P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1710:15
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COMINGUP
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1717:32
1/14
ON 4-TEL
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1712:43
2/14
CONTENTS
Welcome to Take Four, 4-Tel's mini-
magazine devoted to films. On the
following pages you can find:
- CHARLIE BUBBLES Sophie Walpole
reviews last night's 'Swinging 60's'
presentation, directed by and
starring Albert Finney
- TIME BANDITS Bill Skirrow takes a
look at Wednesday's film from
ex-Pythons Gilliam and Palin,
starring Ian Holm, John Cleese,
six dwarfs, an ogre and a giant...
Edited by Michael Polling
More...
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1712:02
3/14
CHARLIE BUBBLES
Swinging 60's
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1718:20
4/14
REVIEW
CHARLIE BUBBLES
C4's Swinging Sixties season continued
last night at 10.15pm with a film that
is rather more idiosyncratic and
intense than its predecessors.
Directed by, and starring Albert Finney
Charlie Bubbles is an unconventional
film - even by sixties standards - but
it draws on, and contrasts, elements of
many of the other films in the series.
Bubbles is an angry young man who has
grown up, found success and moved from
his working class background in the
North down to Swinging London, but
there only disillusionment awaits him.
More...
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1713:52
5/14
REVIEW
CHARLIE BUBBLES
This is an unstructured film, taking
us through a critical forty-eight
hours in the life of successful writer
Charlie Bubbles.
Starting in his London clua, we follow
Bubbles as he goes on a drunken binge
with an old friend (Colin Blakely),
returns home, and then travels North
to visit his former wife and son.
The journey to Manchester is symbolic
of Bubbles' dilemma: the nearer he gets
to his roots the more obvious his
growth away from them. But nothing has
filled the void left by home and family
in his life. More...
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1704:14
6/14
REVIEW
CHARLIE BUBBLES
It may be thin on narrative content,
but Charlie Bubbles has "meaning"
slapped generously all over it.
Bubbles is a character in crisis. He
is hugely wealthy, but has been advised
to leave the country to dodge taxes.
He also has a beautiful home filled
with electronic wizardry, but his staff
are surly and he doesn't care for them.
People fawn over him right, left and
centre but his old friends are distant,
even jealous. His wife is the only one
who still sees him for what he is, and
she is merely contemptuous of him.
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1709:41
7/14
REVIEW
CHARLIE BUBBLES
Written by Shelagh Delaney, Charlie
Bubbles is a far less human tale than
her brilliant A Taste Of Honey, and
indicts the symbols and shallow
morality pervading the sixties.
There are long stretches without
dialogue, and the conversations are
brief, often like a veneer, with the
characters betraying none of their
true feelings.
Billie Whitelaw and Liza Minelli are
both excellent within this framework -
the former revealing both her contempt
and sympathy for Bubbles, the latter
nervously seducing him.
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1704:11
8/14
REVIEW
CHARLIE BUBBLES
Albert Finney is compelling in the
complex central role. Here is a man who
has succeeded, but has not sold out. He
has retained his integrity, but still
finds there's a cost.
Charlie Bubbles marked Finney's one and
only venture into the role of director.
His inexperience is not apparent, but
he does have a penchant for long,
static, atmospheric (tedious) shots.
Incidentally, Finney's assistant for
this was Stephen Frears, director of
My Beautiful Launderette - a film of
its time as much as Bubbles is of the
late 60s. Interesting eh?
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1715:21
10/14
REVIEW
TIME BANDITS
This Wednesday at 10.00pm, C4 presents
the British television premiere of
Terry Gilliam's extraordinary and
original fantasy, Time Bandits.
Terry Gilliam not only produced and
directed the film but also co-wrote the
screenplay with Michael Palin.
Children will adore it, although, as
you would expect from two leading
lights of the Monty Python team, the
film makes few concessions to the
Disney tradition of kids' cinema and
never patronises its audience.
More...
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1710:55
11/14
REVIEW
TIME BANDITS
The Time Bandits of the title are a
motley crew of dwarfs who have found
a map that enables them to travel
through time and space.
They enlist the help of a young boy and
embark on a madcap series of adventures
that take them from Ancient Greece to
the land of legends.
In the course of their travels, they
are observed by the wonderfully nasty
David Warner, who, as the technology-
obsessed Evil One, puts to shame any-
body Christopher Lee or Vincent Price
ever dreamt up.
More...
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1711:35
12/14
REVIEW
TIME BANDITS
This film is scattered with priceless
comic cameos from the likes of John
Cleese, Ian Holm, Michael Palin,
Shelley Duvall and Ralph Richardson.
Ian Holm plays a manic Napoleon who
takes a shine to the gang because they
are smaller than him: "Five foot one
and emperor of Italy. Not bad, eh?"
As a smooth and snobbish Robin Hogd who
lords it over his band of blissfully
ignorant brutes, John Cleese brings
back memories of the famous highwayman
in Monty Python who stole only lupins.
More...
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1721:32
13/14
REVIEW
TIME BANDITS
Time Bandits was an unexpected success
in America where it was thought cinema
audiences would have difficulty
relating to Gilliam and Palin's
anarchic style and off-beat humour.
And yet, in retrospect, the fact that
it did so well may not be so surprising
Light in approach as it is, Time
Bandits has an imaginative breadth
that sets it apart from the parochial
nature of so many British films.
For all its faults, and there are some,
Time Bandits is a movie in the
'Spielberg' sense of the word More >
P445ORACLE 445 Mon24 Feb C4 1712:16
14/14
REVIEW
TIME BANDITS
After some knockabout action in which
the Evil One disposes of medieval
archers, a cowboy posse and a Chieftain
tank, the Supreme Being arrives.
And never was there a more likely
depiction of divine authority than
Ralph Richardson, who, wearing a
crumpled grey suit, exudes school-
masterly impatience and irritation.
"I am the Supreme Being. I'm not
entirely dim", he says. If you're not
entirely dim, you'll watch Time
Bandits on Wednesday at 10pm.
By Bill Skirrow