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Back Seat Producers Season 07 Shows

BSP Episode 224: Quadrophenia

Part 1 of our 5 part Rock ‘n Roll series

Release date:  9/14/1979

The Who Films

Directed by

  • Franc Roddam

Written by

  • Dave Humphries
  • Franc Roddam
  • Martin Stellman
  • Pete Townshend

Produced by

  • Roy Baird
  • Bill Curbishley

Cast

Phil Daniels

  • Jimmy Cooper

Leslie Ash

  • Steph

 

This recording starts with a discussion about the finale of The Walking Dead.  It contains spoilers so… fair warning… if you haven’t seen the finale yet and don’t want to know what happened or if you don’t watch The Walking Dead and want to skip forward, the section runs from the beginning to 9:55.

 

Initial comments by the hosts:

David likes The Who (or other “old British bands – The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Rush” but I’m not really keeping score) but this movie makes him not like The Who.  Darrell said it was hard to watch but he made his way through it and kind of liked it, or at least liked the movie.  Tony found the movie almost unwatchable at points.  He thought the movie was trying too hard to be A Clockwork Orange and it was a failure.

There was also a general consensus… or was that confusion… that there was a great deal of naked males but NO naked females.  Even during the sex scenes, there were no female bits and pieces to be seen.

Some of the scenes were much too long, with 360 degree tracking shots and some scenes that seemed more like time fillers.  The hosts thought that the movie could have easily been cut down to no more than an hour (running time is 117 minutes) and been more interesting.

Tony thought that Phil Daniels (Cooper) looked and acted like Christian Bale and David thought that this movie should have won an award for the “most actors who look like other people.”  He thought that one of Cooper’s friends looked like one of the Weasley twins (doesn’t matter which one).

Scott (from the chat room) summed it up with the statement, “This is a cast made up of ugly British people.”

David admitted to jumping ahead in five minute intervals out of sheer boredom and correctly assumed that he really wasn’t missing much.  Tony didn’t understand the angst that the movie was trying to convey.  Cooper comes from a working class background and he has a job.  Given, he doesn’t really like his job but he still HAS a job, which is a hell of a lot more than most of his friends have.

When the discussion turned to the Steph character, Tony thought that the character was written to be a hated person.

Tony admitted that the hosts made the conscious choice to watch Quadrophenia as part of the Rock ‘n Roll series over Pink Floyd’s The Wall… at least he’s proud enough to admit that this might not have been the wisest choice!

 

And now on to… The Hunger Games! (Starts at 32:07)

It was widely agreed that the best parts of The Hunger Games were Lenny Kravitz (Cinna) and Woody Harrelson (Haymitch).  Tony thought the movie overall was good, David thought it was great (your happy note-taker agreed with David).  They also liked the characters of Rue and Thresh, but David’s only complaint was the District 11 scene (after Rue is… ) because they broke the 1st person immersion.

David thought that the Katniss character was a strong female heroine that hasn’t been forced into a female “gender” role.  She’s all business throughout the movie and she doesn’t break out of that role.  He also would have liked to have seen more of an interaction between Peeta and Haymitch.

Tony didn’t think the movie lived up to the hype.  Neither did David, but that didn’t change his opinion that he really liked it.

Also listen to Tony’s idea for an earlier story line on Cinna and Haymitch.

 

Your Producers for this episode were:

  • Tony
  • Darrell
  • David

This episode was recorded: 3/28/2012