Posts Tagged Danny Boyle

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

January 23, 2026 at 4:02 pm · Filed under Film & DVD Reviews, horror ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

A brutal, theologically charged sequel that outstrips its predecessor, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple pushes the franchise into darker, stranger territory — blending ghoulish violence, sharp social commentary, and standout performances into what may be the series’ finest chapter yet.

This review is relatively spoiler-free.

The movie was filmed back-to-back with 28 Years Later,which was released last July. This meant a mere six-month gap between the two films, a big bonus if, like me, and most who have seen it, you’d liked that last film, the belated third instalment in the now four-film strong ’28…’ franchise. My review of that last movie can be found here Exploring Themes in 28 Years Later: Survival and Society , but I’ll add that it was one of the few films I’ve seen in the last year that I enjoyed almost as much second time around, on a much smaller screen in the comfort of my own home.

Although there is a clear thematic and chronological through-line that links last year’s movie to 28 Day Later and 28 Weeks Later released in 2003 and 2007 respectively, franchise creator and overall supremo Danny Boyle had been keen to stress that was also 28 Years Later wasintended to be the beginning of a whole new trilogy, with the making of the intended final part dependent on the success of the first two.

With this in mind, I’d been slightly concerned that Boyle had chosen to vacate the Directors chair for this latest outing. He’d sat out 28 Weeks Later too and, though still a decent movie that expanded the universe of the franchise, few would choose it over that very first film, a film that, for good or worse, had lifted the ‘Zombie’ sub-genre of horror out of the doldrums. Without 28 Days, no Walking Dead.

Nia Dacosta was handed the Director’s chair by Boyle for Bone Temple. I was not greatly familiar with his work, though I knew he’d done some well-regarded movies, notably Hedda. But his reputation had been somewhat sullied by the almost universally panned Superhero flick The Marvels.

Too factors eased my concerns about the effect this change of Director might have on the quality of this new film. Firstly, Alex Garland remained in place as screenwriter (he, along with Boyle, had been much missed in Weeks), and secondly, the third film in this trilogy, the fifth in the franchise as a whole, had already been green-lit in December, purely on the basis of audience approval at pre-release test screenings of Bone Temple.

To get my conclusion in early, I needn’t have worried. This film is every bit as good, and probably even better than last year’s offering.

Negatives

This will be a short section. The whole film was one big positive.

For the sake of having to say something, I suppose it could be argued that while last year’s film could be enjoyed with little to no knowledge of what had come before, this is not so much the case here. The new film begins almost at the point the last left off, with the introduction of the Savill-esque Sir-Lord Jimmy Crystal and his brutal seven-strong band of cult-like followers (an ending that bewildered some but was clearly a prelude to what was to follow). You could enjoy this for its own sake. But it would surely leave you wanting to immediately check out its predecessor, and probably the two older films too, so what’s the point? 28 Years Later is now readily available on disc or to stream, and I’d highly recommend checking out at least that one before tackling this.

Some have also pointed out that the choice Sir Jimmy Saville as a role model for Son of Satan Crystal is a strange one, because it doesn’t fit with real-world continuity. In universe, the Rage Virus first ravaged Britain in 2002. Saville’s role as Britain’s most notorious celebrity sex-abuser didn’t emerge until a year after his death, in 2012. Had the world of 28, a world where such things as televisions and newspapers have become an increasingly dimly remembered relic from before (and not even that for younger characters like Alfie and Jimmy Ink), then Saville’s crimes would never have been revealed.

But that world isn’t our world, and it’s probably better not to overthink such things. The film doesn’t explain Krystal’s attachment to Saville, and nor does it need to. But we can speculate that it was perhaps for his kitsch value, which would tie-in with another (for him) fondly remembered item of light entertainment, the children’s television show, The Teletubbies. If you wanted to go deeper, then perhaps Garland, or Boyle, was referencing Arendt’s famous formulation concerning The Banality of Evil, for never was a celebrity as banal nor, as it turns out, as evil as Saville.

As for the direction, perhaps Bone Temple suffers slightly from the absence of the experimental, mixed media approach of Boyle. Dacosta’s approach is much more direct. Whereas Boyle suggested patriotic olde-English, vaguely post-Brexit yearnings and religious themes symbolically, this is all much more on the nose here. But this isn’t really a criticism. The central character, Sir-Lord Jimmy, is almost literally setting himself up as the anti-Christ, perhaps the only sort of Christ which would make sense in such a post-apocalyptic Hell-scape. There’s no getting away from the fact that this is a deeply theological movie, and the direction had to reflect that. Sometimes, symbolism isn’t enough.

Positives

That the one-hundred-ten-minute length flew by is a testament in itself to how well this was directed, and Garland is a superb writer, with a knack for producing realistic dialogue in a fantastical world.

The acting was universally superb, a relatively small cast gelling superbly as an ensemble. We must particularly cite O’Connell for his skill in making in Crystal a believable character from what was essentially a deliberate caricature of a caricature. That he proved himself the equal of the great Ralph Fiennes, here reprising and adding further depth (and humour) to the Dr Kelson character introduced last time out, is a testament to his abilities.

The youthful Spike had a much less central, though still important, role in this film than the last. Alfie Williams had nailed the character in what had been his first appearance on film in Years, and he was excellent again here.  Particularly of note is the chemistry he exhibits with Erin Kellyman’s Jimmy Ink, in whom he finds an, at first, reluctant ally in his desperate bid to escape the brutal demands of the Clockwork Orange like cult in he’d unwillingly been press-ganged into.

Those who felt the last film lacked the necessary amount of blood and gore to qualify as a proper Zombie-horror movie, can rest safe in the knowledge that ghoulish violence has been notched up to Max here. 

That the majority, and most graphic of this violence is unleashed not by the Infected’ (to give the Zombies of this universe their proper name) upon survivors, or even survivors upon the Infected, though we get plenty of that too, but by one group of survivors, the Jimmy Cult against other survivors, any survivors who cross their path, all under the command of Crystal, and all in the name of administering his warped version of ‘charity.’ (the choice of this word, ‘charity’, is itself a no towards Saville. Our real-world Sir Jimmy, if course, hid his decades-long rampage of abuse in plain sight behind his tireless charity work).

I’m by no means squeamish, but the scenes that followed commands such ‘Take their shirts’ were hard to watch.

I don’t want to give away too many spoilers as regards the plot, but I will briefly mention my three absolute highlights in a movie of highlights.

The first concerns the relationship between Dr. Kerson (Fiennes) and the Alpha Infected Samson. Like Kelson, Samson is a returning character from last year’s film, but here the actor Chi Lewis Parry is given much more to do, and he does it superbly, almost without speaking a word.

The relationship has shades of that between Frankenstein’s Monster and the blind fiddler in the original, 1931 Universal version of Frankenstein. In that classic, the fiddler had accepted the unfortunate creature because he had been literally unable to see that it was a monster who had entered his humble home. Here, Kelson is only too aware of what he is dealing with, that this afflicted super-strength creature will rip his head from his shoulders and devour his brain without moral restriction. Yet, he is able to see beyond the infection to the human being that once inhabited this body and, perhaps, the human mind that still remains, but has been rendered dormant by the rage-virus. Through his compassion, his willingness to try and recover this latent humanity, and with more than a little help from the opiate narcotics he brews up in his private bone temple laboratory, partly in search of a cure for the virus and partly as a means of giving himself relief from the horror that surrounds him, he is able to forge between them an unlikely friendship and alliance.

My second highlight is the scene on the long derelict train when Samson, surrounded by the dead and the similarly afflicted, finds his dormant mind does indeed, in a tantalising, brief and sporadic manner, begin to flicker into life. The resulting glimpse of the mundane but magnificent world that once was, a world of rules, of attractive ticket collectors and passengers hiding behind newspapers, is almost as shocking to us as it is to Samson, and a reminder that only a fragile veneer separates our civilisation from barbarism. 

The highlight, the scene that is destined to be the scene that will be shown whenever this film, or the career of Ralph Fiennes, is a subject of online screen discussion, is the climax of the movie, the point at which the twin narratives of the rampage of the Jimmy’s and Alfie’s bid to escape it collides with that of the story of Kerson and his Temple, a macabre but magnificent monument, and perhaps the ultimate expression of Outsider Art, finally collide.

I won’t say any more about Fiennes’ ‘Old Nick’ routine, except to say that if Iron Maiden pass on the opportunity to re-release their song 666 The Number of the Beast, with this song as its accompanying video, then they are missing a superb career kick-starting opportunity.

Aside from Iron Maiden, we really must give a big shout out the musical accompaniment to the movie as a whole, both the original core by Hildur Guonadottir, and the selection of British eighties pop classics that Kelson manages to play on an old record player within his Bone Temple as another reminder, to him and to us, of the world that has been lost, are superb. 

At the very end of the film, we see the brief return of a character from way back at the beginning of the franchise. The appearance of Crystal and his followers at the end of 28 Years Later gave us a strong clue as to the main narrative drive of the next movie, and I suspect the return of the central character from 28 Days Later performs the same function here.

Conclusion

Probably a Masterpiece. 10/10. If the final movie is the equal of the last two, the 28 series will have a strong claim to be the greatest horror franchise of all time.

We’ll have to wait more than six months to find out what happens next, but Garland’s script is written and production is soon to begin, so it’s unlikely the gap will be anything like the eighteen years that separated Weeks from Years.

My money is on late 2027 but, whenever it happens, I’ll be there to see it.

Reviewed by Anthony C Green

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is in cinemas now.

Anthony C Green, January 2026

Picture credit: By Columbia Pictures – http://www.impawards.com/2026/twenty_eight_years_later_the_bone_temple.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80967111

Directed by Nia Dacosta

Written by Alex Garland

Produced by Danny Boyle

Key Cast:

Jack O’ Connell – Sir Jimmy Crystal, Ralph Fiennes – Dr Ian Kelson, Alfie Williams – Spike, Chi Lewis-Parry – Samson, Erin Kellyman – Jimmy Ink and Emma Laird – Jimmima. 

Cover image of the novel 'Better Than The Beatles!' by Anthony C. Green, featuring a blue abstract design and the text 'BUY NOW.'

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Exploring Themes in 28 Years Later: Survival and Society

July 14, 2025 at 8:12 am · Filed under Film & DVD Reviews, horror ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

1,413 words, 7 minutes read time.

28 Years Later us the belated third instalment of a series that began with 28 Days Later in 2003 and continued with 28 Weeks Later in 2007. So, it’s been a long time coming, after long periods stuck in ‘production hell.’ But, in my opinion, it’s been well worth the wait, and easily surpasses both of its predecessors.

Whilst the reviews of professional critics of 28 Years have been largely positive, the online response of ‘ordinary’ cinema goers has been mixed. I’m guessing that the negativity has come largely from those who were expecting a run-of-the-mill Zombie story, perhaps along the lines of The Walking Dead or the films of George A Romero.

Movie poster for '28 Years Later' featuring a towering structure made of skulls, with a biohazard symbol in the background. The title and release date are prominently displayed.

And it isn’t that.

Technically, of course, it’s not a ‘zombie’ film at all, as the antagonists have been turned into bestial killer sub-humans through being infected by an unspecified, originally worldwide virus rather than being creatures of the undead, though that’s an unimportant detail. It still belongs firmly within the zombie genre. 

In spirit, it’s much closer to Days than the, in my opinion, much inferior Weeks,the latter of which was much closer to the kind of adventure ‘Zombie hunting’ movie that many seem to have been expecting this time around.

I suspect that this is in no small part due to the welcome return of Danny Boyle as the director, and Alex Garland as scriptwriter, both of whom were absent from the second film.

Both did a sterling job here, as did cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, and the Scottish punk-lo-fi hip-hop band Young Fathers who provided the music.

Set in Lindisfarne, though filmed in various northern British locations in a mere two months between May and July 2024, it utilised a complex array of iPhones filming from multiple angles in order to maximise Boyle’s editorial choices.

I’m no expert on the technicalities of movie making, but the technical choices made were obviously good ones, because the film is visually and sonically superb, as is Garland’s script, with excellent dialogue and the barest minimum of l exposition necessary to make the story intelligible to those with no prior knowledge of the 28 Universe.

The acting was also superb. I really can’t single out any of them for criticism, though the standout performances came from one fourteen-year-old in his first acting role, Alfie Williams as the twelve-year-old Spike, in his first acting role, and one veteran, Ralph Fiennes, as the enigmatic Doctor Kelson, showing his versatility after his recent, very different but equally excellent performance in Conclave.  

I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but the premise of the movie is that the virus that turned the ‘Infected’ into savage murderous beasts has been eliminated on the continent of Europe but not in the UK, causing the latter to be effectively quarantined from the outside world, with its isolation enforced by European border guards armed, unlike the surviving non-infected Brits with modern weaponry.

This isolation has led the UK to revert to something resembling a medieval traditional society.

It is through this reversion to an earlier time that the main themes of the movie reveal themselves.

These themes  include survivalism and self-sufficiency; the return of a form of natural and meritocratic hierarchy with people being assigned clearly defined specialist, and often gender-specific roles, like hunter, baker, seamstress etc; the clash between these old ways and the modern world, particularly when Spike meets the Norwegian border guard Eric (Edvin Ryding); the honouring of the dead through the character of Dr. Kelson and his ever-growing monument of skulls; the very different forms of love that exist in traditional societies between a mother and child and a father and child; the nurturing of new life amidst the apocalypse; and distrust of the world outside and of lone outsiders like Dr. Kelson.

But, at its heart, this is a good old-fashioned coming of age story, set in a society where young males once again have a clear route into manhood, in this case by crossing the causeway to the mainland to hunt the Infected with longbows, their main form weaponry, as Spike does with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor).

 Later, he returns with his mother Isla (Jodie Comer). She is not infected, but is stricken with a physical and mentally debilitating illness, the nature of which we don’t learn until they meet the object of Spike’s quest, Doctor Kelson and the possibility of a cure for Isla.

The resolution of this quest gives us perhaps the film’s most moving and sequence.

Some have seen Britain’s isolation in the movie as perhaps a metaphor for Brexit, and that is there, I suppose, if you want it to be, whether for or against.

There is also, almost certainly the influence of the ‘covid period’ of recent, real-world’ memory in play.

But there are subtle, dream-like patriotic themes too: the fluttering of a lone flag of St George in the wind; the recitation of a section of Kipling’s poem Boots, remastered from a 1915 recording by an American actor, brief clips of the 1944 Laurance Oliver film version of Henry V, and an encounter with one of our most iconic monuments, The Angel of the North.

These sections worked very well for me, and helped lift the film well above the norm for the genre, though I can imagine some viewers might find them puzzling, or even pretentious.

By the standards of modern movies, the casting was refreshingly demographically accurate, with no concessions to the DEI culture which has been dominant throughout the entertainment industry in recent years.

There is action and gore, as is to be expected. A second outbreak of the virus has led some of the infected to evolve into what have become known as the Alpha’s, who are much larger and stronger than those seen in the earlier films, and with a higher level of intelligence, and others to devolve into reptilian-type creatures who seek prey and food through scurrying through the earth.

The battles between these two distinct branches of the infected and Spike, his father and others, was action enough for me, though perhaps not enough for those wishing to see a more traditional ‘Zombie’ movie.

There are criticisms to be made. Principally, would Britain really be left to its own devices by the outside world, with no attempt to rescue and evacuate those not yet infected? And, the film is set in 2031, precisely twenty-eight years after the first film was shot. This isn’t really a long time, in the scheme of things, and it’s reasonable to question whether society would have so rapidly reverted to an earlier time, to the point where modern technology has become not only unusable, but seems to have been largely forgotten.

 As an example, Spike has no idea of what a mobile phone is, until he meets Erik. True, in 2003, mobiles were nowhere near as omnipresent as they are now, and they had not yet become ‘Smart’. But they were common enough, and surely there’d be a few lying around which adults could use to explain to their children what their use had once been?

I prefer to see anomalies such as this as perhaps due to the isolated nature of the village upon which the film is principally centred. They certainly didn’t undermine my enjoyment of the film.

Some have also criticised the ending. But that is to miss the point that it isn’t an ending. The sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Monument was shot back-to-back with this film, and is due to be released in January 2026. So, in reality, the conclusion, which has its own little, intriguing surprise, is a ‘To Be Continued’ rather than a ‘The End.’

Boyle hasn’t directed this second film, which may or may not affect its quality. But it is written by Garland, and he has said he has already planned out a third film, making Years the first part of a new trilogy, rather than simply continuation of Days and Weeks.

This third film has yet to be green-lit, and whether it is depends on the success of the current film and its already completed sequel.

But 28 Years Later seems to be doing well at the Box Office so far, and I suspect this will also be true of Bone Palace.

I’m certainly looking forward to seeing it, and I’d be surprised and disappointed if the series was to end there.

Reviewed by Anthony C Green.

Picture credit: By https://www.movieposters.com/products/28-years-later-mpw-148006, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78535102

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Did I Ever Get the Feeling I’d Been Cheated?

July 2, 2022 at 5:51 pm · Filed under Punk, TV Shows ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Anthony C Green reviews Pistol, an FX Production, produced and directed by Danny Boyle, and written by Craig Pearce

Currently streaming in the UK on Disney+

I only subscribed toDisney+ in order to watch the Beatles Get Back last November, and only the continued existence of Family Guy and pressure from my ten-year-old son has kept me subscribed. The news that this was also to be the place to stream a new FX-made six-part drama, produced and directed by Danny Boyle, about the Sex Pistols, based on the 2016 book Lonely Boy; Tales of a Sex Pistol by guitarist Steve Jones gave me another reason to keep my £6.99 a month Standing Order current.

I was fourteen when the Pistols recorded Anarchy in the UK, fifteen at the time of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and the height of the band’s popularity/notoriety a year, give or take, later.

And now we’ve just celebrated The Platinum of the Eternal One and I’ve suddenly hit sixty. The original Punk explosion is now so long ago that if we were to travel back in time by the same distance from now to the time it was happening, we would be in the early stages of microphone-enhanced vocals and Bing Crosby Mania.

In any case, I was never a punk. In 1977 I was in my very early stages of second-generation Beatle fandom, and mourning the loss of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. I remember liking Pistols’ single Pretty Vacant, but only in the way I liked other current hits sing-a-long hits of the time.

Only later, would I discover Punk as a moment, and Never Mind the Bollocks as one of the most important albums ever made.

It’s also one of the best. That’s what many people forget about the Pistols. Yes, they were a cultural phenomenon that changed forever the world of Popular Music (or for a long time at least, before the movement was co-opted and reincorporated back into the big business, capitalist machine, as all sub-cultures ultimately are, no matter how outwardly radical.) But they wouldn’t have become what they were to become if they hadn’t had the songs. Not many songs, it has to be said, but in the end, the short and (not so) sweet nature of their career, and the fact that there is only one proper Pistols album is soooo right.

The book on which the series is based

And the world of popular music, and entertainment in general, is all the better for stories that are perfect in and of themselves, no matter, in fact often because of, the tragic nature of the end of those stories. The Beatles had to end at the end of the sixties. Elvis had to die when and how he did; and the Sex Pistols had to produce that single near-perfect collection of songs (OK, there’s a handful of post-Lydon Pistols’ tracks you should have in your collection, Silly Boy, Something Else, My Way, but that’s still not proper Sex Pistols material.)

I limbered up for the series by watching John Lydon, Rotten as was, on a couple of lengthy podcast appearances.

He was not a happy man.

Or rather, that is to say, that he strikes me as a man who is happy, with his place in history. True, drinking wine from a pint glass, as he did during one appearance, suggests alcoholism. But he’s still working, limbering up for a new Public Image Ltd. tour, and if he is indeed an alcoholic I’d suggest it is of the high functioning variety(And I too was once such a best, so I know what I’m talking about).

But he was/is not happy about the Pistol’s series, claiming that not only was he not involved in its making, but that Danny Boyle gave him no opportunity to be properly involved, his claim, if true, IS rather scandalous.

He also mentioned several times that this Disneyfied re-telling of the Pistols’ story would trash the band’s legacy and ‘everything we had stood for.’

Arguably, the 1996 Filthy Lucre tour, the clue is in the name, did that, as did other, more short-lived reunions, but we’ll set that aside. All I’ll say here is that I like Lydon, and believe him to have many admirable qualities. Not least, the clear and unconditional love in the way he speaks of caring for his beloved Nora, mother of the late Ari Up, once of The Slits, and his wife of forty-three years, though now several years of rapidly worsening [GC1]  dementia.

But he has never been great at giving credit to his former bandmates, indicating to this day that, whatever it says on the record labels, where the whole band is listed as co-composers, he alone is really responsible for the creation of those songs. This of course particularly unfair on Glen Matlock, the most musical of the Pistols’, a fact that legend has it, and as we will soon come to, in large part led to his removal from the band and replacement by one John Simon Ritchie, AKA Sid Vicious.

And, although of course, it would have been better had Lydon been involved in its making, at least morally, we should remember that the series is actually based on Jones’ book, a fact that must be taken into account when assessing its style and quality.

It also should be mentioned that Lydon’s podcast denunciations were based only upon seeing a single, short-trailer to the series, not on the series itself, which he claimed, and as far as I l now still claims, to have never seen.

This said, is he right: Does FX/Disney/Danny Boyle’s telling of the Sex Pistols’ story really trash their legend? Is it any good?

The two things are of course not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Firstly, I have to say that the best acting performance of Pistol comes from Anson Boon as Lydon. He has him down to a tee, the strange mix of cockiness and insecurity, the manic stare that always was an act of self-parody, and has merely become more so over the years. The would-be wordsmith who is at first reluctant to share his words with the world, the jerkiness of his movements both on and off stage, the man of principle who loves being in the Sex Pistols but not at any price, the boy/man who wishes to put two fingers up to the world, whilst actually quite liking people, and caring about them.

That’s the other point: not only is Boon’s portrayal of Lydon spot on, but Lydon, despite all of his expressed misgivings about the making of the series, actually comes across as by far the most likable character in it. The caring nature that he shows today when he talks about Nora’s dementia, and his reaching out to other sufferers and carers in the same position as the two of them, is already there, in the way he cares about and tries to look out for his mate John Ritchie, and his later agonising over how his own role in re-christening of him as ‘Sid Vicious’ and promotion of him to the status of Sex Pistol (essentially in order to even up the score as far as voting power in the band went) contributed to his early self-destruction, though as Jones says in the final episode, “Sid was always going to end up like that, whether he became a Sex Pistol or not.”

Of the others, Toby Wallace puts in a good performance as the roguish Steve Jones, a young man whose compulsive thieving and shagging were really a mask donned in order to hide the chronic lack of self-esteem caused by being raised by a brutish, hateful, domineering stepdad who had made it his mission in life to drill into the young Steve that he would never amount to anything, and a weak, often drunken mother. It’s not a greatly nuanced performance, but I did find myself rooting strongly for him as he set out to learn the rudiments of guitar in four days straight, helped only by handfuls of amphetamine pills and a determination to prove his stepdad was wrong.

His upbringing also contrasts nicely with that of drummer Paul Cook (played by Jacob Slater), the product of almost stereotypically nice working-class parents for whom nothing mattered more than their son’s happiness. They even allowed Paul to keep his drum kit in their bedroom, as this was the only room in the house that allowed him the space to properly practice, despite the obvious inconvenience to themselves.

The best-known actor in the series is probably Thomas Brodie-Sangster (you’ll know him when you see him) who plays the Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren. I’ll admit I’ve never been the world’s biggest fan of McLaren, nor have I ever really brought fully into his role as Situationist-Svengali of genius, feeling that this over-emphasis of his role, which of course is largely a creation of McLaren himself in the truly terrible Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle film, and is I think bought into to a regrettable degree by Julian Temple in his The Filth and the Fury movie, a documentary which should be, but isn’t quite definitive.

But there it is. You can’t ignore Malcolm, and Brodie-Sangster gives a decent performance in his portrayal of him. A little over the top and cartoonish perhaps, but that just about suits the subject matter. Talhula Riley as his King’s Rd Sex boutique sidekick Vivienne Westwood gives a much more measured performance, and it is often her, through a word here and a look there, who exposes Malcolm’s pretensions for what they are – pretensions stolen from others. I’d have liked to have seen more of Westwood, but I’ll return to that shortly.

Of the other roles, Louis Partridge does a good job as the talentless, doomed, sadomasochistic Vicious, as does Emma Appleton as the dark, satanic, equally doomed groupie Nancy Spungen, a woman for whom it seems no one but Sid had a good word, in life or death.

And then thee of course there is Glen Matlock (played by Christian Lees). Poor Glen Matlock, the butt of the band’s jokes for the crime of ‘liking the Beatles’ and being quite good at his instrument. It is of course a cliché that he was sacked because of his love of the Fab Four, and it’s a cliché that is here mentioned early and mentioned often. The truth is, Lydon wanted him out of the band because he saw him as a threat to his dominance through being the only band member who had a justifiable claim to being at least as responsible for their greatest songs as John was. As someone once said, after Glen was replaced by Sid, the band produced their best ever photographs. They looked great. But there were no more songs.’

Yes, the ‘liking the Beatles’ gag is laboured, but Matlock comes out of the series pretty well, which is of course another reason for Lydon to hate it.

And finally, as far as acting performances go, we come to the truly vital role of Chrissie Hynde….

‘What’s that,’ you say, ‘Chrissie Hynde, Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders Chrissie Hynde: what’s she got to do with the price of glue?’

I knew Chrissie had been a face on the scene at this time, as the girlfriend of legendary ‘rockist’ to use a word then current, New Musical Express, NME, ‘or ‘Enemee’ as Lydon liked to pronounce it, journalist Nick Kent. I also knew that Chrissie, an American resident in the UK, herself contributed occasional articles herself to the British music press. I also believe I was aware of the fact that she had an affair with Steve Jones, and was, briefly, a musical collaborator with Steve’s near-namesake, Mick Jones, soon to become a key member of the Clash (then trading under the name of the London SS). I also may have just about been aware that she quite fancied the gig herself as the replacement for Matlock once the decision was made to sack him. Maybe. But was I aware that her presence and sheer ubiquitous-ness within the Pistols circle made it likely that she would have at least as much screen time as the members of the Pistols themselves, probably more so in the case of Cook, in five out of the six episodes of a far-off futurist dramatisation of their story?

No, I was not aware of this, any more than anyone else was, including probably Chrissie, because I strongly suspect it isn’t true. What I do strongly suspect is that her role was beefed up in order to fulfil the apparently mandatory need for a Strong Woman character in every television drama series now made.

 If that was indeed the criteria, then actress Sydney Chandler does a good job of meeting it, being most definitely strong, and even more definitely a woman, as revealed in the more than ample sex scenes with (Seve) Jones.

But I believe that this now apparently mandatory role could have been played much better, and more truthfully, Vivienne Westwood.

Another possibility would have been to increase the screen time of punk tend-setter and fashion icon Jordan, a woman who sadly died soon before the series went to air, and at least got an episode dedicated to her.

Or what about a little more of the action for Siouxsie Siox (we do see her reciting The Lord’s Prayer, with Sid Vicious on drums, in what is generally regarded as the debut performance by the Banshees), or the girls who were soon to become The Slits, including Ari Up, daughter of the soon to become Mrs Nora Lydon?

In other words, what about showing that there were women on the scene who had a genuinely important part to play in the Birth of Punk?

Anyway, just a thought, and for those who are wondering, Chrissie also made a brief appearance in episode six too, singing a version of Brass in Pocket, almost certainly long before it was written.

Some of the above leads me to another major criticism of the series. Punk is shown as a movement of philosophical and fashion aesthetics and attitude, essentially led by McLaren, Westwood, Jamie Reed (the man behind the graphics, including the ‘Bollocks’ cover), and to some extent the band themselves, in particular Lydon. But apart from that brief snapshot of the nascent Banshees, we don’t see it as part of a wider musical movement that included The Clash, the Damned, The Slits, the highly underrated X-ray Spex, and bands that were never punks but who got their great break through the opportunities that punk provided, bands like The Jam, The Stranglers, and I suppose The Police and The Pretenders too.

So, the series lacks depth in that regard. If you want depth, I’d suggest reading Jon Savages’ excellent England’s Dreaming book, or investigating the wonderful, regionalised Messethetic collections of great bands that would never otherwise be heard, bands like The Digital Dinosaurs, Crispy Ambulance (best name for a band ever), The Homosexuals, and The Performing Ferrets Hyped to Death’s front door

Somehow, although it undoubtedly lacked depth, Pistol also managed at times to seem stretched. The main case in point here is Episode Four, Bodies. This episode is essentially an attempt to dramatise the rationale behind the macabre lyrics of the song Bodies off ‘Bollocks.’ It is apparently true that the lyrics were based on a real story, that there really was a severely mentally damaged woman called Pauline who was known to the band, and who really did carry around an aborted Foetus in her handbag for a time. But did this relatively minor Pistols track really need a whole episode in order to justify it? I’m also unsure of whether or not Pauline really was a black woman, or was this another attempt to insert another element of unnecessary diversity?

Just on that subject, we do get flashes of the undoubtedly real sense of camaraderie that existed between the punks and Ganga-smoking, reggae-listening Rastafarians. Lydon, in particular, was of course a big fan of Reggae music, a fact that showed through in parts of ‘Bollocks’, and much more so on the first two, arguably first three, excellent Public Image Limited albums.

And there was some nice attention to detail here. Lydon had a Captain Beefheart poster on his wall because that signified his real taste in music. Maybe he did listen to Iggy and the Stooges and the MC5, but he also listened to Beefheart, Peter Hamill/Van Graff Generator, Can, Faust, and the rest of the Krautrock/Musice Cosmiche oeuvre. That’s why those PIL albums sound like they do. It has been said that early PIL is essentially how the Pistols would have sounded had Lydon had his way. McLaren of course preferred a Punk Bay City Rollers, though he didn’t quite get that either.

So, that’s about it really. It’s certainly not a boring series. It has weaknesses, some of which I have highlighted. But it didn’t trash the Pistols’ legacy, and no, it didn’t leave me feeling I’d been cheated….

I have to say that I enjoyed it more the second time around too. First time, for me, there was a bit too much confusion as to who was meant to be who. For instance, I thought Jordan was Siousie Sioux first time around. I also thought initially that Pauline in the Bodies episode was Pauline Black, soon to be of the Selector, and that two random schoolgirl Pistols’ fans determined to follow the band from far away oop North, actually were two members of the soon-to-be Slits. Once these misunderstandings were overcome, it was simply easier to watch.

There was a nice vignette too from Mathew Cottle as the great newsreader Reggie Bosanquet (a man forever known to me as the man who broke the news of Elvis’ death), unapologetically buying ladies’ underwear for himself in the Sex boutique, then slipping the staff a wink at the end of New at Ten in order to let them know he was at that moment wearing his latest purchase under his regulation Newsreader attire.

One last point about the music. The actors performed the music themselves, and aside from James Slater who played Cook, who had previously fronted a band but had never played drums, none of them had any previous musical experience at all. With that in mind, they did a good job and made me forget that I wasn’t listening to the Pistols themselves.

THE highlight of the series was for the recreation, and recreation is the right word here, of the Pistols’ (in)famous Bill Grundy television series appearance. This was very well done indeed, and showed, through sticking almost word for word and frame by frame to what actually transpired, showed conclusively that it was Grundy (played by Steven Pemberton), a drunk, a local television presenter who will only ever be remembered for this moment, who very clearly and very deliberately goaded the young, naïve Pistols and their entourage into using ‘rude’ words. Lydon’s later comment that the accolade for being the first person to use the ’F’ word on British television belonged not to either he or Steve Jones, but to Irish Poet Brendan Beehan, gave Lydon another opportunity to show his literary, knowledgeable side.

I also very much enjoyed the excitement the Pistols showed, like any other young band in any genre, in crowding around a transistor radio in order to experience God Save the Queen’s inexorable rise to become the number one single that never was. The joy the band exhibited in showing the completed single of GDTQ to their families (apart from Jones’ joyless family) made me think perhaps of the Beatles probably handing around a copy of Love Me Do in a similar fashion a decade and a half earlier.

Glen might or might not have been sacked for liking the Beatles but in reality, the two bands were essentially in the same game. Yes, the Pistols may have helped rid the world of fifteen-minute guitar solos (and the Jones character got that particular cliche out the way within five minutes of the opening of episode one), but it was only temporarily, and didn’t we all, in the end, decide that there was room on this Earth for both the Sex Pistols and Rik Wakeman?

As Billy Joel would one day point out, “It’s still Rock ‘n’ Roll to me”…

Anthony C Green, July 2nd, 2022.

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T2 Trainspotting (2017)

June 12, 2017 at 1:42 pm · Filed under Film & DVD Reviews ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

*SPOILERS OF T1*

trainspotting2I’ve always said that nostalgia was the drug of choice for most people in the UK. Trainspotting was about the addictive, attractive and destructive nature of heroin.

T2 is about the warping melancholy of re-living, relishing and remembering the past. It’s a past that is re-imagined and glorified by the characters. Begbie (Carlyle) has an expression of joy as he moves his hands whilst recalling slashing someone with a knife.

We last saw Renton (McGregor) legging it with most of the £14.000 of ill-gotten loot he was meant to split with his pals. 20 years on he has come home to Edinburgh.

Sick Boy, (Jonny Lee Miller) batters him at their reunion and if you remember Begbie you can probably guess his reaction. Spud (Bremner) is friendlier but then he was left his share of the money.

There is a nominal plot about plans to convert Sick Boy’s run down pub into a brothel (or sauna as they prefer to call them in Edinburgh!) but that’s not really the heart of the film. The key part of the film is the relationship between the four male characters. Female characters don’t really get much of a look in. Anjela Nedyalkova, as Veronika, gets most time and is given some good lines (so is more than just eye candy) but this is really about the guys.

The guys haven’t matured much and are still mired in a swamp of their own making. glorifying the past. This sequel isn’t about how they have progressed but how little they’ve really changed. That’s the tragedy and the point. Of all of them it is Begbie who shows most insight. There is a moving scene with his Son where he confronts his own relationship with his Father. Tellingly, his wife is present but is just a bystander to this event. Sick Boy has ‘progressed’ from heroin – to cocaine. We see them in middle age wishing they were young again. They are at their most energetic when talking about the past or taking the risks they used to. It’s at these moments the film comes alive, Renton and Sick Boy trying to explain football to Veronika or the hilarious robbing of a Loyalist drinking club. There is real dark humour here.

T2 takes us, as viewers, on our own nostalgic trip in a clever playful way. With flashbacks to the original, Renton revisiting the “Choose Life” monologue, while the soundtrack revisits music from the original soundtrack with the twist that they are remixed versions or covers. That may be a subtle comment on the way the characters memories work.

The other stars of T2 are Edinburgh and the Leith banter/dialogue (as it was in T1). We see a lot more of it than in the original film. Not just Leith but even as far as the more affluent Meadows! It looks great (and it is).

Though T2 has a somewhat depressing theme but the humour and pace take the edge of that. It is a film that makes you think about nostalgia, friendship, betrayal, addiction, risk – in short ‘life’. Choose it!

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

See here for his review of Trainspotting 1

Director: Danny Boyle
Writers: John Hodge, Irvine Welsh (novels)
Ewan McGregor
as Mark Renton
Ewen Bremner
as Spud
Jonny Lee Miller
as Sick Boy
Robert Carlyle
as Begbie
Kelly Macdonald
as Diane
Anjela Nedyalkova
as Veronika

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