The Big Whatsit

How appalling is the revamped service over at Sky Movies? I appreciate that the business of having ten so-called ‘Premiere’ channels, plus two for ‘Classics’, made for a bit of a mess, and meant you could watch the sort of awful bobbins they can’t even sell for a pound in slimline DVD format at Tesco, but at least there was nearly always something on that was watchable. Instead, they’ve gone for this bewildering service with fewer channels, staggered start times, and the categorising of movies that often doesn’t make a lot of sense. Bring back Moviemax! Or, er, don’t.

With the football season reaching its climax (and a rather staid end it is for anyone who doesn’t support Manchester United, or the fickle who suddenly find themselves cheering on Chelsea), I’ve had to review my use of Sky in general. There’s simply no need for me to have the sheer number of channels I pay for, and especially having just given up the smokes, I’ve taken to tinkering anally with the service. As I see it, the majority of films I watch are either on the old terrestrial stations, Film 4, or the wonderful Turner Classic Movies, to my mind the one digital channel that actually shows any real love for celluloid. Most of the much hyped premieres I’m interested in seeing have been watched long before they make it to Sky, often snapped up on DVD, and quite regularly in the current climate bought quite cheaply. The service just isn’t worth it, and even the football I got Sky for in the first place seems more enjoyable to me via the dulcet tones of Alan Green on Five Live, rather than the relentless marketing exercise served up by Andy Gray, Martin Tyler, and their eternally enthusiastic mates. I’ll miss Jeff Stelling, but that’s about as far as it goes. Middlesbrough always lose when they’re on telly, anyway.

As a consequence, Sky Movies and Sports have gone, along with the slew of deafening music channels (is it just me, or do they all seem to have a fixation on Christina Aguilera? Don’t get it, personally) and some of the news stations. Instead, I’ve gone back to using a service I once got fed up with, and that’s to subscribe to Love Film’s DVD rental gig. It’s all Daniel Stephens’ fault. Ever since he waxed lyrical about its virtues, it’s been like a cancer in my brain, eating into the recesses of my consciousness until I decided to ship out reams of Sky and go for that instead.

In fairness, it all links in to my attempt to pile through They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s 1,000 best movies. It occurred to me fairly quickly that there was little chance I’d do more than brush the surface if I watched them via Sky’s offerings. Though not bad for the American and British releases, there’s simply nowhere to go for the wealth of foreign language flicks on the list, not to mention some of its more ‘obscure’ titles. As an experiment, I tried to hunt down TSPDT’s number two movie, The Rules of the Game, a Jean Renoir classic from 1939. Being so high on the list, and tucked neatly between American heavyweights, Citizen Kane and Vertigo, I might have been mistaken into thinking it would be aired fairly frequently. Not a chance. Even a quick search on Amazon led me to a Region One version that would have set me back the best part of twenty quid, not a criminal price but quite steep for a film I’ve never seen.

It was then that I decided to see what Love Film had to offer. Sure enough, they had it in stock, just like Tokyo Story, Jules et Jim, M and Wild Strawberries. Excellent. I signed up quickly enough, and soon found that pretty much every title on the list was either available, or reservable, which was about as good a service as I could find. Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, and La Dolce Vita, are being shipped as I write this, and I’m now looking forward to eating into the top 1,000 properly, or at least the best hundred, with the rest to follow in time.

The things you do to occupy yourself when you knock the cigarettes on the head, huh?

The TSPDT Top 1,000 Update

I’m now up to 211, partly because I realised I’d forgotten to include Stanley Kubrick’s weird and wonderful Lolita (number 691) the first time around (not the Jeremy Irons version, which features Little Jez swinging about). My latest viewing, and one I enjoyed thoroughly, is The Thin Man (900), sort of a peek into a bygone age of Hollywood. The film’s murder mystery plot doesn’t really kick in until about halfway through, because it spends long enough focusing on the antics of sleuth couple, Nick and Nora Charles. Holmes and Watson they ain’t. In fact, what they seem to enjoy doing most is partying, drinking huge amounts of booze (the movie was released one year after the repeal of the prohibition laws in America) and teasing each other lovingly. Hell, I wanted to be Nick, played with sozzled sublimity by William Powell. When not pissed, and that isn’t often, he’s the perfect detective, one step ahead of everybody. In fact, the only person who can keep up with him is the rich and beautiful Nora (Myrna Loy), who has an endless repartee of quips, not to mention a well of patience that allows her to cope with Nick’s excesses. To Depression era audiences, it must have been a world removed, a wealthy and consequence-free existence that takes place mainly in the upper reaches of skyscraper apartments and far from the tough realities of the 1930s. For me, it’s an absolute delight, a light-hearted murder mystery that’s in love with its playful stars, and rightly so. As much as I try and avoid cliches, they really don’t make them like that anymore.