The 50 Best Sitcoms Ever - Part One (50 - 41)

 

Hello gentle reader. Let me start off by apologising for the title of this article.  The 50 best sitcoms! Ever! What a ridiculous conceit. The egotistical ranting of a maniac. I'll tell you right now, going in: that title is wrong. Even I don't agree with it. 

I considered a variety of alternative titles, such as:

"50 great sitcoms, which may or may not be the best ones, but here they are."

"50 sitcoms you might like, with some notable and probably sacrilegious omissions."

"50 sitcoms which me and my wife argued about for ages and frankly neither of us are very happy with the compromise."

That last one is probably the best one. The two of us recently found ourselves in a hotel bar, with some wine, a notebook and literally nothing else to talk about. Before you knew it we were drawing up a long list of sitcoms, with the avowed intention to whittle it down to the 50 best. We argued. We compromised. We tried to persuade the service staff to side with one of us against the other. We apologised and ordered more wine.

What we have here is the result of a very flawed but quite exciting process, whereby we have created a list which will please literally no-one. This is part one, which deals with the lowest ranking 10 shows in our top fifty. Yes, I know. You already don't agree. Blame my wife for not acquiescing to all my choices, in mathematical order.

50. 

Red Dwarf             1988 - 2020. iPlayer

Well done, Red Dwarf, for making it into the top fifty. I'm sorry you're right at the bottom, but you've still done better than, for example, My Hero, which would have struggled to get into a top 150 and should count itself lucky to be mentioned at all.

Red Dwarf was a very good show to start with, using its sci-fi setting to explore funny and original concepts while rooting its comedy in the lives of its characters. The cast weren't great actors, for the most part, but they had loads of charisma and they were, crucially, fun to watch.

After a while, though, the show got overexcited about the opportunities afforded by special effects and forgot to be funny. Plus there was the problem all popular sitcoms face: how do you keep going for years without reducing the central premise to a series of quirks and catchphrases? In this case, the answer was "I'll have the quirks and catchphrases, please."

The strongest vote for this came from me. I'd enjoyed it a great deal in my youth and it formed a foundational text during undergraduate years, when I thought quoting Kryten was an acceptable substitute for having a personality. The wife already has a perfectly good personality, and was therefore relatively unmoved.

49.

Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared           2022. Channel 4

There was some debate, between Wifeface and I, about whether this counts as a sitcom. It's certainly quite different from a lot of the other shows here. If you've not seen it, it can be best described as 'What if David Lynch made a show for very young children, while refusing to compromise on any of his artistic principles?'

On the surface it's very odd, with puppets and actors dressed as sort-of monsters. Like if you were having a nightmare about the kids TV show Rainbow. The reality of the show's world is tenuous, and it's as often scary as it is funny. However, it has some fairly solid sitcom elements. They live in a house, they're a kind of family, and the humour arises at least partly from their differences in personality. There's a sensible 'mum' one, a full-of-himself 'mad' one, and a comedy 'idiot' one. That's sitcom DNA, right there.

Eventually we decided to include it because 

a) we'd included The Young Ones, which is pretty similar and 

b) I threatened to do a huge, evening-ruining sulk if we left it out.

48.

Stath Lets Flats             2018-2021.  Channel 4

We'd got quite a long way through our initial long list before we remembered this show. When we did we slapped our foreheads and did much theatrical gasping. How could we have forgotten one of the most excellent shows of recent years?

This is one of those shows that we came to late. It seemed like a terrible premise, and had an undeniably awful title. I think it was maybe our housemate who recommended it, and we put it on with a kind of, "Well, I'm sure this will be fine, but I can't imagine OH MY GOD I'M SO IN LOVE WITH THESE PEOPLE'. 

47.

Yes Minister            1980-1984.  Prime. 

There are relatively few 'legacy' sitcoms on our list. The nature of our selection process ('What can we remember while drinking in a bar?') meant that things from years ago got relatively short shrift.

Yes Minister, however, survived our dodgy memories for a couple of reasons. One is that we love to wander through the TV channels late at night before going to bed, and it seems impossible to do so without coming across Sir Humphrey's cunning smile, or Jim Hacker's worried, big eyed frown. And you don't have to hang around for very long before hitting a perfectly scripted exchange, or a lovely bit of character work.

The other reason for inclusion is that this programme is, simply put, class. I may not have watched an episode all the way through in years, but I don't need to, to remember how ace it is.

46.

Big Boys                   2022 - ongoing.  Channel 4 

This is one of the most recent entries on the list, so it's hard to know how enduring its appeal will be. But both Wifeface and I loved it to bits and when it came up we both sort of waved our arms about and cooed with delight, as if someone had spilled puppies all over the table.

There's a myth that comedy has to be hard and vicious and have some kind of target. I think comedy can do that, and there's great joy in seeing the David Brents or Basil Fawltys of this world be punished for their hubris. "Take that, my boss from work in fictionalised form!"

But there's also a real place, I reckon, for comedies that are warm hearted and full of love. This manages to be delightful and compassionate at the same time as making me laugh like a lunatic. 

45.

Arrested Development           2003-2019. Netflix, Disney+

Neither the wife or I have watched this since it was on, so we couldn't really remember what we thought. We seemed to remember liking it for the first few series, and then despising series four. We subsequently turned against the whole show with quite unreasonable venom, as if betrayed. 

It was good, though, I think? I seem to remember the characters being lots of weird fun, all in some form of self denial and with their own distinctive flaws. The plots were driven by vivid, imaginative chaos. And the structure was enjoyable, full of cutaways and repeated gags that built over the series. It came at a time when American sitcoms were doing interesting, experimental things and this was one of the better experiments. 

44.

The Vicar of Dibley               1994 - 2007.    Britbox, Now

Full disclosure, I did not vote for this. I don't dislike it, as such. I've just observed it from a distance and decided it probably isn't my thing. Like Mumford and Sons. I'm sure they're fine, but there's a sort of 'popular but nothingy' vibe to them that I can't be bothered with.

All of which counted for nothing against the sheer ferocity with which Wifeface demanded its inclusion. She was sure she'd seen me laugh at it on a number of occasions, and when she listed those occasions I had a vague flickering of familiarity and the faint echoes of internal happiness. Damn her android-like memory.

Anyway. Here it is. Apparently there's an amusing bit where she jumps in a puddle, and maybe a bit where someone shouts "Moo!" half way through a joke. 

43.

Shrinking                2023 - ongoing.  Apple

Another late inclusion, probably because it was on quite recently and thus hasn't settled into long term memory yet. We also didn't really talk to anyone about it, because it's on Apple TV and so no-one in the world had seen it except me and the wife.

It's the story of a man who's wife has died, and so he decides to start telling people the truth rather than being careful about their feelings. Yes, like in Afterlife, except a) he's a psychiatrist, so it has more profound implications and b) you don't have to put up with Ricky Gervais showing off how awesome he is all the time like a massive insufferable prick.

It's funny, and a bit sad - a lot of comedy is like that now, it seems and I'm totally here for that. And it finally gives Harrison Ford chance to show that yes, he can be as funny as anyone else if you give him the right place to stand. 

42.

Him and Her                2010-2013.     iPlayer

We nearly forgot about this one. It's ten years or so since we've seen it, and though it's very lovely, it's also very low key. The stakes are small, the characters gentle and its more likely to elicit a smile than a laugh.

One thing it really does have going for it: the characters seem absolutely genuine. We used to talk about them as if they were real people, discussing them the next day as if, rather than watching them on TV, we'd spent the evening at their flat. Why was Laura so mean? Was it just that she couldn't articulate her vulnerability? Would Paul go through with the wedding? Should we have them over for dinner? Hang on, no, that's not going to work...

41.

The Simpsons               1989 - ongoing.  Disney

It's hard to have an opinion on The Simpsons, isn't it? It's undeniably brilliant, sure. But there's so much of the thing! Somewhere in there is a sharp, well written show, but it's lost in a ever-present miasma of jokes and ideas that sort of bleeds out beyond the boundaries of the screen, into everyday life. It's less a thing you watch, more a collection of phrases and archetypes which have become part of our shared vocabulary. 

Added to this, neither me or Wifeface had properly seen it for years. What we could remember, we liked a lot. I guess it's probably stuff from the first five years or so. Clever jokes and slapstick humour, all rolling along together with wit and panache. That bit where Sideshow Bob stands on some rakes. That was good. How long ago was that? No, actually please don't tell me.

So... it's here, and it feels worthy, but for some reason we were both a little reluctant to put it higher. Maybe comedy has to feel like it belongs to you, before you can love it? Loving The Simpsons feels like loving the concept of pizza. Yes, it's tasty, and once in a while it's exactly what you're in the mood for. But everyone likes it, so what does liking it even mean?

Anyway. That's the first ten of our top fifty. They're all delightful shows, even the ones I don't really want to be there and only included in the spirit of democracy. Join me at the links below, for more sitcoms that will make you laugh, make you cry and make you seethe with rage at the stupidity of their ranking.

Numbers 40 - 31

Numbers 30 - 21

Numbers 20 - 11

Numbers 10 - 1

Also rans

I Made You a Mixtape - October 1994

 

Well hello, you scintillating thing. You catch me in a reflective mood. I've been listening to an old mixtape I made in the mid 1990s, and I've got to say it's raising a lot of questions. Questions like, "Why on earth did I include these songs?" and "Is this why I had no friends in the 90s?" That kind of thing.

Join me, as I wander through the contents of this tape, compiled nearly thirty years ago. If you wish to listen along, you'll find the contents on this Spotify playlist, from track 153 onwards. Or you can just click on the links to the Youtube videos I stuck below. Or you can sit in silence, like a serial killer. It's up to you.

Always - Bon Jovi

We're off to a terrible start. But wait - I can explain. I've recently split up with a woman, as I make this tape, and I'm quite keen on sharing that knowledge with the world. There's going to be quite a lot of songs reflecting the end of relationships. My basic rule in my 20s was this: If I'm feeling something, everyone around me is feeling it too.

That said, this isn't a very appropriate song, is it? This is very "You have my heart for all time, here is a big ballad about it." Which is pretty much the opposite of what was going on. I suppose Bon Jovi never wrote a song called, "Two years of this feels like slightly more than enough - I'm off."

Need You Tonight - INXS

This is more like it. A whip smart piece of astonishingly precise pop. This swaggers along, walking a straight line between outright confidence and a kind of beguiling honesty. 

I keep forgetting I like INXS. The parent album for this song, "Kick", is like a "best of", with loads of elegantly simple songs and the kind of production that makes you look at other albums and shout, "Why aren't you doing this?" I'd been into it when it came out, in the late 80s, and I assume I'd recently bought a copy of it when I made this tape. 

What Do You Want From Me? - Pink Floyd

Ah, a return to the fun "Cool/Not cool" whiplash effect that my playlists tend to provoke. I love this kind of music, but anyone listening along might wonder why we'd gone from the sharp, clean pop of INXS to this self indulgent abyss of guitars and chaos.

Well, the answer is that I had bought the album a while ago, and by God I was going to get my money's worth from it. I'd used up the obvious, attention grabbing singles and now I was into the album-only tracks. This took me a while to warm up to, but I reckon it's miles better than it's supposedly more catchy stable mates. 

I suppose there might also be an unconscious message to my ex-girlfriend, who was reacting badly to me suddenly and arbitrarily ending our relationship. She was hanging around our shared house, covering the place in tears and crumpled up tissues and sadness, and generally killing my buzz. Stop letting her in, housemates!

Crying in the Rain - Aha

And... we're back with the relationship misery. Except, again... I was feeling pretty chipper about being single and so this is less about actual sadness and more about the idea of loss. I'd kind of got used to having her about, and wasn't sure what it would be like when she suddenly wasn't there. 

It's a bit like being in a bath that's getting colder. You don't want to get out, because the cold air will be momentarily worse. But the longer you stay in the bath, the more the heat drains away and the more uncomfortable you are. Plus, if you get out, you can start dating other girls. 

This is a great song, with a particularly strong start. That 'Drunngggg" chord at the beginning is awesome. And Morten's ascending vocal in the 'I may be a fool...' bit is sublime. 

I like the way it pretends to finish, then comes back for a little more thundery banging about. Kudos to you, you sneaky ruffian.

King's Highway (live) - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

This was a B-side, I think, from one of the many CD singles that littered my life at this point. The album version is a perfectly good, driving rock song, so I wonder why I chose this?

I'm a fan of stripped back versions of songs, I guess. They were certainly more of an interesting novelty back in the mid 90s. Nowadays it's hard to find a song that hasn't been pulled apart, and reimagined using only the kazoo and some string. But this version - with a gentler guitar and that lovely delicate piano - is a delight, revealing the structure underneath the bells and whistles of the studio version. Love it.

Your Town - Deacon Blue

If you've read my previous blogs about my tapes, you'll be aware that 1994 Rob is in a period of buying lots of 'best of' CDs. Partly because it's a quick way of getting a collection together when you earn basically no money, and partly because he's stupidly joined Britannia Music - an organisation that sends you CDs through the post faster than you can say, "No, stop, I can't afford... ah well it's here now."

One of those best-ofs was a Deacon Blue collection. It's a pretty good CD, with lots of songs that had bounced around the charts a few years earlier. But there were also songs like this - darker, weirder things that pulsed with strange, distant energy. 

I found myself very drawn to this. It was quite a way from what I knew about Deacon Blue, who seemed like a bunch of excited puppies who'd stumbled into a room full of synths and trumpets. I guess I still had traces of that adolescent philosophy which could be summed up as, "The darker the music, the more meaningful the music." Silly boy. 

I do still like this song, but I can see why they put it on the other end of the CD from 'Dignity' and 'Real Gone Kid', where it couldn't upset them.

I Don't Want to Talk About It - The Indigo Girls

Here I go again, pretending I'm all cut up about breaking up with that woman. I think that this track's inclusion is more of a happy co-incidence, though. This version of this - excellent - song hails from the soundtrack to Philadelphia. 

I'd bought the 'Philadelphia' CD for exactly two songs: the Neil Young song and the Bruce Springsteen song. Remember that? When you had to buy an entire CD to get maybe two or three songs that you liked? Madness. Except it had the benefit, didn't it, of accidentally finding tracks like this, that you might never have stumbled across otherwise. 

Gorgeous harmonies and an elegant arrangement. Lovely.

Never Tear Us Apart

Do you realise how sad my life is yet? Are you overcome by how sensitive I am? Do you think, maybe, that you should give me loads of sympathy and maybe let me off doing the washing up? 

What a great song this is. We're back to that amazing INXS album, and it's just a treasure trove of stunning songs. They even stick in a "Hey hey it's the 80s!" saxophone solo, and get away with it. 

But yeah. I am sad. Honest. Go to the shops for me?

One Better Day - Madness

My favourite Madness song. I can remember the day I bough the 45 single of this. A rainy Thursday in what must have been... 1984? On holiday from school. Wandered into town and spent my scant pocket money on this, and a 'choose your own adventure' book called 'Lone Wolf' or something. 

There's stuff going on in this song that I've never quite been able to quantify, and that's probably why I love it. A heartfelt combination of melancholy and yearning... maybe the flowering of new love, or perhaps the sun setting on something that lasted years. I don't know. 

And it's a great example of the things I've always loved about Madness. They're a seven piece, all contributing loads to the song, but somehow there's lots of space in the music for everything to breathe. Interlocking elements - the sound of musicians listening to each other and leaving room for everyone to shine. Listen to that lovely, constant bassline, loping casually along, never getting in the way but always nodding along with the emotions of the piece.

Glorious. Genuinely one of the best songs ever.

Dry Land - Marillion

Great news everyone, it's time for some Marillion. This had been a top song of mine for a few years, by 94. A single from their 1991 album, it had sound-tracked most of my college years. If you spent any time with me then - or, to be fair, in the 30 years since - you'll be familiar with this. 

This is a version of Marillion that I like a lot, and would have liked to see a lot more of. For one thing, it's short. By which I mean "Not that short, actually, but relative to most of their stuff, it at least you can listen to it and still get to bed on time". It has a sensible verse/chorus structure - something Marillion seem hell bent on avoiding at all costs. And it has an absolutely delightful, soaring chorus. 

Do more songs like this please, Marillion. 

I know. You won't. Fine.

Fading Lights - Genesis

This song would have rounded off side one of the C90 cassette, and it's a long one. So I'm guessing the tape ran out about half way through. This is from "We Can't Dance", Genesis's last album with Phil "Lot of work for charity" Collins, and it's an odd beast. 

The album is mostly full of chart friendly stuff, embracing Genesis's slightly weird move from 'Mad Prog Nonsense-mongers' to "Machine Like Producers of Top Pop Hits." It's quite good stuff, for the most part, if not a patch on the Gabriel era weirdness which, you'll be unsurprised to know, I preferred. 

But. There were two or three tracks on there which seemed to hark back to their early days, when they made great big ten minute songs about weasels and knights, with great big wibbly keyboard solos and giddy diversions into experimental rock. This is one of those tracks, and I very much enjoy it.

Another reason for its inclusion, of course, is that opening line... "Another time it might have been so different...", and all the references to fading memories and goodbyes. Yes, I'm still determined to create a kind of aural tombstone for the relationship I deliberately killed. I only hope I didn't make her a copy of this, and present it as some kind of artistic statement.

I'm worried that I might have. It's exactly the sort of thing I might have done...

Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi

More from Bon Jovi, to open up side two. What a way to kick off - with that excellent jangly guitar bit, which every guitarist I know spent ages replicating, with diminishing returns.

This is quite fun, as far as it goes. It's not quite 'my' kind of song. Its all very masculine and alpha, bristling with super hard imagery where real men sleep under the stars and eat whisky and kill each other as a way of saying hello. I am quite a long way from being this kind of man, and would cry every day if I had to do any of the things mentioned in this song. 

I take some comfort, however, from the fact that this kind of masculinity, far from being a hard-as-nails representation of how a man should live, is in fact a silly cartoonish masturbation fantasy, fooling only small boys and, it seems, some social media influencers.

Devil Inside - INXS

Kaboom! It's the boys from INXS again, flouncing back in with some more extraordinary pop rock joy. It's a lovely counterpoint to the last song; a kind of magical art-noise that is somehow incredibly sexy and cool without feeling the need to shout "I eat guns for breakfast! See my motorbike!"

Apart from its simple aesthetic beauty, I liked this song for its sentiments. I'd been breathing in a lot of Christianity which said things like, "Demons are everywhere! If you listen to Iron Maiden, the Devil will sneak into your brain during a guitar solo!" I knew that sort of thinking didn't sit right, but I was also interested in concepts of good and evil and stuff like that. I liked the idea, espoused in this song, that perhaps we should take responsibility for our own actions, rather than shouting, "Satan told me to do it, and then ran off!"

Market Square Heroes - Marillion

Here, for your pleasure, is Marillion's first single. This means that I must have bought their CD of B-sides, and was rejoicing in that. Do you know what it was called? Marillion's collection of B-sides?

It was called 'B-sides Themselves'. 

Yeah! You didn't think you could like Marillion any less, did you? Well. Every day is a school day. 

I like this song loads. I'm an absolute sucker for the bouncy, arpeggiated keyboards that wimble happily along, all through the song. This takes me back not to 1994, but to about 1987, when my mate Ian lent me a big bag of Marillion albums and 12 inch singles. Oh, the absolute joy of finding this music, sitting in my parents' lounge in the sun and letting all these wonderful noises pour into my life. 

Yes, it's sparse and kind of ropey, and ever so daft. But earnest and silly go together like bacon and eggs, for this boy. 

When Will You Make My Telephone Ring? - Deacon Blue

A lovely, soulful song. This is a very consistent collection, isn't it? Not consistently great, perhaps, but there's a kind of solid, mid-tempo pop feel about the whole thing. I should have got into making CD compilations for Father's Day, I'd have been rich. Too late now. 

I used to cover this song quite a bit when doing open mic nights. I'm not sure anyone ever recognised it. They probably just thought, "Why has this man written a song that he can't quite sing, doesn't know the words to and often forgets how to play?"

If I ever put this song on these days, my wife will, 100% of the time, call my mobile half way through, and then laugh hysterically. Because she made my phone ring, you see. Like in the song. 

Dancing With Tears In My Eyes - Ultravox

As I'm listening to this, I'm realising that I bought most of these CDs in Bradford. This is from a Midge Ure greatest hits. Don't laugh - he was sort of popular in the mid 90s. It was a mixture of his solo stuff and things like this, from his generally higher profile time with Ultravox.

Why did I buy it in Bradford, when I lived in Wakefield? I'm pretty sure I bought the Bon Jovi album there too, and the hilariously named Marillion B-Sides CD. Was I scared of the staff in Wakefield HMV or something? Weird.

This is a good track, which I'd liked since it was in the charts in 84. Hey - that's the same year as the Madness track. Is my 1994 self having some kind of 'Oh, how I remember ten years ago," thing? Ha. Try 30 years, mate. 

My Sex - Ultravox!

Whoah, what's this? Two songs by the same band in a row? That's literally not allowed. 

It's a different version of Ultravox, though, so maybe I decided that this made it alright. I mean, it's a very different kind of song, isn't it? If I hadn't told you it was the same band, you'd hardly be on the phone to the mixtape police, screaming, "He played two songs by the same band! Yes, in a row!"

This is another song that I absolutely adore. It's the saddest, most wistful, gorgeous thing I've maybe ever heard. That dislocated vocal is about as fragile as a human can sound without turning into dust and poppy seeds. I love the contrast of the warn, organic piano and those ethereal, alien synths. And yet the synths sound kind of sad too, as if they're in melancholy conversation with the piano.

This is a song from a world quite unlike any other. As much as it is possible to be in love with a song, I am in love with this.

Solitary Man - Chris Isaak

Well this doesn't make any sense at all. What's this doing here? Like a super cool guy who turned up at a club, thinking it would be full of hipsters when it fact it's a load of geeks setting up role playing games. 

Good song... unremarkable. Is this a Neil Diamond cover? Yes, the internet says it is. And the internet would never lie.

I can only assume I included it because of the title. Because I was a solitary man, you see. Did I mention that I'd recently ended a relationship? 

Never Say Goodbye - Bon Jovi

Ok, this is getting embarrassing. I'm clearly desperate to create some kind of massive emotional narrative to this break up I've just had, and really there wasn't one. I suppose that's the reason, isn't it? I felt like it should be a bigger thing, after two years. And I suppose I wanted that thing we all want - to imagine our lives as great stories where everything has some kind of lasting consequence and materially affects the world.

I reckon the only genuine consequence was that I've included rather more maudlin, sentimental songs on this playlists than I might otherwise have done. I guess when it comes down to it, we're all the victims of my cavalier actions. I'm very sorry. Please don't come round my house and sniffle and cry for two weeks.

Living Forever - Genesis

Another quite long song from that Genesis album, with some pleasing boopy synth bits. It's interesting hearing the band trying to remember who they once were, years ago when they were way less successful and much more hairy.

Are they trying to prove something, do you reckon? "Hey guys, we never sold out - those playful, arty instincts are still here, under all the glossy production of the chart hits." I heard them once being interviewed, and defending the move to shorter, less complex music. They said something like, "We say the same things as before, it just takes us less time." As if getting to the end of a nice thing faster was some kind of virtue. 

Mind you, I was complaining about the exact opposite thing earlier, wasn't I, when I was talking about Marillion? Why couldn't they do shorter, poppier songs? 

Can anyone please me? Why don't you try, and we'll find out together. 

Made Again - Marillion

The last track on the tape, and another absolutely baffling choice for inclusion. 

This is a quite charming song, and it works really well on its parent album, Brave. It comes at the end of that album, following a quite heavy onslaught of tracks that are musically dense, emotionally fraught and - obviously - very, very long. The drop to this sparse, acoustic number works really well. Maybe that's what I'm going for here. 

Thanks for joining me on this journey through October 1994. As you can see, I was quite desperately trying to create some kind of cathartic soundtrack to an emotional disaster movie, but instead ended up making a collection that could easily be called, "Now That's What I Call Self Indulgent Dad Rock". 

You'll be pleased to know that my pain is short lived and, indeed, basically non-existent. When you join me for the next mixtape, you'll find I've already got my eye on someone else. 

In the meantime, why not look back in time, to see what I was up to, musically, in September 1994? It's right here and it is, of course, amazing:

I Made You a Mixtape - September 1994

She Moves Between the Frames

 

She’s in every film they ever made

If you know where to pause

I’ve seen her shape a thousand times but I know

I’ve missed a hundred thousand more

A luminous moment, a beautiful fragment

Among the extras in the crowds

Almost impossible to catch, before she slips 

Between the frames

Disappears into the background

I don’t know how I know her

She always wears a different face

But when I see her it’s a moment of clarity

Salt water and insanity

Cresting and crashing through

like the breaking of a wave

Frames drop and beads of water burst 

Aquamarine against the sun

And she’s there, stretched like melting toffee

Reclining, like a lizard, in the afternoon

Fuzzy contrasts in gold and reds and blues

A 16 millimetre study in oversaturated hues

Another day she comes in Nosferatu shapes

Flickering through falling rain

In the silvers and shivers of a European street

A moment in monochrome, between shadow and grey

100 years out of time

Of maybe just wilfully arty and New Wave

And I live for the moments when I catch one of her glances

When she looks, from the corner of her eye

Looking straight through the screen, 

Across the Z-axis

A heart attack line drawn from her eye to mine

She can’t be caught

Stare too long and the image slips

And she dissolves

The celluloid bubbles and the image burns

She only makes sense from a distance

Only takes shape when she’s in motion

And let’s you gaze, for one eighth of one second

Into the beauty

Of her world

Rob's Amazing Film Collection - Part Six: Blue Velvet to Bowling for Columbine

 

Do you still collect physical media? I bet you don't. Why would you clutter up your finite living space with Blu-rays, DVDs and the like, when streaming exists? You can just pluck films and music from the air, like the 21st Century Techno-God you are, and leave that shelf space for something more useful. Spice jars, maybe, or the hollowed out skulls of your enemies. 

Well, I still have those shelves full of films and I tell you what - they still bring me pleasure. There's something about seeing those titles, arrayed proudly and - of course - alphabetically that makes me glad. There's a kind of archeology to it all, these layers of the past, each one rooted in time and experience, that gives me pleasure. 

This series of blogs is a slow excavation of those layers - looking at the films in my collection and asking... why did I buy this? When did I last watch it? Actually, have I ever got round to watching it? Are these, in fact, mostly films that I borrowed off other people and is that why so many of my friends are annoyed with me?

Let's take a look at this little selection...

Blue Velvet

I love David Lynch, and recently my household had a little 'Lynch' season - charging through most of his films and all of Twin Peaks, and then sitting staring nervously round the house in case any of it turned into a demon. He's a director with a very distinctive flavour, David Lynch, and it really helps to be in his particular groove when watching his films. 

Blue Velvet is among the more mainstream of his works, but it's still a dark, weird beast that you wouldn't want to be watching when your mum walked in. I've never loved it, exactly, but I want it around. It's like one of those blue cheeses you taste and then kind of retch, and twitch a bit, then go back for more. 

The Boat That Rocked

I don't know why I own this. It's not particularly good. I think maybe it was a big deal when it came out, and sometimes it's good to watch those films to see what's going on. 

In retrospect, this is like someone precision tooled a film to reflect the particular sensibilities of an era. The narrative seems to have been constructed in order to create cool clips for the trailer. The cast is like an algorithm was tasked with finding 'cool actors of the early 21st Century'. Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans etc. All fun actors and good in their own right, but here cast more as a kind of shorthand - "Hey, you liked other films with these guys in. Please like me by extension". 

It's not easy, though, to like anything that's going on here. On one hand this feels like a middle aged man's idea of what it is to be young and free, and it all seems a bit desperate to be cool and irreverent. On the other, the sexual politics have dated terribly - a celebration of men treating women like prizes which is obviously terrible now, but probably should have been flagged as suspect then too. 

And then there's the end, where the spirit of Dunkirk is invoked to create a happy ending where some sex pests are rescued from a deserved drowning... it's like a satire on everything that would become wrong with the UK, except played in earnest. 

Bodies, Bodies, Bodies

A charming, unpretentious horror that does a few clever things and doesn't outstay its welcome. I got this because my brother recommended it, and it was actually cheaper to buy the disc than it was to rent it from Prime. 

I fear that this will become a fair amount of my collection - things I bought simply to watch once. And then they sit there, on the shelf, landfill waiting to happen. Will I watch this again? Probably not. Dare I throw it away and admit that I'm part of the reason the Earth will eventually be a dead, radioactive pit of toxic slime? Also no. 

Bonnie and Clyde

Ah, we're back in 'DVDs I bought when I was teaching film studies' territory. This was a film I'd reference constantly when discussing the Hollywood New Wave. Bonnie and Clyde was one of the cool kids who, along with Easy Rider, The Graduate and Night of the Living Dead, swaggered into cinemas in the late 1960s and said, "Get out of here, you squares! We're here to shake things up in ways your tiny minds simply wouldn't understand! Also we are smoking cigarettes!"

I've not actually watched this more than once. I've watched the first five minutes loads, when showing classes how cool it was to watch Faye Dunaway pout and punch the headrest of her bed, and how this kind of thing provoked cinema audiences to instantly leave the cinema and protest the Vietnam war. 

I should probably watch the rest of it again, some day. I couldn't tell you a single thing that happens after that. It's a bit like True Romance, right?

Boogie Nights

This was a massive deal when it came out in the 90s. Empire magazine was all over it. The huge success of Tarantino's films was a tide that lifted all boats: auteur directors were big news, and it just so happened that there were loads of them making really interesting films around this time.

As a relatively new film nerd, I was very up for being told where to go and what to see. There's a lot of films, and only so much time, so any threads were gratefully followed. Paul Thomas Anderson was one of the new messiahs of the era, according to the world's leading film mag, so who was I to disagree? Plus, they mentioned, there was tons of nudity. Well. As I say, I was there for the auteur directors and no-one can prove otherwise. 

Revisiting this film, it's very impressive, but not as focused as Anderson was to become in later films. He's clearly going for a Scorsese/Altman thing, and though he's good at that, it feels more like someone trying to remake Goodfellas than it does someone with their own vision. The structure is a bit lopsided, and there's a weird diversion into a sort of heist towards the end that suggests a lack of confidence in the material. 

All that said, it has the sort of amazing ensemble cast and a period soundtrack that we take for granted now, but was less usual then. 

Borat

I like this, but I'm not sure why I own the DVD. This is more the sort of film that I'll enjoy when it comes on TV, and I'm desperate not to go to bed, because then sleep comes and the day has won and one day I'll be dead. But I am unlikely to ever actively decide to pick the DVD off the shelf, so why is it here?

I wonder if I was teaching documentary making at some point, and thought that this would be a fun way into the subject for bored teenagers? If so, I bet it spectacularly failed, and they all looked at me like I was an idiot. 

It's funny and smart, though, and the joke has sustained pretty well. The sequel was great, wasn't it? 

Borg Vs. McEnroe

I was bought this as a gift, I think, presumably by someone who wanted to punish me for being an inattentive friend throughout the year. "Here's how much time we've spent together recently - I've bought you a film about sport as if that was a good idea."

It's not a bad film, at all. It's just that I don't care about tennis, even one tiny bit. And further to that, I've no interest in expanding my horizons to start caring about it. I have a number of obsessions and I'm pretty happy with them, so no thank you to new areas of life experience. 

I've definitely watched this film, but I could not tell you a single solitary thing about it. I bet they play tennis, and probably it's based on a real thing, and I imagine there are some excellent performances by some good actors, that get to the heart of the human experience. It probably transpires that, even if you don't like tennis, you could learn something about the universality of the existential struggle to be better, and how the real struggle isn't against our earthly opponents, but the darker angels of our souls. 

Well. Joke's on you, because I can get all that while watching John Wick. And even though I can't remember anything about this film, I bet ten thousand pounds that Borg doesn't beat McEnroe by sticking a pencil through his head.

Bottle Rocket

This is Wes Anderson's first film, I think. I will have bought it in an act of completism, after realising how much I loved Tenenbuams and Rushmore etc. It isn't as good. You can see bits of his later style poking through - a symmetrical composition here, and set of labelled plans there - but the whole thing is a bit nothingy and Owen Wilson has stupid hair.

I still like the idea of owning all the films by a certain director. But this noble aim is problematised by those directors either a) occasionally releasing a film I hate so I resent buying it or b) releasing so many bloody films that I simply can't keep up. Come on, directors. Either release exclusively good movies, or have the decency to die.

Bound

I've only seen this once, and it must be over twenty years ago. I bought it for one reason only, which was that it was directed by the siblings who made The Matrix and at that time The Matrix was the coolest movie anyone had every seen, ever. 

I got together with a friend who'd also enjoyed The Matrix, This doesn't narrow it down as everyone back then loved The Matrix, and spent all day every day quoting The Matrix and dressing like people from The Matrix and occasionally trying to run up walls like they do in The Matrix  except we all fell over and hurt ourselves. But the cool thing about it was that even though we all liked The Matrix, we all felt we had our own special, personal connection to the film, and that it had spoken to us on a direct and individual level. 

Anyway. She came round, I stuck on this film. It soon transpired that it wasn't much like The Matrix. This wasn't the story of super cool people doing amazing fighting in a cyberpunk environment. It was the story of sexy people, doing sexy things, in a seedy environment that probably smelled of sex and maybe rubber. 

It was a profoundly uncomfortable viewing experience. My choice of film suggested that I was engaged in some kind of covert seduction technique, whereby I put images on the screen and then nodded encouragingly. I felt the need to keep shouting things like, "Oh, I wasn't expecting this film to be full of women tying each other up!" Which I don't think helped. 

The Bourne Identity / Supremacy / Ultimatum

I own these films because they are ace. They are smart and interesting, and they changed the shape of action cinema forever. These are the films that the James Bond series looked at, and said, "Oh no! My fight scenes look like some old women mildly disagreeing with each other about the weather!" And then instantly stole the whole rough and ready aesthetic for Casino Royale. 

However, my favourite thing about them is how the different instalments are named. 

As you will have seen, I like to keep my films ordered alphabetically by title. This brings order to a chaotic universe and also makes them easier to find. But problems arise when you have a film series. Take, for example, Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy.  There's Batman Begins, up with the B films where it belongs. And then its sequels, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, languishing away a couple of shelves down. It doesn't work, does it? Would it have killed him to call the first film The Dark Knight Begins? Or title the sequels Batman Gets On With It and Batman Calls It A Day?

You see how hard my life is? But, look at the lovely old Bourne films. It's as if they were designed for me. Not only to they have the good grace to all begin with the same word, but the sequels appear in alphabetical order! You beauties!

One small thing, though. You can't have Albert Finney and Brian Cox in the same film series, playing similar characters in different films. Too confusing! Who's going to keep track of that?

Bowling For Columbine

Finally, for today. A film that I absolutely loved at the time. I watched it loads, and agreed with it loads, and shouted about it to everyone who would listen. It felt like a well argued, funny and interesting polemic that really got to the heart of the horrible events post 9/11.

This felt like an essential film, in the mid naughties. Has it held up? I haven't seen it for a while, but I would imagine not. Michael Moore's blunderbuss approach to things is fun to watch but it can be quite overbearing. He's not one for subtlety. I kind of liked that at the time - you needed to make a loud argument to combat the shameless rhetoric of the pro-war lobby. This movie, full of cartoons and jokes and big, loud visual essays, really hit the spot and shaped a lot of my approach to the situation. 

But nowadays it all seems a bit much. Noisy, oversimplified, cartoonish arguments have become the fundamental currency of online discourse, and the joke doesn't seem so funny any more. And the concerns of 20 years ago seem almost quaint - it's hard to feel as incensed by George W's antics now we've seen so many other charlatans in power.

Will I watch this again? Yeah, probably, one day. But less as a call to arms, and more as a document of times gone and not coming back. 

So there you are. Here are some films I own, and why. I hope you feel enlightened. 

Should you wish to look at other amazing examples of films I own, you could click here...

Previously: The Beyond to The Blues Brothers

Next: Box of the Banned to A Bridge Too Far