Local Hero

Reviving being I'm using the Capaldi casting in DW as an excuse to tell more people about this film.

it's p good; i'll take lair of the white worm instead

LH is one of the best Hollywood-produced films of the '80s.

Which cast member appeared the same year in Return of the Jedi?

I'd guess Dennis Lawson

Denis Lawson

gah xp

I mentioned on another thread seeing a lousy film from a couple of years ago called
Bitter/Sweet. It's basically an attempt to remake Local Hero--Thailand instead of Scotland, coffee instead of oil, James Brolin instead of Burt Lancaster--with a love story worked in.

still get a huge kick out of the bit with the hammering on the roof. that and "I'll be a good Gordon, Gordon".

I've been meaning to see this for decades and finally did. What a sweet film. Felt a little like it was a little rushed, though, which was odd for a film so much about taking your time, but I can't imagine back then Forsyth getting away with making it even slower and longer. I suppose he might have swapped all the broad goofy therapist stuff for even more of the town and its people.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByLSeWnDUA7/

it's amazing a Hollywood studio backed it. Never happen now.

Josh: try to see his follow-up, Comfort and Joy. As much as I love Local Hero, I love Comfort & Joy even more.

Says upthread that Chris Menges shot this, which I had forgotten/never known/pvmic

there's a forthcoming stage musical adaptation

I'm glad it wasn't made any longer or slower. It's perfectly compressed yet leisurely as is, with so many subtle character details just fleetingly hinted at. Only on repeated viewings do you appreciate them. I first saw it on The Movie Channel soon after it played in theaters. They ran it over and over for a month, and I would catch at least some of it whenever I had the TV on. It was like getting to know characters on a TV series as dear friends.

I've only seen it maybe twice since then. The last time, when I introduced a friend to it. I was disappointed that she didn't want to watch it again right away.

I love the understatedly bittersweet ending when Mac is back in Houston in his yuppie bachelor's apartment pinning snapshots to the wall, looking out over the drab cityscape, and it briefly cuts to the Scottish village with the red telephone box small and off to one side. Under the music you can almost hear it ringing. In a typical Hollywood film, the box would have filled up the screen, and the phone would have drowned out the music. And kept ringing through the credits.

YISSSS

https://www.criterion.com/films/28709-local-hero

xpost I still don't know what to make of all the Burt Lancaster stuff. He seems to take up a huge percentage of the film for having no real point, at least not until the very very end.

smdh

Burt is the eccentric face of capitalism

another studio wd've cast DJTrump

Well, yeah. I guess I mean as an erstwhile villain, symbolic or not, I could have done without all the broad therapy stuff.

having seen this since i was young but literally every other bill forsyth film I've seen or rewatched as an adult has been bad.

he's not the villain, no one is, it's a bill forsyth joint

he's on-screen a lot bcz he's great on-screen, and forsyth wrote a film for him to be on-screen a lot bcz this was amazing to able to do from where BF was standing at that point

this is far and away his best film (gregory's girl is nice but no one can act)(jenny seagrove can't act in local hero, it's a bill forsyth joint)

Housekeeping is a great film imho, Christine Lahti should've hauled in all the awards

Mark: I keep plugging Comfort and Joy--have you seen that? Seems very few have.

not since the 80s! i think i liked it but not as much as local hero

the ice-cream truck jingle is still stuck in my head but i remember very little else ("hullo folks!")

Next year, Forsyth and Knopfler have a musical version up at the Old Vic.

https://www.oldvictheatre.com/whats-on/2020/local-hero

You’ve got to be kidding

They already did this in Edinburgh earlier this year.

Tom, delete Edinburgh now.

the Guardian rather liked it

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/mar/24/local-hero-review-oil-movie-musical-bill-forsyth-mark-knopfler

never spotted at the time that knopfler did the soundtrack -- i'm listening now and it's mellow!

(his first, according to wikipedia)

oh you'll know the last track on that i'm sure

i mean, even outside of the film

for the US release, Knopfler certainly seemed the most "sellable" element of the film aside from Burt's presence

The U.S. poster added Lancaster standing behind Peter Reigert on the beach.

rewatched via CC edition last night... exquisite. I think the funniest Burt line is "He wants to sell me the sand?"

There's an interview w/ Forsyth where the critic reads a letter to BF in '83 from Michael Powell, full of praise, except for "Burt went over the top and you let him."

"We have an injured rabbit!"

"It was suffering... That (leg) was a clean break -- you can check the bones."

Peter Capaldi's limbs-flying running style is hilarious (and possibly copped from Jerry Lewis).

(it's "We have an injured rabbit also")

(tips hat to morbs)

the actors who play Gordon and the abuse therapist were in, respectively, Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back.

Peter Capaldi's limbs-flying running style is hilarious (and possibly copped from Jerry Lewis).

this is Capaldi's actual run: his fellow Scottish/Italian Armando Ianucci would contrive reasons for the character Malcolm Tucker to run in The Thick Of It and In The Loop bcz he also correctly finds it hilarious

In the CC supps, Forsyth twice says that one of his inspirations for LH was... "The Beverly Hillbillies."

He did not write a hut dialogue scene between Ben the beachcomber and Happer because he didn't know what they would say, and also he thought the movie should reflect that chambers of power are usually secretive.

There's also a South Bank Show segment of David Puttnam having a marketing meeting where it's decided the target audience is "over 25s" and "housewives."

The CC booklet reveals that there's a critical study of BF's films titled Discomfort and Joy.

There's a Bill Forsyth thread on I Love Film...I'll post here instead.

I watched Housekeeping tonight for the first time since it came out. (I've been paying for a Criterion subscription for six months, and I think this is the third time I've used it. Just laziness--have to hook up the laptop to the TV.) I was disappointed at the time and puzzled by the acclaim. I love Comfort and Joy--listed it on my ILX ballot for the upcoming poll--same with Local Hero. (I'm going to watch Gregory's Girl this weekend. There was a heist film in there I didn't care for.)

I would have been 26 when Housekeeping came out; I am, of course, so much wiser and thoughtful 33 years later, so surely I'd love it. No--I still think the other two are much better. It's well made, Lahti's good, etc.; I haven't read the novel, so maybe it's exceptionally faithful to that. I again found it flat--in part because of the narration, in part, I think, because of the sisters, especially Lucille. Whimsical humour is hit or miss with me--I find Playtime an ordeal--but I consider those other two films as good in that department as it gets. There was little of that in Housekeeping, and I missed it. The ending was good. Weirdly, Dead Ringers crossed my mind a couple of times.

Andrew Sarris had it second on his 1987 year-end, ninth on his decade list. It's not on TSPDT's Top 1000; Local Hero is #569. Maybe its reputation has faded a bit, I don't know.

Favourite line in Gregory's Girl: "I want to interview you and that girl in 2A that had the triplets."

Doesn’t seem to be streaming in this US,*sigh*

It's going to be on Mubi soon, they bought it for distribution.

Think I saw it was already on MUBI Ireland & UK.

It's not yet, I just checked, but I think it's coming on to the platform when the cinema run ends in a week or so.

Some of the humour in this is a bit too broad and doesn't quite land (although my cinema partner disagreed) but I can forgive it a lot because it is so deeply felt and complex as an entire work. I have a very specific niggle about the Scottish accents in it too - Hebridean accents are very specific but rarely deployed here - but again, the same, I forgive it.

It would have just elevated it to hear actual outer-hebrides accents on screen though. It would have been nice to hear some Gaelic too. A lot of Oueter-Hebridean-Scots don't, won't or even can't speak English. I was shocked to go there on a theatre tour and encounter people who can't speak English and only know Gaelic.

but there's the Lancaster accent

Amazing to think there are Scots who can't speak English but it's true, there are (though it's very rare, now).

Is that a reference to something, Alf?

I think Soto is referring to Burt Lancaster, not to the English region Lancaster, or to the dialect of anyone in the film Limbo

ah!

Thanks, my darling.

You’re my eyes and ears!

Because a little time is all we have left.