Xixax Film Forum

I didn't see a topic for this film when I did a search for it, so if there is one please redirect me.
Anyway, I just rented this and it blew me away. I loved it and as soon as possible I'm gonna buy it. The music, the friendship between the two characters and the diologue is genious. Anyway, I hope to hear from others about this film.

Yeah it's a personnal favorite too. I watched this at the end of a speed binge last summer and got the hell scared out of me.

I was thinking about blind buying it. Thanks for the reassurance.

It's a piece of shit.

A fun flick, and deserving of its cult status. With a fine performance by Ralph Brown in the role of Danny, I might add. The gentleman essentially reprised the exact same character in Wayne's World 2 a bit down the road, and more than a bit down the quality ladder. Go with what you know, as they've been known to say. I find myself swapping my 'r's for 'w's after I've seen him onscreen.

Quote from: In the "What movie do you wish you made?" thread IFirst off, by acknowledging how rare it is these days that a Xixax thread reaches eight posts with the length and thought/ feeling put into these, I hope I'm not triggering a joke response by some jackass. Definitely refreshing.

Withnail & I: Reminds of how nice it is to see a fantastic film that just tells the story without to many stylistic roadblocks. It's got what I always strive for; a sense of being compact, that the film would fall apart if one simple scene should be removed. I.e. every scene is perfect. It builds up future payoffs and jokes without most people even noticing. Expositions are jokes themselves, and it's never glaring. How it matches classical with modern is another example. Music-wise it mixes Henrix and the Beatles in with a lovely classically inspired score, but where it really hits the mark is with the dialogue. Mixing Shakespeare with sixties vernacular. The dialogue is so morbid and darkly funny that when the tables have turned serious you don't even notice. And hadn't it been for the tears down your chin, you still wouldn't.

What you laugh at: however big their problems are, these people are overreacting. They seem to manage just below fine, yet they envision it armageddon measured against their unfullfilled pipe dreams. As unemployed and habitually boozed up actors it's just normal that they use every waking moment to affirm their unproven worth to one another, especially the bigheaded Withnail. This paves the way for the actor's dream of doing Shakespeare filtered through the drunken sight/ vocabulary of Withnail. Melodramatic, drunken and narcissistic Shakespeare.

What you cry at: In more general terms, their sadness also relfects the end of the Great Sixties. The film has an inherent dreariness, and contrasted with Danny's poignant talk of the "greatest decade in the history of mankind", this theme becomes quite apparent. The points where comedy is completely stripped away, when you're stuck with the dark points; the situations where you realise it's more about the ups and downs of their friendship than the ups and downs of their social situation, that's when it really hits the emotions.

In other words I would've given so damn much to have written such a smart and fucking funny film, not to mention the pathos carried by the ending, which I won't spoil here.