There’s no doubt that Shame is a bold, captivating portrait of a sex addict’s life in New York. The visual style is stunning, Michael Fassbender’s performance – bizarrely unrecognized by the Academy – is mesmerising, and the film really captures the essence of New York onscreen. But its portrayal of women is less than flattering, and this is worth noting. Yes, the focus is on the character of Brandon and his addiction, so we are meant to sympathise with him and see women through his eyes. Fair enough. And Brandon’s no misogynist – he’s certainly the good guy when contrasted with his lecherous married boss. Still, does a film about a man’s sex addiction have to keep female perspectives so muted to tell its story? I think in 2012 we could do a bit better.

You’ve got to admit it’s an awkward one for heterosexual women watching the film, for whom Brandon is a real-life nightmare. Brandon seems like such a catch; an attractive and considerate man, however, he finds open communication difficult, is intensely emotionally unavailable and has a voracious sexual appetite (albeit to a pathological degree). Any ladies out there, hands up if you’ve been with such a man? The memories aren’t pleasant, I’m sure. Women who’ve had such experiences learn to go into defensive mode around men like Brandon, but the film skilfully forces its audience to put their guards down. Nevertheless, the result happens to be those women feeling male domination all over again.

Of course the film needs to include women who fulfil Brandon’s desires – but there are two key female characters who provide important counterpoints to this, women in his world whose voices he actually hears: his colleague Marianne (Nicole Beharie) and more crucially, his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan). Yet the contrast between these two and all the other women is simply not strong enough to make a difference; not enough to un-mute women in his story.

It’s unfortunate that our introduction to Marianne is sexualised early on when Brandon fantasises about her naked while checking her out at the office; from that point on, we already know that their fledgling relationship is likely to be doomed. During their one and only date Marianne establishes herself as a smart, sensitive girl who doesn’t automatically swoon in Brandon’s presence. However in the aborted sex scene which follows, the camera is statically dispassionate, automatically prioritizing Fassbender (because we know him better) and denying us access to Marianne’s feelings while she struggles to get close to him. Sure, Brandon’s breakdown feels remote but Marianne’s reaction manages to be even more obscured. At this crucial moment, she seems more like a plot device exposing Brandon’s frailties rather than a living, breathing woman.

Sissy’s voice could have added greater balance to an uneven film, yet she is also reduced to functioning as a narrative mechanism rather than a full character. As with Marianne, the film introduces her to us in a way that undercuts her; we first hear Sissy on Brandon’s answerphone, and it’s left ambiguous whether she’s another of his female conquests or someone more substantial. It’s a provocative choice but it also throws her character under the bus – she’s initially presented as an unhinged sexual threat to Brandon so explicitly that it’s difficult to see her side of the story without prejudice.

When Brandon bursts into the bathroom because he thinks Sissy’s an intruder, she doesn’t cover herself up. If Sissy had been a bit less brazen, covering herself up partially yet still enough to make Brandon uncomfortable, we might care about her a bit more. I mean, what sister stands unabashedly stark naked in front of her brother? Is Shame an issue film about a sex addict or about incest? Enigmatic obfuscation is one thing; manipulative red herrings are another entirely.

Also, she’s wearing a hospital bracelet, but this is never addressed – in fact, most audience members probably missed it, seeing as there was no close-up or dialogue about it. Again, here’s a missed opportunity to give Sissy more of a voice, instead of marginalizing her as just a projection of Brandon’s. Did she have an operation? Attempt suicide? So did Brandon never visit her at the hospital meaning she had to come to him?

We next hear her on the phone, desperately professing her love to someone leaving her, though by this (still early) point of the film the damage to her character’s been done. That scene’s not quite enough for us to accept that she’s the inverse of Brandon and have equal sympathy for her. Even her big moment – a bar blues rendition of ‘New York, New York’ – is ultimately upstaged by Brandon and his maudlin release of a single tear. Sissy, like her brother, is love-starved but emotional and expressive rather than cold and silent; however, the way she’s presented in the film, we are pushed to favour Brandon’s control and detachment over her messiness and vulnerability.

In the end, despite Carey Mulligan’s committed performance, Sissy, like Marianne, is more catalyst than character. She mainly serves to expose and challenge Brandon while acting as a foil – she’s addicted to attention/affection rather than carnal pleasure. Thus her self-destruction isn’t in itself important, because it simply sparks Brandon’s self-destruction (if indeed we are to view Shame as a message film about sex addiction). It’s a bit of a pity, really. Remember Jodie Foster and Cybill Shepherd in another New York film about emotional and psychological dislocation? They could have been mere dressing on the window of Travis Bickle’s mind, yet Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader made it clear that these three-dimensional women existed outside their warped protagonist’s jaundiced perspective. In my humble opinion, Shame’s idolatry of Brandon keeps it just short of being a fully accessible and truly brilliant film.

I really like Jeanne Moreau. What’s not to really like? The heavy-lidded insouciance of her gaze. The husky purr of her voice, undoubtedly nurtured by a several-packs-of-Gitanes-a-day habit. The attitude that challenges you to find her irresistible while simultaneously not giving a Gallic toss whether you do or not. I present Jacques Demy’s La Baie des Anges as case for the defence. Just see if I’m not right.

Louis Malle didn’t exactly discover Moreau but he certainly gave her an almighty shove up the career ladder. In his first two fiction features, the Malle-Moreau chemistry worked wonders for both parties, on-screen and off. In Ascenseur pour l’échafaud Moreau wanders the Parisian boulevards throughout the night while her lover is trapped in a lift. In Les Amants she wanders in the wee small hours through the woods in her nightgown before taking a bath with the lover she’s just picked up. Nobody takes a nocturnal stroll quite like Jeanne Moreau.

Jeanne Moreau shades it

After making the downbeat Le feu follet (also featuring Moreau in a minor role, and recently re-invented in Norway as Oslo, August 31st), Malle decided it would be welcome change of tone to make a comedy. This might have been a fine plan, except Louis Malle had no talent for comedy. His previous attempt, Zazie dans le Métro, though formally clever and inventive, seems to last twice as long as its 90 minutes in its desperate quest for wackiness. Viva Maria! also proves to be something of a challenge for an audience in search of a laugh.

The set-up is promising: Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau as a pair of travelling performers discovering striptease by fluke, in what’s probably the first female buddy movie. Their musical numbers together are the most enjoyable aspect of the film. The scene where Bardot accidentally bursts out of her costume during a song, then continues to strip to the inevitable excitement of the audience, has a certain charm, although Barbara Windsor will forever remain the Queen of Accidentally Bursting Out Of Her Costume. And a few years later Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac occupied the stage with much more pizazz in Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.

It’s an uncertainty of tone that holes the film beneath the waterline. It veers across genre and style like some mishmash of Carry On, Monty Python, Luis Bunuel, The Wild Bunch, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Jesus Christ Superstar and Calamity Jane. The plot (if we can be bothered with it – certainly the screenwriters didn’t appear overly concerned) involves two performers both called Maria travelling around Central America with a circus at the start of the 20th century. They witness the sufferings of the peasants under the sadistic dictator Rodriguez, and after Maria I (Moreau) falls in love with the doomed revolutionary leader Flores (George Hamilton), the girls lead a popular revolt to victory over the dictatorship and the corrupt Catholic Church.

One minute we have the two Marias performing a fluffy song-and-dance routine, the next we have a brutal massacre and enslavement of peasants. Then there’s George Hamilton making his entrance like Christ on the road to Calvary, forced by his captors to carry a beam of wood across his shoulders, while giving Bardot a run for her money in the unfeasibly well-coiffed hair stakes. The Hamilton role is completely absurd but presented earnestly and without a whiff of humour. He speaks po-facedly of the degradation of the peasants and the necessity of revolution as if he had just read ‘Marxism for Dummies’, and with all the conviction of someone who knows he is being out-acted by his French voiceover artist. The scene in which he makes sweet love to Moreau in his jail cell, all the while chained to that inconvenient cross, is beyond parody, yet the plaintive guitar and lush string accompaniment indicate that we are meant to take it at its romantic face value.

George, putting the "ham" in Hamiltion

When Hamilton flutters his pretty lashes for the last time, Moreau, fired by her promise to continue the revolution, makes a speech based on Mark Antony in Julius Caesar that rouses the assembled peasants to rise against their oppressors. The speech is designed to awake indignation in the audience too, but since it is sandwiched between scenes of unfunny farce, all it awakens is an awareness that this film has been going for an hour and a quarter (only half an hour to go).

And so it continues. Relatively straight shoot-out action sequences and scenes of would-be dramatic impact are undermined by bizarre moments of surrealism (as they cross a barren desert, they encounter the upright skeletal remains of a horse and its rider) and weak humour (the cross on a church spire being used as a semaphore signal). The final sequences unexpectedly rope in a Spanish Inquisition that is straight out of Monty Python, and unveil the military genius of Brigitte Bardot. Ah yes, Bardot plays the innocent, virginal daughter of an Irish revolutionary, easily mistaken for a boy despite her proficiency with false eyelashes, who, after a night with the lads that would make a Premier League footballer blush, becomes the type of revolutionary strategist that chalks her conquests on the wall of her caravan. And who goes into a bit of a sulk when Moreau nabs Hamilton first.

Of course it’s all nonsense and not to be taken too seriously. The problem is that Malle does take it seriously for curiously long periods, resulting in a film with a tone as uneven as Bardot’s impersonation of an Irish boy. It looks good and the large budget is reflected in the crowds of peasants swarming across Mexican hills, but it’s an incoherent mess and rebelliously unfunny. So, a film that you probably haven’t seen and definitely shouldn’t? Well, yes. But, you know, it does have Jeanne Moreau in it…

Contributor Fintan McDonagh can be followed on Twitter @Fintalloneword.

“Being natural is merely a pose, and the most irritating one I know” – Oscar Wilde

The notion of camp has been an integral, if much misunderstood, part of British cultural life for more than a century, from the humour of the music halls, through the innuendo of Round the Horne and the Carry On series, to the dressing-up-box excess of ‘70s glam rock and the ‘80s New Romantic scene. Jes Benstock’s 2011 documentary The British Guide to Showing Off, released on DVD this week, profiles a man who perhaps more than any other figure exemplifies this country’s love of camp. Encompassing all of the contradictions that this suggests Benstock weaves together its disparate elements in regal style.

Artist, sculptor and performer Andrew Logan first staged the Alternative Miss World competition in 1972 and the film follows his preparations for the twelfth event, staged in 2009, while looking back on the competition’s history and the eccentric menagerie of people who have been involved along the way.

The Alternative Miss World is a pageant of the outsider, featuring an array of contestants (including several members of Logan’s family) dolled up in a series of extravagantly outrageous outfits, from drag queens to theatrical performers and grotesques. As in the non-alternative version, the lovelies must model a range of costumes – day wear, evening wear and swim wear – though in Logan’s version, shallow beauty is replaced by creativity, self-expression and a celebration of the different. The result is a very British creation, yet clearly reminiscent of Studio 54, Warhol and the spectrum of New York oddities that moved in his creative orbit and appeared in his work.

The cast of characters who have been involved in the contest over the years, many of whom appear in the film, is a virtual who’s who of British pop and even high culture; David Hockney (who judged the first contest), David Bowie (who failed to gain entry to the second), Zandra Rhodes (who designs all of co-host Logan’s outfits), Derek Jarman, Sir Norman Rosenthal, Brian Eno, Ruby Wax, Nick Rhodes and Julian Clary have all been part of it, either as judges, guests, co-hosts or even contestants. The spirit of creative otherness and freedom that Logan has engendered brings to mind Jean Cocteau’s declaration that “I am a lie that always speaks the truth”; beneath the makeup and costume lies a fundamental truth about British culture, to the extent that the contest has reflected and influenced the look and attitude of almost every major pop musical movement of the past thirty five years, from glam to punk to the Blitz Kids, taking in Rocky Horror along the way.

The film mirrors Logan’s sense of playfulness, including Python-esque animation, collages of photographic images and some wonderful footage of the contest down the years, as well as revealing interviews with former contestants and some intriguing talking heads. Despite some problems including budgetary concerns (incredibly, Logan’s team manage to entice major companies including Swatch to sponsor the event) and a desperate hunt for venues, Logan comes across as perennially cheerful, open and likeable. Far from being a specifically ‘gay’ event, the Alternative Miss World challenges perceptions of sexuality and encourages us all to embrace the myriad layers of our personalities. As Logan himself says, “this whole thing is about realism”.

In an age in which ‘alternative’ has come to mean the creative cul-de-sac of Coldplay, while the depressing factory line of X-Factor defines performance, Andrew Logan and his pageant are a key reminder of our culture’s camp heritage, individualism and tradition of reacting against the norm. The British Guide to Showing Off is nothing less than a journey through the alternative history of Britain.

The British Guide To Showing Off is available on DVD now, released by Verve Pictures.

Hollywood Costume, which runs from 20 October 2012 – 27 January 2013, will be the first exhibition of its kind worldwide since 1970, and will no doubt entice a huge number of film, culture and costume enthusiasts from all over the world.

The exhibition will house the original costumes worn by the likes of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, Keanu Reeves in The Matrix and Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men (the press release didn’t mention if his hair would be making an appearance) and many others. As well as the costumes, there will be design sketches, photographs, scripts, photographs and film footage from some of Hollywood’s greatest films to date.

On a personal level, I’m hoping for lots of costumes from Walter Hill’s The Warriors. Now that would be something! Fingers crossed for the chance to see the famous leathers and feathers in close-up.

Finally, on the subject of costumes, I’d also like to take this opportunity to point you in the direction of a brilliant blog entitled Clothes On Film which is dedicated to examining costume and identity in movies, and features dazzlingly detailed articles on outfits, reviews, news and exclusive interviews. Ch-ch-check it out.

Political correctness and James Bond have always been mutually exclusive. Ian Fleming’s literary 007 was an unreconstructed chauvinist, a reflection of the author’s own tastes and prejudices and an “anonymous, blunt instrument”, as Fleming himself called his creation. Russian journalist Yuri Zhukov described the world of this Bond as “nightmarish…where laws are written at the point of a gun, where coercion and rape are considered valour”, but the cinematic Bond has routinely been lent redeeming charm by the humour and suavity of the actors cast to play him.

In 1983, we were treated to not one, but two Bond films, as Sean Connery’s return in Never Say Never Again faced up to Roger Moore’s sixth outing as Connery’s successor in the official series, Octopussy. The promotional posters for Octopussy featured the tagline “nobody does him better”, a tacit acknowledgement of the competition between the two, but in truth Connery was the winner as the Broccoli camp produced one of their duffest and most troubling efforts in Octopussy.

The origins of the film lie in a posthumously published short story by Fleming, the plot of which is largely ignored in the film, used solely to provide a back story to the titular character. While the two preceding films (Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only) offered absurd science fiction and an attempt to add depth to the Bond character respectively, Octopussy is a muddled and convoluted affair, which leaves an unpleasant taste of right-wing misogyny and casual racism in the mouth.

As ever, we begin with a stand-alone pre-title sequence, in this case involving Bond’s escape from Cuban communists using a light aircraft disguised as a horse’s arse. Soon, however, we encounter a more sinister set of reds, as Soviet General Orlov (played by Stephen Berkoff, a man who never knowingly under acts) seeks to take advantage of European unilateral nuclear disarmament in order to expand his country’s borders. The message here is clear: back off peaceniks, nukes are necessary.

Confusingly, we then encounter yet more villains and Orlov is offered little subsequent screen time. Instead, Bond heads to India to investigate a fake Fabergé egg, coming up against exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan (Louis Jordan), who works for a mysterious female cult leader (think Blofeld, with a preference for sea life). The India of Octopussy is a parade of clichés; dirty, taxi-strewn streets are filled with elephants, snake charmers, sword swallowers, beds of nails, hot coals and rope tricks. The natives dine on curry and sheep’s heads, while Bond’s Indian contact Vijay (played by real-life tennis professional Vijay Amritraj, a fact which is referenced more than once) resembles a satirical character from BBC sketch show Goodness Gracious Me.

Even more worrying than this rather tiresome stereotyping is the film’s attitude to its female characters. Of course, Bond’s womanising is a major element  of his character, and one which FYEO attempted to address through reference to his dead wife, but for a film made in the post-feminist era, Octopussy (from its suggestive title onwards) seems strangely misogynistic.

Bond’s usual flirting with Moneypenny is quickly undermined by his new interest in her young assistant, with Moneypenny treated like yesterday’s news. Khan’s strangely anachronistic barge is rowed by a bevy of bikini-clad, semi-slave girls. When he finally comes face-to-face with Octopussy herself, Bond ignores the standard “no means no” rule, virtually forcing himself on her (despite her protestations, she is predictably unable to resist his overpowering ‘charms’), while her island paradise is entirely populated by scantily-clad swimwear models.

Perhaps the only moment of female empowerment in the film sees said models turn ninja, aiding Bond in giving Khan’s minions an almighty kicking, a sequence that still requires little clothing and bears more resemblance to an Eric Prydz video than, say, Kill Bill. However, the novelty of a female villain is lost in Octopussy’s turning to 007’s aid, which leaves her as just another, rather underwhelming Bond girl.

On a separate note, Octopussy contains some of the weirdest dressing-up in the Bond series. Much of this is due to the bizarre inclusion of a circus as a key part of the world domination/egg-smuggling plot; indeed, 009 meets a sticky end early on having been knifed in the back while dressed as a clown (though he does get to boot a villain in the jewels with his enormous shoes). Bond himself slaps on the pancake while attempting to locate a nuclear bomb, lending a sense of levity to an otherwise fairly serious scenario. We also see 007 in a monkey outfit and fleeing would-be assassins in a safari suit, a scene during which he delivers a farcical Tarzan impression, complete with Johnny Weissmuller yodel.

The theme tune of Octopussy is Rita Coolidge’s ‘All Time High’, a song which flopped in the UK charts. Similarly, the film’s confused plot, lack of engaging action and outdated, often distasteful attitudes make Octopussy itself one of the Bond series’ all time lows.

Blogalongabond is the ingenious brainchild of blogger The Incredible Suit.

Simon Hickson - (c) Bill Wadman

For years now I’ve been attending the BFI’s legendary Film Quiz. Taking place on the second Wednesday of each month at the BFI IMAX bar, it’s an entertaining, competitive and unbendingly alcohol-fuelled audio-visual experience helmed by the estimable Rachel, Michael and Rhidian (all followable on Twitter, hence the hyperlinks).

Being a BFI film quiz, it tends to attract some serious cinephiles and there’s one team in particular who carry the fight to an almost punishing degree on a monthly basis. Among this team, there’s one face – usually semi-obscured under a natty black pork-pie hat – who’s always stood out.

It took me a moment or two, but once I’d placed that face, I could barely hide my joy at being in the proximity of one of my childhood idols.

Anyone of a certain age will know (and love) Simon Hickson as one half of Trevor and Simon, the gloriously anarchic duo who occupied a regular spot on Saturday kids’ TV bulwark Going Live! (later Live & Kicking) during the late 80s and into the mid 90s. They played the improvisatory live TV game to the hilt, swinging their pants with reckless abandon, riffing ingeniously on contemporary pop culture and terrifying unsuspecting special guests. They were an influence on the work of Reeves and Mortimer and cleared the path for the next generation’s lords of misrule on kids’ TV; the lesser yet similarly uproarious Dick and Dom.

I caught up with Simon recently over a pint and some crisps in a charming Forest Hill boozer (not the Wetherspoon’s) to chat about his comedy career, his love of film and in what ways the cinema influenced his and Trevor’s inimitable brand of humour. What a lovely chap he was, too.

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GOING LIVE! AND KEY INFLUENCES

PPH (in bold): How did you get started on Going Live!?

Simon (in regular): Trev and I met at Uni where we started doing a double act. We decided we wanted to do that for a living. We gigged in London and a BBC producer saw us and said they were looking for acts for a new Saturday morning show. Our first audition didn’t go down too well and they said we only had one joke which was suitable, but we went through a stage of auditions. We got the job for four weeks, and those four weeks eventually became 10 years.

What you were doing was pretty different at the time. Who were the key influences on your style of comedy?

We liked double acts. We loved Morecambe and Wise. But a strong cinematic double act was Abbott and Costello. We used to read a lot about the background and the true stories of these people. We loved that Abbott and Costello were dysfunctional as a double act outside the films. Bud Abbott was completely bullied by Lou Costello and I think that the financial split between them was something like 70-30. Theirs was a skewed business partnership and the bullying character, you could argue, was the funny one although I guess they were both funny. We loved the violence of their routines. Take the Niagara Falls sketch, for example, which is based around Costello being in a prison cell, and this comedian Sidney Fields is an old hermit who’s driven mental by a tragedy that happened to him in Niagara Falls. Whenever the words “Niagara Falls” are mentioned he just strangles him. It’s very funny but very violent.

There were double acts like Mayall and Edmondson, too. At Uni our tutor was David Mayer and his daughter Lisa co-wrote The Young Ones with Ben Elton and Rik Mayall. We were also massively influenced by SNL, and in particular Dan Aykroyd. So many of Trev’s performances were an attempt to be Dan Aykroyd! Aykroyd, Steve Martin, John Belushi, The Wild and Crazy Guys. Stuff like that was a big influence on us.

And were there any films in particular that rubbed off on you?

Time Out got in touch with loads of comedians recently for their top 10 films. I had Neighbours in mine – weirdly it was directed by Rocky‘s John G. Avildsen – in which a nice middle class guy is living with his family and the neighbour from hell walks in. Surprisingly, John Belushi plays the nice guy and Aykroyd is the neighbour from hell which is not the way around you’d expect! It’s very creepy and very weird.

Another one we liked was John Landis’ Into The Night  with Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer. Landis had been sued because the actor Vic Morrow and two young children were decapitated by a helicopter on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1982. John Landis was sort of held responsible for this. And the next film he made was the grimmest comedy you’ll ever see. It fit into that yuppie syndrome that Scorsese mined in After Hours and Jonathan Demme did in Something Wild, but I think it’s the best one. Goldblum is an insomniac and his life goes horribly wrong. It’s really dark, really weird. And I liked that darkness.

These films became very “culty” for us and they certainly influenced the style me and Trevor were going for.

If you watch clips of Going Live! on YouTube now, some of your material feels quite close to the bone. Obviously when I was 7, 8, 9 years old much of it went straight over my head. Did you ever get a telling off?

Yes, we did. Looking back on it I do think to myself, “That was a bit cheeky”, and as an older man I wouldn’t have done that. When you’re young you don’t think about things too much; that’s what producers and directors are for. Look at the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand thing. Someone should have stepped in.

In doing comedy you should always do what makes you laugh. You shouldn’t try to second guess your audience. We did have producers who did research and said “kids want to see this or that” and we were even then of the opinion that you may not know what you want to see until you see it. Our angle was “you come into our world”. We were largely given free rein.

And did you get any complaints from the public?

We had a handful of complaints. Most were from people who were frankly nutters. When we did [hippie duo] The Singing Corner, we did a record with (60s folkie) Donovan, and we shot a video which went on [children's news show] Newsround. Because it was on Newsround rather than Saturday morning TV, a Donovan fan saw it and wrote in to the BBC to complain, and said: “I was really appalled to see my hero Donovan openly cavorting with two homosexuals”. As far as I’m aware, we never stated the sexuality of The Singing Corner!

I recently watched the one with The Who’s Roger Daltrey (above), who seemed very game for a laugh. Do you have any good special guest stories? Anyone who couldn’t get down with the anarchic style?

The bigger the star, the better they were. It was perhaps the less well-known ones that were a bit insecure. We used to think “why are they being so arsey?” but to be honest if I’d come on somebody else’s show and they said “do this” and I didn’t want to do it, I’d defend my right not to. There was only two people – or groups of people – in 10 years that ever said no. One was Bros. The other was Jonathan Morris from Bread! Sam Brown (of Stop fame) got overwhelmed mid-sketch and walked off. Oh, and once we made Letitia Dean cry. She appeared in Trevor and Simon’s Summer Special in 1995 and we made her dress up as an aubergine. We did a mock up of a Hello magazine shoot in her home and it was possibly a bit cruel and she cried when we showed her it. We felt bad about that one.

In terms of big stars who did play along, Paul Simon came on on his birthday and he was really ill. But his record company insisted that we gave him a birthday cake. They had a cake made up of the American flag, which was weird as he’s not exactly “Mr George Bush”! They got us dressed up as The Singing Corner to give it to him. So I had to try and maintain the dignity of this Singing Corner character – essentially singing “la la la” in a high-pitched voice – while giving a cake to a man who’s really not well. All the kids were crowded around him singing happy birthday to him and one kid was whacking him with a balloon! Poor Paul Simon.

What’s your favourite comedy creation that you’ve done?

Oh, Ken and Eddie Kennedy the barbers. A friend of ours came up with the name. We did some one-offs that I liked, too. We did the ArtHaus, they were German art critics. Our boss thought it was too weird.

Do you still work with Trevor?

Yes, we do a podcast. We’ve also written a film. We got funding from the European media fund and now we’re just waiting for someone to make it. We’ve done various things. We wrote an episode of My Parents Are Aliens. Through the company Kindle (who we did My Spy Family with) we did the film script I mentioned. It’s always been my dream to write a film. They went for it, we pursued it and now we’re trying to get it made. It’s frustrating. We’ve had lots of very nice “no’s” and what we need is a very nice “yes”!

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Trevor and Simon in character

ON FILM

You’re a regular at the BFI Film Quiz, would you describe yourself as a big film buff?

Yes, I’m a film buff, or film fan. For my age, I definitely am. I think there are times in your life when film matters more than others, and films can then inform what become your world. When I do the film quiz, the one thing I always lose out on is “teen 80s” films, anything that’s got Huey Lewis and the News in it. The others’ll know every answer and there’s ones I don’t know anything about.

In terms of actors, I had a look at your De Niro piece today, I thought it was fantastic, and it really made me nostalgic for the early De Niro. His early films had the most profound effect on me and liking film. I tend to go with your piece which argues “let’s hope he’s got one or two gems left in him, but give the old guy a break! He’s allowed to make rubbish films if he wants”.

When I was a student in Manchester they showed double bills, and they tended to be films that were two or three years old. I remember seeing things like Mad Max 1 & 2 together and being really excited but perhaps the one that blew me away was when I went to see The Exorcist – which is  one of my favourite films now but I’d not seen then. The film that was on with it I couldn’t care less about because I’d never heard of it. It was called Taxi Driver. That’s the weirdness of how you can be thrown into something. I was 18 and it was like when you see something you’ve never seen before, and it blows you away, and it’ll stay with you forever.

For me, it’s all about going to the cinema and being alive when you’re watching something. I want to see films where the directors, the actors etc feel that it’s a vocation. They had to do it. Nicolas Cage, for example. There’s a man with passion!

What would your film of the year [2011] be?

I’d pick Melancholia as my film of the year. Though I thought Antichrist was bollocks. Lars von Trier is a cheeky filmmaker but I felt for him that Melancholia was quite heartfelt. To enjoy the film and get something from it, it helps to be tolerant to a filmmaker who’s going to indulge in very personal stuff. I’m no expert on depression but I do feel that film tackled it well – it got to grips with something real that people don’t like to talk about. I also felt that it was very honest.

You run a film blog – 20th Century Mummified Fox [named in honour of a mummified fox Simon once found on top of a car] and in it you mention that the last film you walked out of was Cop Out. That bad, huh?

Cop Out was atrocious. The only other film I’ve walked out of was Hard Bodies, which I shouldn’t have walked out of, because I was young enough to appreciate a film with gratuitous nudity. Cop Out was appalling. It tries to be a knowing buddy movie, but look to the great ones like 48 Hours and Midnight Run, there’s a real dynamic between two characters who shouldn’t be together. It was truly appalling. Kevin Smith gets Tracey Morgan, who’s great in 30 Rock, to do all of these movie references and it’s just embarrassing. Find me a movie nerd who actually thinks it’s good rather than awful. It’s the worst film I’ve ever seen! I know a lot of people love Kevin Smith, and I know a lot of people laughed at Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back… it’s funny but overall he’s one of those who’s got loads going for him, but he just can’t direct a movie.

Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia - Simon's favourite film of 2011

A film that annoyed me was The Tree Of Life. The main thing I thought was – oh, Terrence Malick why don’t you become a photographer? I didn’t have a clue what he was up to. I think more people should say that, but instead they like to say it’s profound. What the fuck was Sean Penn up to? He was using Sean Penn as a Sean Penn avatar. All we had to go on was: he’s Sean Penn, he’s moody and he’s got great, wavy hair. It’s frustrating because Penn’s much better than that. And another thing, it’s got all this bloody flickering light. That made me angry. Oh, and if there’s a Christian message in the film, that’s fine. But tell us what it is!

Another film I didn’t like was The Hangover: I thought it was shit. It really annoyed me. The film I’m a fan of is Very Bad Things, which wiped the floor with The Hangover. In Very Bad Things, these guys are terrible, but they’re traumatised by guilt. It’s really dark. The films I find funniest are very dark.

I’m a big fan of these British film oddities that fall by the wayside – like the Gordon Ramsay cooking comedy Love’s Kitchen. And Kill Keith [a comedy-horror starring Keith Chegwin!]. And you’ve written a treatment for Kill Keith Vol. 2. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

That’s a weird thing. That’s very odd. I’ve got a weird history with Keith Chegwin. Trev had told me about Kill Keith, and I thought he’d made it up. So I went away and wrote up an idea for a Kill Keith movie with me and Trevor. And he said, “No, it exists!”. But I put the treatment up on my blog ‘cos I thought it was funny. The people behind Kill Keith got in touch with me and we got invited to the premiere. I kind of enjoyed it and thought I should write a review of it. The truth is, it’s not without its merits, but it would have been cruel to write about it. I think it was a missed opportunity, not what it should have been. It would have been good if it was a bit darker, or more consistent in tone.

When we were on Saturday morning TV Keith Chegwin used to go around banging on people’s doors, and he did that to me. In my youth I might have been a bit precious, and I thought “well he shouldn’t do that”. Now I wouldn’t care. I did meet him and did some filming but I never let him forget it! So, yes, I wrote a jokey thing of Kill Keith where we actually kill him.

For you what makes a great British comedy?

I’m a real miserablist when it comes to comedy, so that element I guess! I’ve been watching Life’s Too Short recently. It has five minutes of greatness, but other than that there’s not much to it; nothing that Ricky Gervais hasn’t already done. Rev’s very good. I’m a massive Stewart Lee fan. When I watch him do his stuff I wonder why other comedians even bother.

According to your website you’re a handy pool player. The Americans have had The Hustler and The Color Of Money. Why hasn’t there been a great British pool film?

Not pool, but snooker. You’ve obviously never seen Number One, then? Well, neither have I, to be honest. It clearly has an Alex Higgins character in the lead part, and guess who plays him? What Irish personality from the 80s would you put in it?

Terry Wogan?

No… it was Bob Geldof! There is a good one out there somewhere, I’ve just not seen it.

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And with that passing reference to a snooker film starring Bob Geldof that neither of us had seen, we decided it was time to wrap up the interview and enjoy another pint and some more crisps. If you’re keen to re-acquaint yourself with more of the Trev and Simon oeuvre, check out these links:

Trevor and Simon on YouTube

Trevor and Simon’s website (including links to podcast)

Simon’s blog – Mummified Fox

Simon’s film blog – 20th Century Mummified Fox

Simon on Twitter

Here’s hoping it makes it to the inaugural UK iteration of the festival, which runs from 26-29 April at London’s O2 arena. The programme will be announced in March.

Over to the press release for more on Shut Up And Play The Hits:

“On April 2nd 2011, LCD Soundsystem played its final show at Madison Square Garden. LCD frontman James Murphy had made the conscious decision to disband one of the most celebrated and influential bands of its generation at the peak of its popularity, ensuring that the band would go out on top with the biggest and most ambitious concert of its career. The instantly sold out, near four-hour extravaganza did just that, moving the thousands in attendance to tears of joy and grief, with NEW YORK magazine calling the event “a marvel of pure craft” and TIME magazine lamenting “we may never dance again.”  SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS is both a narrative film documenting this once in a life time performance and an intimate portrait of James Murphy as he navigates the lead-up to the show, the day after, and the personal and professional ramifications of his decision.”

Tatsumi is based on Japanese manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s autobiographical graphic novel A Drifting Life, and was something of a passion project for its director, Eric Khoo. A long-time fan of Tatsumi’s work, after reading A Drifting Life, Khoo was inspired to create a tribute to the artist’s life, celebrating his work and bringing it to the attention of a wider audience.

The film deftly condenses the key moments and sentiments from the original 840 page graphic novel and includes five of Tatsumi’s own fictional short stories. Tatsumi harboured a passion for comics from an early age, working furiously on creating his own, submitting them to manga competitions against a background of post-war struggle and the trials of family life. With a prodigious output Tatsumi’s work began to be recognised, and he became able to support his family, move to the city to further his career, and work with likeminded artists. In this new environment Tatsumi spearheaded the birth of ‘gekiga,’ realist, adult themed manga.

The film loyally retains Tatsumi’s style, virtually animating the original panels in a simple and modest manner, adding only a cinematic scope to the hand drawn, direct, cartoon-realist drawings. The autobiographical element of the film is rendered in full colour, while the five of Tatsumi’s early stories (fitted into the film at relative chronological points), are presented in muted tones, serving to clearly demarcate these fictional interludes, while simultaneously intensifying their dramatic nature. A voiceover narrative fills in the details, while other dialogue is sparse or left to subtitles, successfully occupying a space somewhere between the original static panels and their captions and the demands of movement and scale of cinema.

Tatsumi’s is an interesting and touching life made arresting by the open and frank style of recollection, but it is not a particularly dramatic one. Khoo’s decision to interpose a selection of Tatsumi’s fictional short works between the biographical sequences adds real depth and enriches the film. The stories illustrate an otherwise hidden emotional and sociological level; specifically the mindset and life of their author and the historical context of post-war Japan and its rebirth. These short self-contained parables of isolated, anguished lives in crowded but lonely cities resonate as much with today’s urban alienation as they did when originally created. ‘Beloved Monkey,’ the story of a lonely factory worker, who after an accident can no longer work and so must give up his pet monkey is a perfect example of Tatsumi’s humanist tales, and one with a particularly tragic and harrowing turn of events. Such dark, realist and at times disturbing subject matter clearly highlight the break in style and subject Tatsumi makes from the traditional, child-aimed manga, marking explicitly Tatsumi’s most important contribution as an artist and story teller.

To take Khoo’s aims as stated above as a framework of critical review for Tatsumi, the film leaves any audience member who, like myself, had previously known nothing of Yoshihiro Tatsumi wanting to discover more (Canadian publisher Drawn and Quarterly have published a three volume ‘Best of’ anthology of Tatsumi’s short stories, as well as his first full length work, Black Blizzard ). In juxtaposing the artist’s biography with a selection of his fictional works Khoo has created a broad overview of a life and the art it has produced. For those more familiar with Tatsumi, while the film might not offer anything insightful, it will offer a new perspective within a carefully and beautifully crafted, respectful and thoroughly engaging tribute.

Tatsumi is in cinemas from Fri 13 Jan, released by Soda Pictures.