RFI: did the NME ever LOVE EVERYTHING?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

basically, an actual: RFI: what, thru the ages, has been NME's 'policy' wrt film (and other non-musical things). stuff i've seen by nme writers (*inserts inevitable list of names*) about film here and there have impressed me -- and this:

I would say I[an] P[enman] was one of our great minds on the basis of his 1984ish NME tv column alone, Michael.
-- Jerry the Nipper (jerrythenippe...), April 22nd, 2003.

-- excited me.

but i have no firm grasp of this, and if the nme ever really went all out for film (in my day the coverage was pitiful, i doubt they even had a weekly review column). has there ever been a great 'project' in music press film coverage, getting behind stuff the way it got behind eg punk, baggy, shoegaze etc?

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 10:45 (twenty-one years ago)

weekly film reviews all through my readership period (95-99)

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Thursday, 24 March 2005 10:56 (twenty-one years ago)

4 real? that was when i read it too. obviously tommy udo didn't make all that much of an impression on me!

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 10:58 (twenty-one years ago)

at a press conference in london during a junket for APOCALYPSE NOW, COPOLLA said that since he'd been over in the uk, he'd only come across one review in one paper that read like the reviewer had understood what the film was about. he held up the paper in question, and it was the NME. true story.

right up until about 5 years ago they did a double page review of the year in film and a chart of the best 20 films in the xmas edition.

they had a book reviews section eavery week too believe it or not.

― piscesboy, Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:04 (twenty-one years ago)

i wonder who wrote the 'apuckerlips now' review?

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:06 (twenty-one years ago)

angus mackinnon wrote the apoc now review

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:06 (twenty-one years ago)

They were big on comics too in the mid-late 80s, as you would be really, they were very much behind the Deadline crowd and I remember quite a big feature when IPC launched CRISIS.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Also in the realms of the non-musical teenage me was very indignant about 1989's FOOTBALL ISSUE. It had an interview with Pat Nevin "the indie footballer".

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:11 (twenty-one years ago)

When I started reading it in 84 the film section, under the editorship of Andy Gill?, was really pretty substantial. They even had the infamous 'NME Screwball Comedy Squad' which evidently had a lasting effect on me. As, Simon R pointed out over on the NME thread on ILM, under Ian Pye and Stuart Cosgrove in the mid-80s, the magazine really did love everything. I remember Brookside and Absolute Beginners getting cover stories.

I remember reading a fantastic Penman piece about Beneiex's 'Mauvais Sang' which really opened my eyes about film in many ways (ie it showed me the way I could love cinema in the swoony way I loved certain pop groups) but I think that may have been in The Face.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:16 (twenty-one years ago)

"NME Screwball Comedy Squad"??

i guess i'm under the impression that in the 80s especially yer 'art-house' movie had some connection to 'youth culture' -- 'mauvais sang' is a great example and a great film. i think it's more a development in european filmmaking that makes this no longer the case so much, and afaik no-one in the uk is that interested in, say, jon brion or other musicians who bridge the pop/scoring thing.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:22 (twenty-one years ago)

wow i'd forgotten all about Crisis

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:23 (twenty-one years ago)

film section under first monty smith then andy gill was exceptional* (tv also): it lost its best writers when cosgrove took over - penman, gill, r.cook - but was if anything even more strategically inventive abt what to cover and how

intense in-house conflict sadly ensured that this inventiveness only reached the rest of the mag in botched form, and the quality of the writing became very defensive and strained

*ie (arguably) consistently the best writing on film in the uk at that date, esp.if you were allergic to eg screen's use of theoretical jargon (s&s wz UNBELIEVABLY TERRIBLE at that point)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:25 (twenty-one years ago)

ie (arguably) consistently the best writing on film in the uk at that date

i will be getting a ticket to colindale* post-post-haste! bah!

*super place btw.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:27 (twenty-one years ago)

the "screwball comedy squad" had evolved under monty smith's eye, as TV reviewers primarily (the Tv reviews section - printed in teenytiny letters - was a quickfire goof-off a bit like ilx on a good day, very playful and allusive and silly)

smith wz sacked when - as part of their gag-rich world - they feted the arrival of c4 w.a listings which wz totally invented, made up of things they WANTED c4 to run

a LOT of (fun-hating) readers rang to complain

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:29 (twenty-one years ago)

r.cook is a great GREAT lost film reviewer imo (obv i am very pro "honkin dick" as i owe him my entire career)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:30 (twenty-one years ago)

i need to get old nmes.

mark, did you ever review films (ect) for 'em [nrq is reviewing 'if...': this = some kind of theoretical background to what nrq perceives as the uk's Great Film Crit Lacuna...]

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:32 (twenty-one years ago)

for a while the section also got props from actual real film-makers (well, nic roeg) and wz taken seriously by the critics at the grown-up mags in the sense that they were always huffing and puffing about it (eg being snidey in print when nme recommended - as xmas eve viewing!! - that we might prefer a carry-on to a wadja)

even the dream of this wz lost when nme policy shifted from multi-constituency uneasily yoked together to single-constituency

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:36 (twenty-one years ago)

yes i did (tho not very many)!! a really weird selection also

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Also in the realms of the non-musical teenage me was very indignant about 1989's FOOTBALL ISSUE. It had an interview with Pat Nevin "the indie footballer".

And Brian 'Choccy' McLair who had just bought a CD by Win called Freaky Trigger. Did Pat Nevin have a front cover? I remember he was interviewed in the Christmas 83(or 84) edition, talking about the Smiths etc

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:45 (twenty-one years ago)

when i was a reader i wasn't a big 'film fan' (ie, i never went to the cinema), and can't remember the nme getting behind anything -- probably 'trainspotting' and 'pulp fiction', possibly 'velvet goldmine', though by '98 the nme was v anti-suede and pro-gomez, so probably anti-haynes. all of these were big 'soundtrack films' of course, and i think that governed the choices. *possibly* i'm being amnesiac but i don't remember any coverage for, say, 'la haine', which was a *huge* movie for the mid-90s, teenyouthcult-wise.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:47 (twenty-one years ago)

And Brian 'Choccy' McLair who had just bought a CD by Win called Freaky Trigger.

Hahah, no way! Big picture of Choccy on TMFD from now on, please!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Michael Winner was the NME's film critic in the '50s.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:57 (twenty-one years ago)

heh (i think MW was actually just one reviewer among many at that date)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:59 (twenty-one years ago)

hahaha!! at some point i will explain why that makes so much SENSE!! basically i found in an old cambridge university rag about the laymeness of fifties film university criticism (ie the author's peers and rivals) some kind of dmaning praise of winner's film-reviewing style in 'varsity' from about 1955, when winner and the author were both undergrads...

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 12:03 (twenty-one years ago)

nrq where ru reviewin 'if....'??

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 March 2005 12:14 (twenty-one years ago)

this sympathetically caps-free website: http://www.musicalbear.com/books/review/humphrey_jennings_by_kevin_jackson_non-fiction

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 12:20 (twenty-one years ago)

haha c00l!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 March 2005 12:24 (twenty-one years ago)

er, kinda -- jesus, re-reading that thing someone needs to kill me. haha but i get reynolds book for free this way. not 'if..' though -- i got that fair and square.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 12:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Interesting comparison of Jennings and Green, NRQ. I finally got round to buying the Jennings DVD last week and wonder why I didn't do so sooner.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 24 March 2005 13:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i heart the exchange rate! and the fact postage from florida to here is cheaper than from amazon uk!

MY LUNCH BREAK

on tip-off from another thread i go to rupert street to find old nmes. i ask man in shop: he says the place i want is round the corner in brewer st, and he has 20 years' worth of nmes, and would i be innarested -- then he says brewer strett geez sells them at a fiver a pop. blimey.

go to vinmagco (for it is there) in brewer street and amid the vintage pr0n, there is a lot of moldering ipc newsprint, but "a fiver" is actually understating: that will get you an nme from the late '90s. '80s nme can be A TENNER. they also had old copies of the face, but well, you couldn't work out from the cover whether they were worth getting (only burchill and kent got cover space).

so i now have to take a LIBRARY HOLIDAY at some point to nail this thing ('this thing' = inverstigatory music press 'film reviewing style' thing).

BLAH.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 14:26 (twenty-one years ago)

80s nme can be A TENNER.

Holy cow, I have a goldmine festering away in my loft. Somehow though I can't imagine the one with Campag Velocet on the cover going for a fiver.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 24 March 2005 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.