What are you watching? a.k.a. Film Thread v 2.0

[Len Cnut]

The Krays

Rise of the Krays

Fall of the Krays

The old original Kemp film is sentimental, focusing as it does on the mother and family. It is rather historically inaccurate; Ronnie's incarnation and insanity do not seem to happen; their smokey billiards club (The Regal) is rather compounded with their later glitzier night club ventures; killings are amalgamated; events telescoped. Nonetheless, it I do feel the depiction of England is more accurate, more so the England of that era than the other films discussed. It feels more like the environment of The Krays. It is not cartoonish in the slightest, so there is a realism there of sorts. It even looks like the England of today. A depiction of the Krays today (see below) would not concern itself with endless cups of tea and eccentric aunts and that is what this film does well, and that is indeed the historical environment of The Krays.

The Rise and Fall are a Scorsese-esque versions of the same events. They are far more historically accurate than the above in regards to events and have a longer breadth with which to depict events. Reggie's actor is a little on the weak side, a little boyish. Ronnie's is a superb performance but rather reminded be of Phil Daniels. It is a bit cartoon-esque in parts and follows well known paths but ultimately, I was very impressed.

Sadly, I am struggling to find a decent copy of Legend.

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS

A historically accurate depiction of the Third Reich.

I've not seen Fall, saw Rise and Legend though and obviously the Spanner Ballet brothers one. The best bit about that one is the speech by their Mum about the war and the dead babies and men and how they never grow up.

Iylsas just plain hilairious with the Steve McQueen wannabe with the never-ending boners

The Kemp one is sort of has a feminist message, delivered through the old women: ''men are children..they never grow up''. It focuses on the woman more than The Krays - there is something about the kitchen sink drama about it. It is very British.

Have you ever had a pint in The Blind Beggar?

Actually yes though it's nothing like The Blind Beggar of old, it's actually quite nice in there, not the piss and saw-dust place that it once was. Legend is available on torrent, you should check it out. The Kitchen sink elements are the only redeeming factors of the Kemp one.

[DieselDaisy]

I think it is a miracle it has survived. In a gruesome way I bet people visit it - ''that is where Cornell's brains splattered''.

[Len Cnut]

I think it is a miracle it has survived. In a gruesome way I bet people visit it - ''that is where Cornell's brains splattered''.

You're right actually, they tend to have upsurges i think, in trade, every time there's a revival of interest in The Krays. There's a little Italian restaurant called Pellechis in East London that they used to frequent thats still open. There's a few places like that.

Whats most interesting about that whole criminal fraternity of that time and era is their backgrounds, the war era, the matriachal families and the neighbourhoods they grew up in. When you hear about the war from people like that it's sort of like the alternative history of the war, Mad Frankie Fraser said he loved WW2, it was a robbers paradise.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

Looking at google's pictures, Vallence Road looks like it has lost its original charm, all modern apartments and scaffolding.

Yes, they were not the greatest Fusiliers. Barracked at the Tower of London.

[Len Cnut]

It's a relevant part of history though i think, for all the many that signed up there was just as many draft-dodging, tea leaf scumbags out there I love that history of London, the underbelly sort of stuff, Ikey Solomon and all that. I wish someone would make a film about the old Jewish East End, there's a lot to be dramatised or made into literature out of that.

There is Vallance Road anymore so that'd account for all the modern apartments. They tore the guts out of London y'know, with all that regeneration, the bulk of it happened in the 60s, quite sad really, all them homes destroyed and everybody shipped out to the outskirts. You see a similar thing in The Likely Lads actually, in the 70s second round, although they're tearing down your manor in that. A good film to watch in regards to a little window of that (and apparently a film that the real Krays make a cameo in, though i can never find em) is a film called Sparrahs Can't Sing, starring Barbara Windsor, it's a great little film, catches London at just about the time they were knocking those properties down so it's sort of weird to watch, catching London at this weird gestative period, you can sort of see something dying on screen, i think it was made in 62 or something, wonderful little film though, Harry H Corbett is in it too, Yootha Joyce and Brian Murphy too (George and Mildred) and Arthur Mullard. It's really really REALLY authentic cockney stuff, none of your put on fake Del Boy Guy Ritchie type bollocks.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

A story replicated throughout the country - indeed, they touched on this on that anti '60s doc. The modernisers were in power in the '60s. I read a lot of Bill Bryson and he rants about this all the time - and it still goes on (apparently in the last government John Prescott wanted to demolish 4,000 old homes in Lancashire, all for 'modernity'!).

Vallence Rd was their HQ. They had all of this money yet were still operating outside a terraced bedroom haha. Ronnie kept his weapons under the floorboards.

[Len Cnut]

A story replicated throughout the country - indeed, they touched on this on that anti '60s doc. The modernisers were in power in the '60s. I read a lot of Bill Bryson and he rants about this all the time - and it still goes on (apparently in the last government John Prescott wanted to demolish 4,000 old homes in Lancashire, all for 'modernity'!).

Vallence Rd was their HQ. They had all of this money yet were still operating outside a terraced bedroom haha. Ronnie kept his weapons under the floorboards.

There just this eerie reality to it in Sparrahs Can't Sing, it doesn't pre-fabricated and also like...it doesn't benefit from hindsight in the sense of they saw where all this was going and made a film making a broad point about it as a sociological thing, it just the cameras were filming in an area where this happened to be happening.

The Krays were overrated really in terms of their prowess at being gangsters. I mean they were and they were reasonable heavy hitters but the Boothby affair sort of flattered them really, made it looked like they were pulling strings in government when they didn't really have any approaching that sort of influence, it's just it was important for the boys in Westminister not to let the Boothby thing explode because it would reflect very poorly on them. Quite frankly they made a fucking arse of every club they ran and were not really very successful businessmen.

The Richardsons on the other hand. I find the pre-60s gangsters of England interesting too, they're not as well documented but Jewish Jack 'Spot' Comer and Billy Hill were interesting characters, sort of the two rival criminals of the pre-Kray era, when the Krays were just little boys in school. Jack Spot was sliced to ribbons by Billy Hills hoods...and the one to do it was the one and only Mad Frank. Mad Frank is interesting that sense that he had a foot in just about every era of post war English criminal history. His sister was even a member of the infamous 40 thieves gang of girl thieves, who had been around in some form or another since Victorian times.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

They did control the east end. It seems they never made many inroads into the west end which was also shared by the Italians and Maltese. According to Profession of Violence, the era of Spot and Hill was a more gentleman affair in which murder did not happen; their power also existed alongside an unspoken agreement with the police. Ronnie was a different specimen as he literally wanted to kill people.

[Len Cnut]

To put that into context though there wasn't actually a lot to The East End in those days.

Thats the voice of Jack Spot, i just love that working class East London jew accent, dont really hear it anymore.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

There are no cockneys left anymore. There is just upper middle class mockney types, bish bash bosh. Barbara Windsor is probably the last true cockney.

[Len Cnut]

Most of em are to be found in Essex and South Oxhey and that...and even they're getting on a bit, my old mans generation is probably the last of the real ones.

Its a bastard shame yknow. Its difficult to replicate that accent anymore cuz its so tied to Fagin and anti-semetism for some reason.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

When I think of London working class I just think of kids who want to be black Americans.

[Len Cnut]

Thats been the condition from the 60s onwards really although not black americans, if you think about it. 50s even, to a point at least, kids effected by pop culture although its not quite as extreme as now, back then they would appropriate as much as immitate.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

Prior generations amalgamated Americanisms with a British identity though, case in point The Who, Kinks and Pistols.

[Len Cnut]

Prior generations amalgamated Americanisms with a British identity though, case in point The Who, Kinks and Pistols.

There is nothing American about The Pistols!

*covers his ears* lalalalalalalallalalalalalala! No there isn't!

Damn you, Chuck Berry!

[wasted]

Knight of Cups. It was cool.

[wasted]

There was the brutal existentialism of eating buffalo raw. Zero fucks given after 3 weeks without the internet.

[James Bond]

Smosh: The Movie.

I've seen some of their stuff on YouTube and was surprised to learn that this thing even existed. I had severely low expectations but it was enjoyable if only because it's pretty much just an extended version of their YouTube gags. Not the movie I'll recommend to someone just to watch but also not the worst/dumbest thing I've ever seen.

[DieselDaisy]

Legend

Superb tour de force performance by Tom Hardy, and wonderful direction and depiction of 1960's London - the film looks wonderful. Unfortunately it takes a few liberties with history. The Richardsons are broken far earlier here than in reality and consequentially there is this huge time lag between the end of The Richardsons and Cornell's murder (which happened a day after The Richardsons were all messed up in hospital). The filmmakers probably did this to make out that the Krays had an uncontested power in London, when in reality the shared their power until as late as 1966. I'm not sure about the rape scene; I've never heard anything like that (could the filmmakers have gotten away with that before Reggies death haha - he still had a few thugs on the outside afterall?). Jack McVitie's death was wrong; in reality, it was a planned murder, with the party being cleared out, and Ronnie egging on Reggie and holding Jack McVitie while he was being stabbed - there is no evidence that Jack the Hat taunted Reggie with ''Frances''. Nonetheless, despite historical inaccuracies, that performance is superb; I feel it is the closest to the reality in nuances - you feel Hardy is fairly close to what the twins were actually like which is something I've never felt from the other depictions by the Kemps and other chaps.

That is enough of all of this cockney twaddle for me I'm afraid. I'm beginning to talk like Ray Winstone haha! Eat some Jellied Eels.

The Revenant

Not much to it really; no discernible storyline whatsoever. A cross between Castaway and Last of the Mohicans with just the tiniest bit of Braveheart chucked in. Beautiful scenery and cinematography however.

Edited January 11, 2016 by DieselDaisy

[wasted]

2 Guns. Denzel and Marky Mark do a decent job of making a movie.

[Len Cnut]

Legend

Superb tour de force performance by Tom Hardy, and wonderful direction and depiction of 1960's London - the film looks wonderful. Unfortunately it takes a few liberties with history. The Richardsons are broken far earlier here than in reality and consequentially there is this huge time lag between the end of The Richardsons and Cornell's murder (which happened a day after The Richardsons were all messed up in hospital). The filmmakers probably did this to make out that the Krays had an uncontested power in London, when in reality the shared their power until as late as 1966. I'm not sure about the rape scene; I've never heard anything like that (could the filmmakers have gotten away with that before Reggies death haha - he still had a few thugs on the outside afterall?). Jack McVitie's death was wrong; in reality, it was a planned murder, with the party being cleared out, and Ronnie egging on Reggie and holding Jack McVitie while he was being stabbed - there is no evidence that Jack the Hat taunted Reggie with ''Frances''. Nonetheless, despite historical inaccuracies, that performance is superb; I feel it is the closest to the reality in nuances - you feel Hardy is fairly close to what the twins were actually like which is something I've never felt from the other depictions by the Kemps and other chaps.

That is enough of all of this cockney twaddle for me I'm afraid. I'm beginning to talk like Ray Winstone haha! Eat some Jellied Eels.

The Revenant

Not much to it really; no discernible storyline whatsoever. A cross between Castaway and Last of the Mohicans with just the tiniest bit of Braveheart chucked in. Beautiful scenery and cinematography however.

A shootout right is supposed to be a FUCKIN SHOOTOUT! Like a western..wankers! Wankers, fuckin' embarassing!'

[DieselDaisy]

Hardy manages to change his facial expression pertaining to whether or not he is Ronnie or Reggie. As Reggie he has the ''look at me, I'm a geezer'' raised eyebrows, and conveys an element of the cheeky chirpy cockney 'likable rogue''; as Ron, he offers up an expressionless sinister gaze, alongside a slow moving gait, in accordance with the homicidal maniac. It is really an excellent performance. I could see him analysing clips of the twins.

[Len Cnut]

Hardy manages to change his facial expression pertaining to whether or not he is Ronnie or Reggie. As Reggie he has the ''look at me, I'm a geezer'' raised eyebrows, and conveys an element of the cheeky chirpy cockney 'likable rogue''; as Ron, he offers up an expressionless sinister gaze, alongside a slow moving gait, in accordance with the homicidal maniac. It is really an excellent performance. I could see him analysing clips of the twins.

He does something with his D's, i think the perception, or invention of Ronnie was quite astute, he very much played him as a man on heavy sedative, it's somewhere between doped and sinister. It's very stylised though isn't it, and i don't mean in terms of setting or dress or in any kind of visual sense, more so the dialogue, I'm not sure i liked that about it if only because reality isn't really like that is it, we don't have clever things to say before we do things...but then i guess it's a work of fiction, more to do with me being hung up on the reality of what happened than any fault of the film. The performances of the twins were good but i was sort of left with the feeling that thats all there was to the film really.

It was very much the twins and Frances and not a lot else was fleshed out. I suppose it wasn't meant to be. Good performance by the fella playing Nipper, whoose name escapes me at the moment, I'm thinking Ecclestone but don't nail me to that but it seemed like he didn't have a lot to work with.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

I thought it could have done with an extra 40 minutes. It sort of petered out towards the end, as if the filmmakers didn't know quite how to end it. If you combined the performances and aesthetics of Legend, with the scope of Rise and Fall, you would have the perfect Krays film - films.

Edited January 12, 2016 by DieselDaisy

[Len Cnut]

Yeah, that sounds about right. I liked the soundtrack of Rise too...lots of Gene Vincent.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Len B'stard