- This is the movie formerly known as The Boat That Rocked, a far superior title. In fact, if you click on IMDB links that read “Pirate Radio” they link to the movie’s page that is still labelled The Boat That Rocked. Anyway. I hate it when they change titles. I suspect they thought North Americans would be more interested in seeing a movie with “pirate” in the title? I have no idea.
- My biggest complaint about Taking Woodstock, that other 1960s music movie this year, was that it was a movie about a musical cultural experience where the experiences had nothing to do with music. What’s that line Barry has in High Fidelity? “How can someone with no interest in music own a record store?” It was like that. Pirate Radio does much better on this front, putting music front and centre and not just for the purpose of creating a soundtrack people will want to buy afterwards. We’re talking about rock and roll as a national obsession here, and rather than waste our time delving into uninteresting characters who pay lip service to the Gods of Rock but who ultimately don’t seem to care very much about it (á la Taking Woodstock), we get a merry band of DJs who are so addicted to their musical world that they take to the high seas so they can semi-legally broadcast the music no one else will play. The cast might be unnecessarily large, but even with the smaller characters we’re at least able to garner some idea about the passion they hold for the music; why else would you be willing to take the 3-6am shift on a radio station operating out of the North Sea? Participating in this charade indicates some manner of madness that only a great obsession with something can induce.
And more to the point, these guys actually exhibit the casual but ultimately non-threatening rebellion 1960s British rock embodied. I keep thinking of those hilarious newspaper headlines from 1964 where the Rolling Stones’ manager would get them to print stuff asking “Would you let your daughter go with a Stone?” and then parents would start pulling their hair out in fear. Was Mick Jagger really going to come through your radio and rape your daughters in the night? No. But did something as benign as reality get in the way of healthy rock and roll induced paranoia? Of course not. It’s good natured with an undercurrent of faux menace that makes the movie fun while staying relatively true to how I, as someone born in 1982, perceive this period in British rock to be. This all came across no clearer than when poor uptight Sir Kenneth Branagh, out to make pirate radio illegal, thinks he is victorious until out of the silence “Let’s Spend The Night Together” comes blasting out his radio. Be still his beating heart! Classic. (If obvious.)
- Speaking of which, why is it they could not play rock and roll on the radio but you could plaster these bands all over the TV in Britain?
- I did thoroughly enjoy most of the musical selections, although I am of course rather annoyed at the anachronisms. We’re told at the start that the movie takes place in 1966, but as the film progresses you get a variety of songs from 1967, 1968, and beyond being played on the radio station. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, assuming that perhaps the prologue announced that pirate radio became big in 1966 but that the timeline of the film progressed past that. Nope. At the end they announce that most of the pirate radio stations were shut down by 1967. People. This is NOT. OKAY. Yeah, it’s pretty fricken cool to have your character announced by playing “Jumping Jack Flash” — #5 in my Top Five Rolling Stones songs of all time — but, you know, the song hadn’t been released yet. Then again, maybe I’ll be forgiving since I like most of the songs. I’m trying to be more reasonable about this. Although if you’re doing a movie about music, maybe someone should be researching these things for accuracy…
- I did like that for every well-known track like “My Generation” we got an archival tune like “Fire” by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. I certainly can’t remember the last time I heard that song.
- FASHION. I want to live in a world where men wear shirts with amazing geometric patterns on them.
- The kid who played Carl was adorable and if I went to high school with him, I would have had a crush on him.
- Midnight Mark, the only DJ apart from Gavin who was able to achieve near-mythic sexual status, was totally someone I would have put up pictures of in my locker if I was fifteen in 1966. OMG. At the end of the movie when they have the cheesy moment where everyone slowly stands up and declares that they’re willing to keep broadcasting even though it has been made illegal, the only part that made it bearable was when silent Mark stood up and merely lit a cigarette as an indication he was in solidarity with the rest of them. Classic. Love this guy. *fans self*
- Also, I would totally do Bill Nighy. He played his role in this the same way he appeared on stage at the Glorious 39 screening in September (air guitar!) and I just kind of love him a lot.
- Things that are not hilarious: the almost rape of Gemma Arterton’s character. Pro tip: doing the ol’ bait and switch in the dark so that a young man can lose his virginity because the girl won’t know the difference between him and the guy she thought she was going to have sex with is not amusing. Thankfully, this did not end up happening, but not for lack of trying on behalf of the two male characters in the scenario. Jesus.
- The last third of the movie where the ship sinks was phenomenally unnecessary and kind of stupid. The only thing I liked about it was the shot of records falling off the shelves because I thought it was a nice visual akin to the White Star Line china crashing to the floor in Titanic. Whether this was intentional or not, I will never know. Also, no explanation is given as to why it even sinks. All we get is a massive shudder and then suddenly the watertight bulkheads are overflowing all the way up to E deck.
- The Kenneth Branagh side of the story was a little deliciously over the top and kind of silly, but no matter. His mid-century modern office was to die for. I laughed more than necessary over Jack Davenport’s character being named Twatt.
- Unnecessary subplots: groupie Betty Draper marrying poor fool Simon and Carl’s “Who’s your daddy?” quest. Pro tip: no one cares.
- Emma Thompson is a glamorous 1960s woman, oh my god. How is she always so fabulous? She is fabulous. I want to be like her when I grow up.
- It was interesting to me that they ended with telling us how many radio stations exist today and how the future of rock and roll is secure, etc. because I cannot for the life of me think of the last time I listened to the radio when I was not driving somewhere (and I don’t drive that often). Do people still listen to the radio the same way they did in 1966, now that music is digitized and we all have the potential to be our own personal DJs? I don’t mean online radio or music podcasts or things like that, I mean listening to an actual station on an FM dial. I know this movie is not aimed at people in my age demographic or younger, of course, but in a world where anyone can make a playlist and broadcast it to the world at large, how relevant are stories about old school radio stations? Tastemakers don’t have the power of influence they once had, I suppose.
- Ultimately, it just died in the third act (I will not use a “sinking” metaphor here) and there were some subplots that annoyed, but I had a pretty good time watching this despite everything I hated. My bias towards this period in music probably played a fairly large role in making it more enjoyable for me than it seems to have been for most critics.
- GRIEVOUS THEATRE ETIQUETTE ALERT: This theatre has an actual curtain that covers the screen. The final credits are divided into two parts: the first part that deals with the “big” credits where various rock album covers are shown all over the screen, followed by a brief snippet not shown in the film, and the second part with all the detailed credits that is just text on the screen. The curtain came down immediately after the “big” credits. What kind of fuckery is this? A woman a few rows back actually yelled “TACKY!” Um, hi, sometimes there are those of us who actually stay to watch all the credits, and the movie theatre does NOT get to decide when I am finished doing so until the final credit has rolled. Uncouth. After the uproar they brought the curtain back up, but still. Not on.
Pirate Radio
I JUST REALLY LOVE ROCK AND ROLL!
IMDB Plot Synopsis A period comedy about an illegal radio station in the North Sea in the 1960's.
What makes #17 even worse is that there was additional footage after the credits. What the hell, theatre!