Woody Allen navel-gazes and Bette Midler shines as we wrap up September 1980
Plus Walter Matthau plays a great game of tag
It’s been a month of many echoes.
We kicked off the month with the Sex Pistols and now we’ve got another punk rock title to kick off this final installment of the newsletter for the month. There are actors who have shown up several times, and similar themes that keep playing out. We’ve got seven titles today, and they’re definitely worth some real discussion, so let’s dive right in…
SEPTEMBER 26
Breaking Glass
Phil Daniels, Hazel O’Connor, Jon Finch, Jonathan Pryce, Peter-Hugo Daly, Mark Wingett, Gary Tibbs, Charles Wegner, Mark Wing-Davey, Hugh Thomas, Derek Thompson, Nigel Humphreys, Ken Campbell, Lowri Ann Richards, Peter Tilbury, Patrick Murray, Richard Griffiths, Janine Duvitski, Vass Anderson, Jim Broadbent, Michael Kitchen, Jonathan Lynn, Peter Cellier, Richard Hope, Kenneth MacDonald, Gary Olsen, Gary Holton, Christopher Driscoll, G.B. Zoot Money
cinematography by Stephen Goldblatt
screenplay by Brian Gibson
produced by Davina Belling and Clive Parsons
directed by Brian Gibson
Rated PG
1 hr 44 mins
A young London woman meets a wannabe music manager and the two of them create a band that has a rapid rise and equally rapid fall.
It can be brutally difficult to make a film about a fake band or a fake stand-up comic because at some point, that fake band is going to have to perform some real songs or that comic is going to have to be funny, and if they don’t work, the entire fiction falls apart. You can tell an audience that the band they’re watching is brilliant and successful, but at some point, the songs are the songs.