Top of the Pops 12 September 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

Simon Mayo: “Hello. Good evening. Welcome to Top of the Pops. Can I say, first of all, if you got your tickets for tonight’s show through Keith Prowse, can you, you can watch this at 7.30, but cheer and applaud louder because you are watching for free. Seem fair enough to me. We’re gonna start at number twenty eight with Bizarre Inc and this is Such A Feeling. Their first time on the show.”

 [28] BIZARRE INC: SUCH A FEELING. Simon Mayo gabbles his introduction. It’s weird. He talks so quickly he seems actually nervous. Maybe this is take three. Maybe he’s struggling to remember his convoluted satirical jab at the Keith Prowse ticket agency, who went into administration on Monday 09/09/1991. I’m not really even sure what his joke is, it’s lost in the word salad.

It doesn’t really matter because this is a great performance. Top of the Pops is getting better at generating visual interest from a few blokes with synthesisers. In this case the three blokes with synthesisers are at the back of the main stage, behind two dancers who are raised on podiums about four feet off stage level. This means they tower over the crowd. Under both podiums are squares of four monitors, at the back of the stage are two more piles of monitors, each a stack of three, each playing the video.

Brewster McCloud (1970)

 

Considering its place in the timeline of Robert Altman’s career, Brewster McCloud is a comparatively overlooked film. It was his next movie after MASH and similarly underperformed initially though its curiously vague publicity (“a different kind of film”) and odd poster probably didn’t help. Its not an easily pigeonholed movie and so little talked about that I only discovered it when I was writing about Harold and Maude, checking on Bud Cort’s other credits. The film has never really enjoyed a re-assessed critical appreciation while Altman’s subsequent illustrious career left Brewster McCloud as grounded as its protagonist ends up. While it never quite rises to the heights of the director’s best -known work it is interesting to view it from the considerable distance of fifty -six years as a bold endeavour that never quite fits any category.  In some ways its hard to see how it got made as it refuses to be confined.  Is it a murder mystery? Is it a comedy? Is it a fantastical allegory? Watching the movie does not necessarily answer these questions but I’m sure it created much post cinema debate in 1970. It’s not that it’s difficult to understand, more that the narrative chooses to be obtuse and vague, leaving it to the viewer to make up their mind.

Top of the Pops 6th September 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

Jakki Brambles: “Hello, good evening, and welcome along to Top of the Pops. The nation’s finest music show. Tonight we’re checking out the Top Forty Breakers looking at what’s heading up the charts. Also, we have five acts in the studio. The first of which are at number eight. They’re from Liverpool, will you please welcome in the studio Oceanic.”

 [8] OCEANIC: INSANITY. Barely two weeks ago I suggested that Oceanic would have made a better opening act than Midge Ure. Nice of Stanley Appel to take my advice. Let’s see what he does with them.

Top of the Pops 29th August 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

Mark Goodier: “Hi. Good evening and welcome to Top of the Pops. We have an essential show tonight with some performances by EMF, and the Farm, and Arnee and the Terminaters. And we start with a live rap by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch with Loletta Holloway. This is a new entry Good Vibrations.”

 [29] MARKY MARK & THE FUNKY BUNCH Featuring LOLETTA HOLLOWAY: GOOD VIBRATIONS. I’m over 50. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch are basically precision engineered to make me hate them. Stupid hat. Check. Stupid trousers. Stupid jacket. Check. Shakes walking stick at the screen. Boo! Get these kids off my TV set.

Coyote vs. Acme review

 

The endless attempts made by the perpetually hungry Wile E Coyote to catch a speedy Road Runner entertained generations in classic cartoons with each of the former’s schemes foiled one way or another proving perhaps that he wasn’t as wily as his name suggested. Or was it someone else’s fault? Often his failed attempts came as a result of misfiring equipment, always bought from a generic company named Acme and this film runs with the tremendous idea of him suing that company over these malfunctions. Gleefully incorporating countless cartoon moments mixed with live action, the results are impressive and funny.

 

Top of the Pops 22nd August 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

Bruno Brookes: “Good evening and welcome to Top of the Pops. On the show tonight, Jason Donovan, Martika, Zoe, and also this fellow who’s locked himself away in a studio for the last couple of years making a terrific album and also sporting a hit single. Here in the Top of the Pops studio the one and only Midge Ure.”

 [19] MIDGE URE: COLD, COLD HEART. Three drummers? Do you think maybe that’s too much percussion? Midge Ure doesn’t. During the drum break, a handheld camera operator runs down the line of drummers to make sure we get a good look at them. Then the picture cuts to a Bodhrán being held by Midge Ure, and then the camera pulls back to reveal the guitarist standing next to Midge Ure also has a Bodhrán, and the keyboard player has a Bodhrán. Bodhráns for everyone!

The End of Oak Street review

 

In the Eighties, when this movie is set, there was a phrase that said: “don’t bore us, get to the chorus” referring to those songs with short verses and memorable choruses and it is this sort of philosophy that The End of Oak Street follows. With as little a preamble as you need- though one that contains quite a lot of material - David Robert Mitchell’s film soon cuts to the chases and offers exciting set pieces and plenty of nerve-jangling action. Yes, it does share some dino DNA with the likes of successive Jurassic World films and also the tv show Primeval but has enough ingredients of its own to provide memorable moments and rekindle that feeling you would get watching a film as a kid. Come on, its dinosaurs running wild in Eighties America! How can you not enjoy that?

Raaarrrrghh. Spoilers lurk in this review...

 

Our Hero, Balthazar review

This film has had quite a strong online promotional presence and like many when I first saw one of the Bboy Malone videos pop up on YouTube I thought it was real; some kid literally crying about the state of the world and its not as unlikely a sight as you’d think. It was only when they kept appearing and its subject seemed equally distressed about all kinds of things that I twigged it was for the film. These videos and clips have got crazier – Balthazar is the first ethical feminist to become pregnant! – yet in terms of the film they may be giving a slightly misleading impression. As a campaign it worked though as it led me to the film itself yet while Our Hero, Balthazar has some dark humour it’s an intriguing look at characters that society- whether at the top or near the bottom- overlooks.