IN THE LOOP Post Release - Page 2

I've only seen four episodes of In The Thick of It (ON YOUTUBE ), but it is indeed fucking amazing, though the protagonists are a little more sympathetic than in In the Loop in the ones I watched. In In the Loop, Tucker really does end up as the sympathetic one, because everyone around him is either wishy-washy, conniving, incompetent, bitchy, or outright evil.

Great movie. "White stripes get out" "there's only 2 people in the white stripes" destroyed me.
Capaldi was amazing.

God, i'm just repeating what everyone is saying! Arrrgh.

Holy shit, this script may be one of the best scripts since MILLER'S CROSSING. Definitely in the top 10 of the year.

Saw it for the second and third time today. The first time I thought it was brilliant, but my subsequent viewings convince me of utter genius.

Alex was dead right in his review: you miss jokes because you're laughing through them.

Peter Capaldi should really be getting more roles.

Saw a story the other day about Alistair Campbell (real life guy Malcolm Tucker is based on) seeing this and not finding it very funny at all. Which leads me to think it's not that exagerrated...

Strangely enough, former deputy PM John Prescott seemed to think it captured him perfectly. But then he and Campbell never got on too well to put it mildly. Anyway, make sure you watch the new series of The Thick of It when you can, everyone, it has some amazing Malcolm moments. Especially when he's paired up with his opposition counterpart outside the studio, carefully watching a minister and shadow minister on a live radio show.

I can't stop watching this now that I own it. The deleted scenes are uniformly pretty great, but the Danish pastry one killed me.

Holy shit, what a funny movie. I was not expecting to laugh this much. I especially loved Malcolm asking Jane "How bout you, Crying Game?" when trying to find out who leaked the paper. I already sent the BD back to Netflix but think I'm just gonna go buy it as I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff while laughing. Lord Baldemort!

Fantastic, best comedy of '09. Bonus points for teaching me the word "catastrophuck."

Saw this via Iannucci's Twitter, an ever so slightly odd trailer mash-up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB8oOcx77Cc . Gary Oldman is good but he's no Peter Capaldi, though.

My favorite deleted scenes were the discussion of There Will Be Blood and its callback later when Jamie invades the minister's office to destroy his fax machine.

Oh my god, this movie.

Thanks to a visiting friend, I'm going to be able to watch Series 3 of The Thick Of It .

Apart from missing performers like Gandolfini, anyone know if I'm likely to enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did In The Loop? More to the point, will it be a problem that I haven't seen Series 1 or 2?

Edit: I suppose I could just poke around Youtube, couldn't I? Somehow I never think of that...

The Thick of It is probably stronger than In The Loop. Not a wasted moment in the series.

Absolutely. About the only thing wrong with Series 3 is Jamie not being in it.

Stop rubbing our Region 1 faces in it!

Funniest, most quotable movie I've seen since "In Bruges." Amazing. Even when I wasn't laughing, I was really enjoying myself. Loved the description of Jamie as "being built in a lab out of bits of old psychopath."

I didn't realize until the very end that Tom Hollander was the villain in Pirates of the Caribbean. Whoever mentioned how surprising it was that Gandolfini fit in so well with this group was very correct. I've been thinking of him as Tony Soprano so long I kind of forgot he can do other stuff just as well. That's a great fucking actor.

That show has to get on Region 1 DVD soon. I loved this movie and have been dying to check out THE THICK OF IT.

Fingers crossed it does, you guys really are missing out. I think I saw the other day that it's getting a complete collection in April with all 'three' series and the specials, hopefully that will make its way over soon for those who don't have an R2 player.

And yeah, while S3 doesn't feature Jamie, it does feature Julius' AMAZING speech about the onion bhaji, which is just about enough to make up for anything.

This is getting a re-release starting Friday in NYC at the IFC Center.

Watched this again today. It's not as funny the second time, but that's not a disparagement - the film really strikes me about how sad it all is. The inevitability of war. It's a little scary how self-sustaining war can be - it's a living thing as it's portrayed in this film and the people in the middle of it are either powerless to stop it or greasing the rails with their own ambitions to keep it going. This really is a genuinely amazing work.

What constantly blows me away with this film is the pacing. It never really slows down. I remember first watching it at a really uncomfortable cinema downtown, and had some concerns sitting down to a feature length "talky" at the theater. I hate having to constantly shift in my chair to keep comfortable, but it was the only place showing the film at the time. I remember being blown away after the very first scene. I never once paid attention to my discomfort because I was so drawn in and the film just barreled forward!

The whole thing reminded me of (and, I apologize for this analogy because I realize how insignificant one is when compared to the other) when I worked in live television. I remember hearing producers swear up and down control room floors after a host would say something they weren't supposed to; floor directors would be waving their arms all over the place to get the hosts to wrap up a segment; the director would be struggling with cuts to help out the sound guy, who would be trying to smoothly transition to a break; graphics people would be quickly coming up with damage-control banners... insanity! Completely batshit, ridiculously intense and fast-paced, and all because of one verbal mistake on behalf of the host.

Hilarious work by everyone, and really hope we do get some "The Thick of It" DVDs in this side of the world.

By the way, if anyone was interested in Alastair Campbell's opinion of the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcFaizGw860

Love this movie for the one liners but not the "Message"

Watching it reminded me of the Marx Brothers movies: they are all about the one liners and not the plot.

None of these characters are "in the Loop" which of course is the point; but it makes it hard (for me) to relate to the characters because it's clear none of them can have any affect on policy. So it's a lot of to do about nothing.

Which is fine: as noted above this is a film you remember for the one liners.

But the whole point of the movie is that these people do affect policy, and that's the scary/sad part of it. I don't know how you can come away from the movie feeling otherwise since it explicitly shows the effects they have. And it rings true, it's not like presidents and prime ministers act in a void.

It's also going to be remembered as a picture of it's time. It's a cynical, cynical movie, where spin doctors and an elite cabal manipulate and control inforamtion and policy, and almost everyone else is used who dissents. How is it a film about nothing? It's not even subtle in the way it parallels the events leading up to Iraq, and attempts to show the workings of the machine.

The only effects I saw were felt amongst the characters, particularly Hollands character. The UN vote at the end? That's the climax of the film, but I at least had no sense that there was any weight behind it: the decision to go to war had been made, by people completely outside the events of this movie.

Which again I see as the point; these people believe themselves to be the movers and shakers; but they're not.

A good point of comparison would be Burn After Reading.

Look at the last sentence here. I think that nicely sums up the point of the movie and it comes straight from the horse's mouth. In some ways it's the total opposite of BURN AFTER READING, although I think there are some similarities and the two might make a good double feature.

IN THE LOOP really is more like a modern DR. STRANGELOVE though, which sounds like a lazy log-line type description but really fits, and the comparison has been made by plenty of people who know better than to throw it around lightly. I actually saw them both on the big screen, back to back, and there are definitely parallels.

The thing is we never see policy being made...tell me which scene contains the process by which the US and UK decide to go to war? The closest we get is Linton Barwick's "Planning Committee". But the fact that it IS a Planning Committee means that a decision has been taken.

I also don't think the movie reaches the same level as Dr StrangeLove: First because I love Kubrick and don't believe anyone can match him, and second because StrangeLove gets to the heart of the matter in a way that In the Loop does not.

EDITED TO ADD: And everything we know about the events leading up to the Iraq war indicate that the decision was made by Bush, and all the efforts by those in the Adminsitration bureaucracy (and the UKs) were to justify that decision.

The movie is more about the process that gets support for the war (doctored information, made-up Iceman etc). I would agree that the decision is made already, the movie is about getting from that decision to making the decision palatable to the public/ other states.

ETA: Just saw your edit

Fair enough, but to me that's still more than the characters and their actions amounting to nothing. And in a way that's what I meant when I said leaders don't act in a void. It takes the machinations of all these mid and low level people to get the support and shape public perception etc. As far as I'm concerned the point still stands that the movie is about how these people contribute, not about their actions being meaningless.

And I evoke STRANGELOVE not in terms of quality but in what the movie is doing. STRANGELOVE cuts closer but ITL is getting to the heart of things by showing the real nuts and bolts of what goes on behind the scenes, even if the ultimate decision to pull the trigger is made by a single person and happens off screen.

This movie was amazing and I'm glad I finally caught it. Absolutely brilliant. The scene where Toby talks about shagging to end the war was hysterical, and the older actor's high-pitched laughing made it even better (when he screeches out "that's priceless" I totally lost my shit).

Also, "trouble trouble lemon trouble" and "You know me, I've got kid gloves meaning my gloves are made out of kids." So many lines that it's hard to keep up with them all. One of the best movies of last year, for sure.

Not to be one of those, but it's "difficult difficult lemon difficult"

... ya cunt

Right, well F * * CUNT you!

Is 'easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy' only a British thing then?

I honestly think this deserves to be one of the defining movies of the last five years for people looking back in the future.

Watching this again, it's incredibly easy to see how sympathetic Tucker is when put up against the other characters. And what's great about the writing and characterization is that there's no attempt made to deliberately make the characters surrounding Tucker arch-villains. They're just back-handed and weak-willed and -- perhaps most offensively to Tucker -- incapable of saying what's on their mind. Except for Ganolfini, whose scene with Tucker is almost more important than the scene in the meditation room, because he's Tucker's one equal in the film. This has been parroted before, but it's criminal Capaldi didn't get an Oscar nomination, because he handles the dramatic moments -- like the scene after Rasche leaves the meditation room, where Tucker realizes how thoroughly he's been played -- just as well as being the Crown Prince of Profanity. And even though Tucker's eventual "revenge" is as back-handed as the tactics of the other guys, there's a satisfaction to it, because he's finally playing their game, and he's playing it better than they were able to.

Saw this last night. Very good movie, easily one of the best tv comedy-to-film transitions I can think of. Probably because unlike most shows that try to make the jump into cinema they're aiming for a larger target here that's probably too big for the tv show and they manage to keep up the momentum without it feeling like three episodes stitched together.

The way they keep bringing in new characters so easily it makes think Iannucci could keep expanding the Thick of It format into quite a large scale thing - you could have a show for the US, one for a Tory government if they got in, etc.

I don't get this idea of Tucker being 'sympathetic' though. He's the most charismatic and entertaining to watch sure, and one of the few characters capable of getting things done. But he's one of the driving forces in making sure the war kicks off without a hitch, using his knowledge of the system to sell the bullshit evidence and silencing anyone with the power to make a difference against it. It's a very funny movie but depressing as hell in the end. I didn't feel like any character came out of it looking terribly good.

I don't know if "sympathetic" is the right word, but I did end up pitying him, at least. The big thing here is how in The Thick Of It he's this omnipotent agressive force of nature, and in In The Loop he still acts the same way, but you realise deep down he's helpless, just a side player in the US politics game. Of course one shouldn't feel sympathy for the sociopath bummed out because there's a bigger asshole in town, but...

I'd avoided seeing this till just yesterday because of Mr Gandolfini's involvement (just not a fan), but I have to say I'm glad I finally gave it a chance. I'd decribe it as "fairly funny" and "pretty clever". That's not faint praise though, because 99% of comedies I never find remotely amusing. I LOL'd twice during ITL, and I found that very satisfying*. As for being clever, the film felt like it presented an insightful look at politics, and wasn't dumbing down the material for laughs. All in all it was a more than worthwhile way to spend an hour and 40 minutes, and I only wish it had been longer because comedies that can make me laugh are rare. In the end, even Gandolfini made me smile a few times


*One of my LOLs came from a person saying "What the fuck is Prip-pip? Is that Dickens?". I absolutely love the abbreviation based humor in this film.

Forgot to ask this yesterday, so I'm returning to ask it today instead.

Just a quick question about the film, but I don't really understand how people could read so much into the comment about war being "unforseeable". It just seems like a word that would be difficult to take as either a sign of support for or against a war. Is this deliberate? I just ask because it seemed slightly awkward, to have these characters pretending that "unforseeable" could be interpreted as an anti war statement. It's essentially a meaningless jumble of words, as far as I can tell. Was that the point, or would the film have been better served by using a genuinely ambiguous phrase in place of "unforseeable"?

It's a bad idea for a politician to call anything "unforeseeable" because it implies a lack of foresight.

"You better walk on that fucking line" means that the decision to go to war has been made behind closed doors, and that both the U.S. and the U.K. want to squash all dissent -- or even appearance of dissent -- by members of its governments so it looks like they have a unified front. The line is the party line, which is for war. Calling war "unforseeable" would allow those who are opposed to the war effort -- like General Flinstone and the Vampire Queen -- to spin the statement as being against the war. Tucker, by way of David Rasche, has his marching orders to help the U.S. start this war, so he's got to squash that appearance of dissent and it kicks the whole crazy thing off.

Eh, that does not really make sense to me though. The decision to go to war no matter what was made in private. It was NOT what they'd be telling the public. W essentially called the Iraq war "unforeseeable" until the last possible moment. The pro war crowd would be playing up the idea that was was not inevitable. Their public 'line' would not be one that requires people to say that war is definitely coming, as in, totally foreseeable.

Holy shit, this fucking movie. Can't believe I put it off for this long. One of the funniest things I've seen in years.

I was blown away by the pace! It just fucking barrels along with the funny never ceasing for even a moment. Never expected to be blown over like I was by this film.

Not sure what my favorite line in this movie, but I think my three favorites have to be:

"I don't have any thoughts. I've just got a little voice in the back of my head, going 'oh shit', over and over, like a car alarm in the middle of the night."

"It's not like a suicide bomber. A suicide bomber makes a decision."

and perhaps most of all

"Oh, that wasn't meant to go outside!"
"Yeah, well it is outside, like a big hairy rapist at a coach station."

I just went back and re-watched it after finally seeing The Thick Of It, and while it's a little disorienting to see the character shuffling (I now really miss the Glenn-Ollie interplay), it still holds up brilliantly.

If The Thick of It doesn't come out with a U.S. DVD release soon, I'm going to fucking steal back the entire United Kingdom.

Color me intrigued: HBO picks up Ianucci series "Veep" 

Is this going to be the U.S. State Department version of The Thick of It that Ianucci was talking about wanting to do a while back?  Centering it around the VP makes a lot of sense, because they're in a similar position of powerlessness couched in apparent power.

I heard something about Julia Louis-Dreyfus getting a new HBO series, but had no idea Ianucci was involved. Veep definitely has my attention now. Also, and I wanted to avoid mentioning it, but Jesus Christ, Julia Louis-Dreyfus looks amazing.