It's easy to see why Withnail & I has become such a beloved movie. It's full of great lines, and (as one of the actors said in a retrospective on the Criterion DVD) "there are no crap bits."
Plus, drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. As Roger Ebert says in his "Great Movies" essay, it "conveys the experience of being drunk so well that the only way I could improve upon it would be to stand behind you and hammer your head with two-pound bags of frozen peas."
Rob
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wednesday Withnail
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4 comments:
I've never heard of that movie. What's it about?
It's a bout two drunk (one *spectacularly* drunk) out of work actors who wind up taking a jaunt to the English countryside that goes wildly wrong. It's something of a cult hit in England, but I only first heard of it about 6 months ago.
Strangely I was introed to Withnail... by a high school friend on his first visit to me from the states in the early 90's. This past weekend I passed it on to another high school friend visiting, and being taken on a jaunt in the countryside by me with his actor partner (it seemed apposite).
"we've gone on holiday by mistake!"
too bad Richard E Grant has mostly been forced to overact since, and Paul McGann only got to be the Doctor on screen as a one off. Indeed, very much the cult film in the UK.
Overacting or not, I loved Grant's appearances in both L.A. Story and Hudson Hawk.
"What's that clanging?"
"It's my testicles. Damned nuisance."
and, of course:
"Damn Fotomat people..."
For years, he would have been my pick to play the Joker an a Batman movie.
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