You may find the new Ben Stiller movie The Watch strangely familiar. But that's not necessarily a good thing
You might be forgiven for thinking that you've seen The Watch before. Not because Ben Stiller's character is the same uptight blowhard that he has played in everything for the past 15 years, or because Richard Ayoade is basically just Moss from The It Crowd again, or because Vince Vaughn remains content to sit back and bibble out the same directionless patter that has been his stock in trade for what seems like centuries.
No. The reason is because, once you've scraped away all the sex jokes and clanging Costco product placement, you're basically left with Dad's Army. Both are essentially stories about a group of ill-prepared middle-aged incompetents trying to escape the monotony of their day-to-day lives by fudging together a defence against an enemy they don't fully understand. With The Watch,...
You might be forgiven for thinking that you've seen The Watch before. Not because Ben Stiller's character is the same uptight blowhard that he has played in everything for the past 15 years, or because Richard Ayoade is basically just Moss from The It Crowd again, or because Vince Vaughn remains content to sit back and bibble out the same directionless patter that has been his stock in trade for what seems like centuries.
No. The reason is because, once you've scraped away all the sex jokes and clanging Costco product placement, you're basically left with Dad's Army. Both are essentially stories about a group of ill-prepared middle-aged incompetents trying to escape the monotony of their day-to-day lives by fudging together a defence against an enemy they don't fully understand. With The Watch,...
- 8/16/2012
- by Stuart Heritage
- The Guardian - Film News
Co-writer of TV sitcoms On the Buses and The Rag Trade
At the height of his writing partnership with Ronald Chesney, Ronald Wolfe, who has died aged 89 after a fall, enjoyed huge success with the sitcom On the Buses; its bawdy humour was panned by the critics but lapped up by the viewing public. Originally turned down by the BBC, the idea for a comedy based around the antics of a driver and conductor giving their inspector the runaround at the Luxton Bus Company appealed to Frank Muir, head of entertainment at the newly launched ITV company London Weekend Television.
Reg Varney played Stan Butler, at the wheel of the No 11, and Bob Grant was his lothario conductor, Jack. The pair made life hell for the miserable Inspector Blake (Stephen Lewis). Blakey's "Get that bus out" and "I 'ate you, Butler" were two of the most frequent lines that flowed...
At the height of his writing partnership with Ronald Chesney, Ronald Wolfe, who has died aged 89 after a fall, enjoyed huge success with the sitcom On the Buses; its bawdy humour was panned by the critics but lapped up by the viewing public. Originally turned down by the BBC, the idea for a comedy based around the antics of a driver and conductor giving their inspector the runaround at the Luxton Bus Company appealed to Frank Muir, head of entertainment at the newly launched ITV company London Weekend Television.
Reg Varney played Stan Butler, at the wheel of the No 11, and Bob Grant was his lothario conductor, Jack. The pair made life hell for the miserable Inspector Blake (Stephen Lewis). Blakey's "Get that bus out" and "I 'ate you, Butler" were two of the most frequent lines that flowed...
- 12/20/2011
- by Anthony Hayward
- The Guardian - Film News
We admit it: some of us are movie snobs. But have we, or have you, ever been guilty of one of the ten worst sins of film snobbishness...?
There aren't many points throughout the short history of this site where we've feasted on quite the diet of double standards we're about to. If you're a regular reader, you'll know that we've engaged in some fairly hefty arguments about films in the past, and not always with the high degree of maturity that walks hand in hand with a successful debate.
In a pub? Personally, I'm even worse. Cornered on a topic, I'll come out fighting, throwing all manner of arguments out to further my point. Again, not all of them withstand close scrutiny.
However, while a good, healthy film debate is something that remains one of the joys about being a human being, right next to sex and folk dancing,...
There aren't many points throughout the short history of this site where we've feasted on quite the diet of double standards we're about to. If you're a regular reader, you'll know that we've engaged in some fairly hefty arguments about films in the past, and not always with the high degree of maturity that walks hand in hand with a successful debate.
In a pub? Personally, I'm even worse. Cornered on a topic, I'll come out fighting, throwing all manner of arguments out to further my point. Again, not all of them withstand close scrutiny.
However, while a good, healthy film debate is something that remains one of the joys about being a human being, right next to sex and folk dancing,...
- 7/6/2011
- Den of Geek
It's set in a London of rusting Hillman Minxes and bare lightbulbs, but On the Buses was a huge hit in its time, and the fanclub is still going strong
A 1965 Routemaster bus pulls up somewhere in the London suburb of Borehamwood; the passengers pile out and cluster around a nearby manhole cover, and point their cameras at it – for this is no ordinary manhole cover. It has gone down in movie history as the actual drain cover in which On the Buses' Olive Rudge got her bottom stuck. And the amateur photographers are part of a group of 100 or so punters who had paid £35 a head to attend an event called On the Buses Rides Again: a fan-club weekend to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the appearance of the On the Buses spin-off film.
It may seem bizarre now, but On the Buses was the most successful British film of 1971, outgrossing allcomers,...
A 1965 Routemaster bus pulls up somewhere in the London suburb of Borehamwood; the passengers pile out and cluster around a nearby manhole cover, and point their cameras at it – for this is no ordinary manhole cover. It has gone down in movie history as the actual drain cover in which On the Buses' Olive Rudge got her bottom stuck. And the amateur photographers are part of a group of 100 or so punters who had paid £35 a head to attend an event called On the Buses Rides Again: a fan-club weekend to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the appearance of the On the Buses spin-off film.
It may seem bizarre now, but On the Buses was the most successful British film of 1971, outgrossing allcomers,...
- 6/23/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
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