Here’s something you don’t see every day: Phillip Seymour Hoffman in a light comedy, from Richard Curtis (Love, Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral) no less. Something else you don’t see often: Nick Frost in a movie without Simon Pegg. Actually, given Pegg’s lackluster solo career (How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Run Fatboy Run and The Good Night), maybe all the magic flows with Frost.
Anyway, The Boat that Rocked looks like you’d expect a Richard Curtis movie to look, which is not a strike against it. A light, broad, simpery comedy you can watch on cable pretty much once a week, and how wrong can you go with Bill Nighy, Rhys Darby (“Flight of the Conchords”) Rhys Ifans, Kenneth Branagh and his ex-wife, Emma Thompson, the latest Bond girl, Gemma Arterton, and January Jones, in her first post-“Mad Men” movie role?
I think it's fair to say that it's not Simon Pegg that sucks in solo projects, it's that he sucks in other people's material.
I'm going to wait until the end of the Pegg/Wright Trilogy before I lose any respect for Pegg. Unless he's in Transformers 3 or Rush Hour 4 or something else like that.
Posted by: Jim at December 8, 2008 4:04 PM
So is it a period piece about the offshore pirate radio stations in the 60s?
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at December 8, 2008 4:09 PM
That looks like the kind of movie I would totally enjoy, and will absolutely miss at the theatre, because I seem to see about 4 movies (okay, maybe 6) a year in the theatre at the rate I'm going. If I'm lucky, I'll catch it on DVD.
Posted by: tamatha at December 8, 2008 4:12 PM
Doesn't matter if Bill Nighy is reading the yellow pages, I still get a tingle in my lady places. Therefore, I can only commit to seeing this on DVD in the privacy of my own home.
Posted by: Clarence Boddicker at December 8, 2008 4:18 PM
I want to, and will see this.
It has Bill Nighy as a sexy sixties rock and roll DJ, ON A BOAT
It's automatically the best film ever made.
How did Bill Nighy get so cool?
How does he BE so cool without causing damage to things around him with his sub zero existance of AWESOME
Seriously.
Is it wrong i find him.....dangerously sexy?
I mean really really really sexy?
Posted by: nadine at December 8, 2008 4:22 PM
nadine - It may be a tiny bit wrong, but I doubt it. Lust away. Just don't get all stalkerish.
Posted by: tamatha at December 8, 2008 4:42 PM
oh...Tamatha...
I wish you'd commented sooner
Guys, um...can you help a fellow Pajiban out with some bail money?
I'm assured Mr Nighy will drop the charges if return the lock of hair and promise to never come within fifty feet of him but...i dont want to spend the night in jail.
again.
Posted by: nadine at December 8, 2008 4:51 PM
"Dancing in the Street" always makes me flash back to watching Richard Simmons in Sweatin' to the Oldies (part one) with my mom. It was the closing credits song, where all the Simmons devotees would sashay under a disco ball with their 'before' photo and weight displayed in a split screen. I was RIVETED.
Posted by: epimethea at December 8, 2008 4:55 PM
Uh, this has Magical Mystery Tour written all over it, and unfortunately, I remember how badly that turned out.
What the hell is it with Bill Nighy? I think he gives off opium pheromone through the screen or something to get you all hooked on him. I'm hooked.
Posted by: BWeaves at December 8, 2008 5:01 PM
BWeaves, thats no opium pheromone.
thats pure concentrated Awesome.
These skinny hipster/scene kids these days who try so hard to be so 'effortlessly' cool, they couldn't hope to be half as awesome as Bill Nighy.
Posted by: nadine at December 8, 2008 5:06 PM
I'm gonna go ahead and clear the air and say that I have a crush on Nick Frost.
Haven't even watched the trailer, just felt like it needed to be said.
Posted by: Kayanne at December 8, 2008 5:09 PM
As much as Rhys Ifans looks awesome in that outfit (lets face it, men of that height and build where born for those clothes...and i really want the hat) i do sort of wish Paul Bettany was playing that role.
Mostly because seeing him in that outfit would be a religious experience for me...the kind of religious experience us (lapsed)catholics have a lot of, the kind that are tangled and confused with ...other experiences.
Seriously guys . Picture it. then get back to me.
Posted by: nadine at December 8, 2008 5:14 PM
I'm just glad to finally learn how to pronounce Rhys Ifans name right, so now I can appear intelligent when I talk this movie up to my friends.
Posted by: ciji at December 8, 2008 5:34 PM
I realised I had a problem when I saw The Nighy with tentacles all over his face in Pirates of the Caribbean and still lusted after his bad self.
Posted by: Ali at December 8, 2008 5:37 PM
Ciji: "I'm just glad to finally learn how to pronounce Rhys Ifans name right . . ."
Now if only Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced [ˈjoʊæn ˈgrɪfɪð] according to Wikipedia, yeah right) and Ciarán Hinds (pronunced /ˈkɪərɔːn ˈhaɪndz/) were in this, I'd have the set of three down pat.
Posted by: BWeaves at December 8, 2008 5:46 PM
I think Wright is the missing piece in those films, not Frost. Not that I have anything against Frost.
Posted by: Eep at December 8, 2008 7:24 PM
It's weird but I though Shaun of the Dead and that cop movie that Pegg did right after it to be both pretty funny. What the hell happened? He's actually a funny dude, especially on Spaced. It makes little sense really...I'll say it's the material he's given. He needs to be pickier or something....
Posted by: ph at December 8, 2008 7:48 PM
He needs to be pickier or something....
Yeah, and like Jim said, the stuff he's helped write is all of his best stuff. One would hope after Mission Impossible and Star Trek he won't feel as needy to take work, but I can't be sure. Still, he's co-writing with Nick now to be directed by Greg Mottola, and then I suppose "The World's End" will follow that and when Edgar finishes "Ant-Man" and "Scott Pilgrim".
Still, he got to meet Scully on "How to lose friends..." so I'm sure it was a plus in the end.
Bill Nighy is the shit. I would see him in anything. He is fucking hilarious and also a great dramatic actor (I loved him in Notes on a Scandal and The Girl in the Cafe). Best old guy ever.
Posted by: alison Lang at December 8, 2008 10:16 PM
Someone should make a movie and cast entirely quirky-cool actors who basically play themselves in every role and yet are widely beloved. Nighy and Walken are the obvious choices. I thought I would immediately get a bunch more off the top of my head but I'm blanking. Help?
Posted by: Eep at December 8, 2008 11:18 PM
Wow, that's a cast list that would make Jesus speed up production to release the movie as a birthday present to himself.
But slow down Jesus. It needs to develop on its own. You don't want to compromise the quality. Just go play with your dreidel and wait. Nick Frost will get laid on film all in good time.
Posted by: Audiosuede at December 8, 2008 11:37 PM
I am another to add to the Bill Nighy fangirl pile, BUT! Not in a lusty way. He's just SO DAMN GROOVY. This looks to be another Billy Mack (sp?) for him, and I am the opposite of objecting. I just hope he sings again.
Posted by: Anne at December 9, 2008 12:03 AM
Kayanne - I'm right there with you, for reasons that are somewhat beyond me. This trailer doesn't do it many favours though - stupid sideburns and bad hair. Boo-urns.
Posted by: Shay at December 9, 2008 3:55 AM
I saw Bill Nighy on Broadway a couple of years ago. The play ("The Vertical Hour") wasn't great, but Nighy certainly brought that magnetism of his to bear. He stalked around the stage like a gigantic praying mantis -- all elbows and knees, equal parts gangly and graceful. Poor Julianne Moore couldn't hold the stage with him.
Posted by: sansho1 at December 9, 2008 9:08 AM
Ugh. British humor. Ugh.
This movie looks AWFUL.
People running into signposts...gratuitous (and disgusting) male nudity...bad teeth...bad clothes.
Why do people think this is the height of hilarity?
Posted by: The Pink Hulk at December 9, 2008 9:16 AM
The brilliance of the Nighy comes from his general persona, which is one of the reasons why Billy Mack is my favorite character in Love Actually. 9 times out of 10, he's just this guy who knows how to be British without looking like he's got a stick implanted in his rear. Hell, even in State of Play he's got this sense of snarky humor that balances the piece brilliantly. He's "cool Brit" and damnit if anyone can resist that.
Hell, Nighy was even sexy as Slartibartfast in HHGG: In My Pants, and I hated that movie. (Loved the TV version, hated the movie version.)
Posted by: BWeaves at December 9, 2008 10:10 AM
Ciji: "I'm just glad to finally learn how to pronounce Rhys Ifans name right . . ."
Now if only Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced [ˈjoʊæn ˈgrɪfɪð] according to Wikipedia, yeah right) and Ciarán Hinds (pronunced /ˈkɪərɔːn ˈhaɪndz/) were in this, I'd have the set of three down pat.
BWeaves -Thank you. I just feel like loving all of you- the joy of Bill Nighy combined with Gaeilic/Celtic nomenclature makes me misty.
I think it's fair to say that it's not Simon Pegg that sucks in solo projects, it's that he sucks in other people's material.
I'm going to wait until the end of the Pegg/Wright Trilogy before I lose any respect for Pegg. Unless he's in Transformers 3 or Rush Hour 4 or something else like that.