Cinema (...and TV)

by Deborah

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Barry can spend hours watching endless reruns of Brit TV comedy classics (“The Young Ones,” the Carry Ons, “Dad’s Army” and “Bottom”). By far his favorite is “Only Fools & Horses”; he owns every episode ever made and we go to all the annual conventions. I have to confess that over the years it has grown on me too. Finn has practically grown up on these repeats, so now he says, “Put Roddy on, Mommy!” (“Rodney” is a character in the show).

Now that I’ve built up a tolerance to British humor, I’ve come to appreciate superb sitcoms such as “The Royle Family,” “Father Ted” “One Foot in the Grave,” that old PBS stand-by “Are You Being Served?” and anything with Billy Connolly.

The Brits also produce some superb drama in the form of “Prime Suspect,” “Band of Gold,” “Jonathan Creek,” “Inspector Morse” and “A Touch of Frost.”

The best detective drama series, possibly of all time in my humble opinion, is ITV’s “Cracker,” which did a successful run throughout the 1990s.

Starring Scottish comedian Robbie Coltrane as Fitz, a dysfunctional, overweight forensic psychologist with a financially crippling taste for gambling (he’s always on the ponce), the show’s demise a few years ago is regarded as a travesty to its huge fan base.

On retainer to the Manchester Police Force, Fitz provides psychological profiles in difficult, unsolved cases. Long hours spent on the job and a troubled marriage keep the embers kindling with the department’s Chief Inspector Jane Penhaligon, providing romantic subtext.

He’s a bit of a lout, our Fitz, but he’s inexpendable to the force in providing criminal motive, and the show’s writers clearly do their psychological homework. It’s gritty, realistic, and often, disturbing stuff. I like it.

The series was recently repackaged in the U.S. as “Fitz,” but it got the axe (quite rightly) because it couldn’t touch “Cracker.” By the way, the two “Cracker” stills posted here come courtesy of Spacegirl at one of the show’s few (and better) tribute sites, The Unofficial Guide to Cracker. It’s well worth a visit if you care to find out what all the fuss is about.

We’ve been assembling a small video collection of some of our favorite episodes, so maybe someday we’ll get around to dubbing them off and mailing them out for the folks back home to watch.

There’s a brilliant film called “Manhunter,” which sort of came and went to no particular notice. It was based on Thomas Harris’ novel The Red Dragon. Probably the best film that emerged from the ’90s, in my opinion, was Gary Oldman’s autobiographical directorial debut, “Nil By Mouth.” Hard on its heels was “As Good As It Gets.”

So great a fan am I of the 1985 French film “37^o5 Le Matin” (“Betty Blue”), pictured left and below, that last year, a friend and I went to the Cinema Lumiere in Kensington to see its director, Jean Jacques Beineix, being interviewed before a special screening of the director’s cut.

Mr. Beineix was brilliant (I was surprised to find there were so many fans of the movie), but we could have done without being caged in with a roomful of those insufferable frogs.

The director’s cut runs about three hours, maybe longer, and some scenes, in the French tradition, can be quite rude. But get beyond all that gooey stuff, and you’ve got a haunting love story with a spectacularly well-matched lead.

One for fun: American actress Louise Brookes, photographed by Eugene Robert Richee in 1928.