music and it's even a problem with a great film, like Almost Famous is that Stillwater are actually shit, but this is a shit film with shit music.

So that is more of a problem. Yeah. But I

Dan: is more of a I don't know. I mean, you've got the, the, the scene with Timothy

Sidey: he's at least, he's at least wacky and like, he's got a lot of energy in the film.

Tony, who's the lead, is so boring,

Reegs: Yeah,

Sidey: he's, he's so boring. It's like crazy that they could, that is who they're going to hang the film on.

Reegs: And then Bill, Bill Nighy, you know, Richard Curtis saw that and did it. That character again in Love Actually and everybody went absolutely fucking bananas for that and Bill Nighy like was a superstar in his middle age suddenly.

And I guess if you're into like, watching middle aged people bond, which you probably are because you're listening to this podcast, so.

Dan: Then you're gonna

Reegs: You're gonna love this,

Dan: this. Get a t shirt.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: out of it, I must say.

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: A small, tiny little tap of a kick.

Reegs: shirt.

Cris: recommend.

Dan: Strong recommend.