Yes! I’m watching a Carry On movie.

Because I’ve never seen any of these, and they’re kinda legendary in British film. I mean, as a touchstone of the worst you can make.

So I googled “what’s the best (or least worst) carry on movie”, and people generally seem to agree that this is the one to watch.

How horrible can it be!?!

This is hilarious! Could this be the best British movie ever?

This is so silly! There’s nary a single line without a couple of double entendres. It’s like watching… a slightly more pervy version of Mad magazine.

And these actors!

The actual jokes, though, are kinda lame? Surely they could come up with something with more zing than this? But the editing is so on point. Zip zip zip from scene to scene; not a second to consider anything.

I guess you’d call this “bawdy humour”? I can sympathise with every British person thinking that the existence of these movies is beyond embarrassing, but… it’s so cute!

And I want that red/white/black blanket.

I do wish people would shout less.

Aaahh.

It’s so silly.

But this is really the most dismal camping site ever. Did it rain the entire time they were shooting this movie? Was this filmed in like February? They all look so cold! Give them more clothes to wear!

It’s a rave!

I’m really, really drunk, but I thought that was funny. I had expected, like, a German semi-porn thing with awkward pauses and stuff, but it zipped along, knocking down all the entendres in every line, and wasn’t much embarassing at all. But I’m not British; I could well see that Brits would want to dissociate themselves from the entire phenomenon.

On the other hand, I don’t think I’m gonna watch the entire series, either.

Carry On Camping. Gerald Thomas. 1969. ⚃

That’s not Burt Lancaster… is it?

Oh! This isn’t the John Huston movie from 1960 — it’s the Clint Eastwood movie from 1992!

(I bought a box set of western movies.)

I’m enjoying this — it’s quite odd? The plot is just weird. I mean, it’s probably just me: I wasn’t totally paying attention at the start so I didn’t quite catch while the … sheriff? (Gene Hackman) didn’t flog that knifing guy… which led to the hookers putting out a bounty on him.

Heh heh. Morgan Freeman and Eastwood’s got really good buddy chemistry going on.

I admit it, I was going to put this movie on and do some computer admin stuff here while this was running in the background, but … I can’t take my eyes off of the movie.

This is good stuff — the cinematography is nice, the actors are really having fun… it’s sad that Eastwood is totally deranged these days, but this is… shockingly good.

OK, now it sucks. This scene is all deep and stuff, and it’s risible. This movie only works when it’s slapstick.

Well! Eastwood nailed the ending. I expected every shot to end in the obvious “ironic” thing, and it didn’t.

So you’ve gotta give him some props for that. On the other hand, there were scenes that just didn’t work well… it’s… it’s a mixed movie? It’s a very strong ⚃? Let’s go with that.

Unforgiven. Clint Eastwood. 1992. ⚃

The problem with buying films on DVD (and blu-ray) is that they just sit on the shelf until you finally make yourself watch them… if you want to or not.

So here we are.

I was drunk one night when I bought all the Branagh Shakespeare movies I hadn’t seen. My reasoning was that Henry V was spiffy (it was, wasn’t it? I haven’t seen it since it was released), so surely the other movies would also be good?

But then I remembered that Branagh got Hollywoodified — especially the Shakespeare things — and… my enthusiasm for the project dropped. So I got this in 2015, and I still haven’t watched it.

But the shelf is forever! And this is the oldest unseen movie there, so I gotta do what I gotta do.

I’m encouraged to see that the guy from Scream is playing a role.

(That’s a joke. Not a good one.)

Oh! It’s a musical! Now I’m intrigued!

None of these people can dance!

This is horrible. But it looks like they had fun while vamping?

Was this made for TV?

Huh. Did those $13M go to pay Alicia Silverstone and the guy from Scream?

And that gross seems to indicate that it wasn’t actually given a general cinema release, if it wasn’t made for TV?

Right:

Branagh cast the film without much regard for singing or dancing ability; as in Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You, the film was meant to highlight energy and enthusiasm rather than smooth competence.

But one of the delights of a good musical is watching really good dancers move around on the screen… Being a good dancer isn’t “competence”, and enthusiasm is a different axis altogether.

What a shit show.

Right, so a kinda general release in the UK, but the distributors buried it in the US:

Love’s Labour’s Lost was not a box office success. It opened on 2 April 2000 in the United Kingdom, earning £143,649 in its run on 186 screens. It later opened on 11 June 2000 in the United States, playing on two screens and earning $24,496 on its opening weekend.

OK, unpause the movie.

Well, that’s $1M just there. I hope there aren’t any midges on that lake. Those lamps are gonna attract all the insects…

It’s fun watching Silverstone spouting these lines. She really leans into it…

There are scenes here that kinda work, and then there’s stuff like this, which is just inexcusable. It tries so hard to be zany, and fails.

But now I’ve kinda started enjoying this.

It’s like looking at children playing at being in a movie.

This movie isn’t as horrible as it seemed originally. There’s a few scenes here, where they let Shakespeare’s witty patter just play out, and it’s really amusing. (The whole thing is basically Shakespeare on autopilot.) There’s scenes that make me go “THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER”.

But most of the musical numbers are just dire.

So it’s not an abject failure. I think about … one third of this is really entertaining? But the rest… oy vey…

Love’s Labour Lost. Kenneth Branagh. 2000. ⚁