Thursday, October 30, 2008

Help identify some locations

Well, four recent films have gone up on line without a single "now" picture between them: Prostitute, Barnacle Bill, Performance and Girl with a Pistol.

Do you know the sites and locations, can you take a photo? Subscriptions are given to everyone who submits a picture that we can use. You get the credits and a month's subscription to the site for each pic.
Did your house, office, building, school, factory etc etc ever appear in a film, tell us about it, rewards are available. Or, did you or any of your family ever appear on screen, there are benefits awaiting. Or did you help in the production?

ReelStreets

Chaplin & McCain

Well we thought Obama and Astaire were one and the same.................but how about McCain and Chaplin?


Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Pool of London

I watched Pool Of London yet again, and something that had been nagging at me cropped up again. When Bonar Colleano goes into the "steamship authority" building at the end of Tower bridge, it is implied by the movie, and the photo caption stated that it was on the north side of Tower Bridge. I used to hang out mostly on the north side as a kid, (loved those old warehouses, cranes, etc) and I don't ever remember seeing that building there. Try as I might I cannot recall it. It then occured to me that it might be on the southern (Horseleydown) end of the bridge.

When Colleano comes out the building, he turns left, towards the bridge, but after buying the poor seamans badge from the girl he is walking away from the bridge, on the north side, past the old tea and spice warehouses -- which he would do if he continued walking across the bridge from south to north. Also, I cant see where the doorway would be behind him. (Are you still with me?)

If Earl Cameron and Renee Asherton are on the north side of the bridge (photo pol 009c) there is a City of London sand and trash bin curbside, but not there in pol009a when Colleano enters the building. Adding to my suspicion is that I think Asherton is actually exiting the building basement on the south side in pol 010 and 011. Does this guy ever stop, I can hear you saying.)

Well, thats it. A lot of words for just a small point. Still enjoying your site and gradually adding the films there, to my collection.

Cheers

Roy Barnacle

I'm sure Roy is correct, what sleuthing!!! Not that we're obsessional you
know, but we MUST get it right!

Monday, October 20, 2008

10 Hollywood Remakes Waiting to be Made

These days there seems to be an ever decreasing ability in Hollywood to come up with new and innovative storylines, instead reverting to the rehashing of old cinema classics and attempting to portray these make-overs as their own work. Such shocking and totally unnecessary remakes of St Trinians, School for Scoundrels and even the Italian Job where only the title and the Mini Coopers accounted for its making are really tiresome attempts to cash-in on someone else’s glory.

Here are 10 all-time-box-office-hits upon which the mighty movie moguls might want to put their chintzy view.

1) “Kes”, surely this screams, disadvantaged, drug crazed gang banger discovers falconry in Central Park.

2) ”Zulu”, this British classic lends itself to hero worship, against the odds blood and guts. Just call it Taliban and have some G.I.s trapped by 1000s of Muslim extremists in the desert.

3) “Burger at Niagara Falls” is just crying out to be the reworking of the Auzzie, “Picnic at Hanging Rock” where a group of turn of the century girls have lunch on a native American burial ground and are never seen again.

4) “Tea with Mussolini” - remake it in 1943 Germany and call it “Coffee with Hitler” (or Kwaffee or Latte as they seem to say in New York) and have Madonna with her beautiful English accent playing Maggie Smith.

5) “Straw Dogs”, where a group of redneck hicks in some quaint village in the Adirondacks, orchestrate a hate campaign against the new stranger in town.

6) “A Taste of Honey”, it has it all, sexual deviance, underage pregnancy, race. All you have to do is swap Bradford for Birmingham Alabama, the Barton Swing Bridge for the Golden Gate, maple syrup for honey and away you go.

7) “The Eagle Has Landed” - what a cracker for terrorism scare tactics. Homeland security exposed when Eastern extremists, disguised as traffic cops, take over a small village near Camp David in an attempt to assassinate George Bush.

8) “It Happened Here”, more panic on home soil as somehow everyone converts to Islam, you never know it could happen there.

9) “Killing of Sister George”, change the name to Amiee Lou or Cheryl Anne and you have a drunken lesbian soap star getting bumped off a successful show due to her drunken antics.

10) “Mutiny on the Buses”, classic 70’s British comedy. Would a big fight on a Greyhound get the same laughs with Jim Carey as Blakey?.

Add your list of risible remakes to ReelStreets.com, the classic British film location site.

Neal Winfield

Fred Astaire & Barak Obama

Are these two one and the same? Have a quick look at their photos, and although one prints out in negative I'd swear that they are the same person!!!



And how about John McCain and Charlie Chaplin?

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Get Carter

I have attached some then and now pictures of Newcastle featured in Get Carter including the Car park (which is now demolished) and the high level bridge. Tex Fisher.

Tex, thanks for these photos, which we have included in the blog because one of our requirements for the main body of the site is that the streets should be real, and the carpark has unfortunately vanished. Best wishes John T.