It’s capture of the spirit of mid-60s music and culture enables Pirate Radio to over come the flaws of this fun motion picture. You get to know the air staff and other cast members as they communicate with UK youth and fight the British government. The music, even though a few tunes are chronologically misplaced, is well used. Making the tunes part of the story as well as underscoring the story. I must add that the in-studio radio scenes, in which we dart in and out of, are fairly accurate. Pirate Radio is more enjoyable if you can approach it as being not only about the ’60s but of the ’60s. [ RT ]
My Movie Review: ‘Pirate Radio’
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Interview: Pirate Radio’s Philip Seymour Hoffman
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Richard Curtis makes romantic, sentimental and overlong comedies filled to the rafters with friends as cast-members. He’s a British Judd Apatow–indulgent, substituting sweetness for edge, charm for shock value
His latest, Pirate Radio, is as jolly, jaunty and sappy as Love Actually. It was cut by over half an hour for American release and still plays long. But thanks to that fairy-dusting of Curtis charm, I wouldn’t cut a frame of it. It skips by like a much-loved old LP. [ More ]
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No movie can be all bad when juiced up with a soundtrack of more than 50 classic rock tunes.
The best thing to say about Richard Curtis’ “Pirate Radio” is that it’s all about the music, man. The Kinks, the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix — these are the stars of “Pirate Radio,” and the well-chosen songs are the main thing keeping the film afloat.
[ More ]
From Roger Ebert’s review of Pirate Radio.
The shipboard culture involves a mixed bag of oddballs and egomaniacs, who hold sway over millions of listeners and then go back to their grotty cabins and smoke weed. Well, it’s not a crime outside territorial waters. Life really only happens for them when they’re on the air. The best known of them is The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an American who has a focus on his work that can only be described as reverential. The ranks of his rivals are peopled by a menagerie of British character actors, led by the Steve Buscemis of England, Bill Nighy and Rhys Ifans. Hold on, Ifans is Welsh. (“I Want You All to Myself,” Joan Armatrading.)
From NPR’s All Things Considered: The Real Story Behind Britain’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Pirates
Philip Seymour Hoffman Sails To England For ‘Pirate Radio’