where: CENTURY 14 VALLEJO in Vallejo, CA
when: Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
show: 11:10 a.m. ( extra Dollar off on first show Matinee )
costs: $6.25 Ticket + $3.75 small Diet/Zero ( w/ Barq's & Cherry flavors ) + $4.25 junior Popcorn ( yes, the price went up )
auditorium: 11
seat: 4th row, 8th column
synopsis: In 1966, a motley crew of rebellious party-hearty disc jockeys played rock-and-roll music 24-7 on "pirate" ships to a British audience severely wanting in pop music. Despite their differences in character, their love for rock-and-roll music kept them together and influenced the future of radio programming.
noteworthy scenes: 1.) Kids in their bedrooms; 2.) Carl ( Tom Sturridge ); 3.) The guessing game; 4.) Parliamentary vote to shut down pirate radio; 5.) The "F" word; 6.) Boatload of girls; 7.) "Bait and switch" plan; 8.) Twatt ( Jack Davenport )!; 9.) Bob ( Ralph Brown ); 10.) Marianne ( Talulah Riley ); 11.) The Betrayal; 12.) Consoling buddies; 13.) "Smoking gun" evidence; 14.) "Clever" Kevin ( Tom Brooke ); 15.) Marine Offenses Act; 16.) The marriage; 17.) The day after; 18.) The "chicken" war; 19.) Confessions; 20.) News flash X 2; 21.) Mom/Charlotte ( Emma Thompson ); 22.) The "Beast"; 23.) Inspirational talk; 24.) Count-down; 25.) Police boats; 26.) Trouble at sea; and 27.) The rescue.
audience reaction: I don't know since I was the only one in the auditorium.
recommendation: If you lived through the 60s in your teen years, go see this movie for reminiscence's sake.
spoiler alert! The songs played were for the most part just snippets with the volume turned down low. I can't believe that one particular girl was sitting in the toilet ( the loo, to you British people out there ) all that time; I know girls like to spend too much time in the toilet but, come now! The preview scene wherein a bunch of underwear-clad girls were packed like sardines in a room wasn't shown in this one--what a low-down dirty trick to pull on innocent horndogs out there! For someone who seemed prudish when it came to the use of the "F" word on the airwaves, Uncle Quentin ( Bill Nighy ) sure didn't display any qualms when he set his niece, Marianne, loose on a ship full of sex-hungry disc jockeys plus one lesbian cook, Felicity ( Katherine Parkinson ). Why didn't they just stay in international waters all that time to keep from being harassed by the police so that the issue of sovereign legal jurisdiction would have gotten into play? Since Britain, in the setting for this movie ( 1966 ), was no longer a Monarchy but, rather, a Representative/Liberal Democracy, the "Rule of Law" should have applied so that certain Civil Liberties ( i.e. Freedom of Speech, Assembly, etc. ) would have been safeguarded, one would rightfully think so. I guess the radio pirates could not afford the services of competent solicitors and barristers to uphold their Civil Rights in court. And had they put this matter to a vote, instead of acting rebellious, they would have gotten the support of the majority ... and there wouldn't be a need for this movie at all.
fyi: Shortly after the scene wherein the mother got on-board the ship, Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" played in the background. It brought back memories because I remember this song well from around that same time when I was a little kid in Kidapawan, Cotabato, Philippines. When I first heard this song played over the radio, its haunting and mournful melody overwhelmed me with sadness, then trepidation because at that time I hadn't had a commanding grasp of the English language yet and this song didn't sound happy to me. Then I remembered that my mother had gone out of town earlier that day, and this song just gave it a sense of abrupt and unwelcome permanence. Alarmed at such a terrifying prospect, I bawled out loudly. One of our maids came rushing over and asked me why I was crying. And I said it was because my mother was not coming back and I will never see her again ( all that time the music was playing on the radio, mind you ). The maid comforted me and told me that it wasn't true, that my mom just went on a trip and that she'll be back home before I knew it. Of course, she did come home. But that music had left an indelible mark in my emotional state so much so that whenever it would play on the radio, yes, I would end up crying.
To make matters worse, two other songs got on the let's-cause-him-unnecessary-grief bandwagon: Buck Owens' "Crying Time Again" and "Together Again" ( this one sung by a woman instead of Buck ). So, there I was, an emotional little boy crying a flood of tears whenever these three songs would play on the radio!
Fast-forward to 1996:
It was late in January when I got a call while I was polishing a partial denture frame at the dental lab in Concord, CA where I worked. It was a doctor at Kaiser-Permanente Hospital in Vallejo, CA. The doctor told me that they had to transfer my mother to ICU because her organs were shutting down and that she didn't want to be put on life support because she kept pulling out the IV needles. The doctor wanted to know if she had expressed her last wishes to us regarding her medical care. I told him that I didn't know and to please do their best to keep her alive, and that I was on my way over. The doctor told me to drive carefully. I told my supervisors and co-workers the bad news and apologized to them because I had a family emergency. They told me, "Go! forget about work. Your mom needs you."
On my way to the hospital in my white Geo Metro coupe, even before I got to the Benicia bridge, the station that I was listening to, KMEL, played Michael Bolton's "Love So Beautiful." Right there and then, I had a flashback to when those three '60s songs used to make me cry because this Michael Bolton song was emotive in such a way to me. I was not yet at the hospital when two other songs joined in to form a mournful trio: Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "Shining Down On Me From Heaven", a.k.a. "One Sweet Day" and Eric Clapton's "Tears In Heaven." A foreboding sense overcame me as I drove with tears-induced vision impairment. Why the f-ck are they playing this, I asked. This is bad! Why can't they play something else. When I changed the station on my car's radio, the same songs were playing. This is a very bad omen, I thought to myself.
Those three '60s songs were prophetic in a way: each song represented 10 years of my mother's remaining life. And those three songs I heard on my way to the hospital that fateful January afternoon in 1996 just confirmed that which I dreaded the most: my mom's life was coming close to an end. You see, in supernatural and occult circles, three means "Yes" and two means "No." I learned this from one of my Psychology professors who used Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Knock Three Times" song to explain it.
I researched these six songs on YouTube last night ( Wednesday ) and tonight ( Thursday ). And as lovely as they are, I don't think that I'll be listening to these songs again anytime soon or in the foreseeable future . I'm sure that you understand why. Thanks ....
word of advice: If a girl did to you what the "Marianne" character in this movie did to "Carl", she ain't worth having, much less keeping.
tidbits: Before the show, I asked the concessions clerk, J. M., if she had the privilege of seeing an advance screening of NEW MOON. She said, "No," but that she's looking forward to seeing it. And I said that I probably won't like it in the same way that I didn't like the much-hyped and highly-anticipated 2012 movie which proved to be just a big disappointment to me because Hollywood made it into just another "disaster flick." She said that she saw something on the History Channel about 2012. And not having my Cine-Man cards with me, I told her to give me a piece of register tape for me to write down my URL on so that she can look up my blog on 2012 and read what I have to say about it.
During a scene when the ship's crew was on deck playing a board game, it would black out intermittently but the sound would go on. I don't know if there was something wrong with the film or if somebody was playing around with the projector.
