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I photographed the Happy Mondays in 1990, the film about the subject, its origin and expanded universe of its surrounding phenomenon came out in 2002, and the film's real life main character died about six months ago, completely off the map to my...
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I photographed the Happy Mondays in 1990, the film about the subject, its origin and expanded universe of its surrounding phenomenon came out in 2002, and the film's real life main character died about six months ago, completely off the map to my fellow Americans. I just saw the movie for the first time last night on cable. Are we all too late to the dinner table?

Nosirree. Share the fun in retrospect, for the film "24 Hour Party People" remains one of the alltime best music films ever, wholly successful in conveying its subject matter accurately- despite its Python-esque edge- and bringing to life a specialty music understandable to the non-cognescienti. It's also hilarious, insider-joke-heavy which matters not a whit to non-insiders cinematically overall, and features a commanding, intellectually fun and dry as champagne performance by its lead, Steve Coogan (already godhead to myself and others for his "Alan Partridge" satire on punitively vacuous talk shows.) "24 Hour Party People" traces the beginning, full flowering and decline of the Rave phenom,first pollinated in Manchester, England before germinating worldwide,as it was engineered by a single human being, Tony Wilson. Wilson found the bands, started the music label, owned the main music/dance club and held it all together, all the while keeping his "day job" as a British television personality, both reporting features and and even helming the U.K. "Wheel of Fortune!" The movie follows Wilson's dry-humored (over-educated Oxbridge bombast as sound bytes, and solumnly intoned asideswith narration like "This is my date Miss United Kingdom. I like her for herself. I know what you're thinking, and we're still together!") ascent and decline, and that of his colleagues, while being utterly true to its subject and as entertaining as if Monty Python fashioned a music documentary. Biographical depictions include Ian Curtis and Joy Division, Happy Mondays and New Order, all ascending and declining as well. Actor Andy Serkis (Gollum) turn as a renegade producer is a hoot, and the music is to die for (as Curtis unfortunately proved.) My personal ethos of non-censorship comes into play in recommending this picture whole-heartedly, since there's an animal cruelty scene that I personally must fast-forward, and a LOT of (don't do as we did boys and girls, do as we should have done) drug-taking, but these indeed further the story.And it's a singularly fascinating one of a lone, creative man finding himself, as he puts it, "in the right place, with the right music, the right bands, the right record label, the right club and the right drugs, all at the right time." The place was Manchester, England, the man was Tony Wilson, and the movie was "24 Hour Party People." They are still yours to enjoy immensely.

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Posted feb 15, 2008 1:04 am pt

Scofield3

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Ok, its a very nice movie. But i dont like the style of it very much. The direction is great and the actors are nice. However, sometimes it doesn't seem to give a point.

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Posted jan 3, 2008 4:48 am pt

jsd

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This is of course based on the true story of Tony Wilson, Factory Records, and the Hacienda, all central to the Manchester music scene of the late 80's/early 90's. Directed in a gritty fly on the wall style by Michael Winterbottom, it is a...
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This is of course based on the true story of Tony Wilson, Factory Records, and the Hacienda, all central to the Manchester music scene of the late 80's/early 90's. Directed in a gritty fly on the wall style by Michael Winterbottom, it is a thoroughly humorous and engaging look at a fascinating chapter in music history.

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Posted dec 12, 2006 2:08 am pt

• [+] Christian Science Monitor
  
  100
  Extravagant and funny it is, and also quite dark at times.

  by David Sterritt | Read Full Review »
• [+] New York Magazine
  
  100
  One of the sharpest and funniest movies about the music business ever made.

  by Peter Rainer | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Sun-Times
  
  100
  Shines with a kind of inspired madness.

  by Roger Ebert | Read Full Review »
• [+] San Francisco Chronicle
  
  100
  Funny, riveting look at the music scene that ruled Manchester, England, from 1976 to 1992.

  by Jonathan Curiel | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New York Times
  
  100
  "Print the legend," Mr. Wilson says at one point, both quoting John Ford and laying the foundation for his own often fact-free fabulous fabulism. And this movie is just that -- fabulous.

  by A.O. Scott | Read Full Review »
• [+] Rolling Stone
  
  100
  Like the music, the film is outspoken, roaringly funny, defiantly sexual and relentlessly in your face. I couldn't have liked it more.

  by Peter Travers | Read Full Review »
• [+] New Times (L.A.)
  
  90
  The film is a whirlwind blur, a kinetic thrill ride through the industrial backwater that was one of punk and post-punk's most fertile Promised Lands: Manchester.

  by Robert Wilonsky | Read Full Review »
• [+] Los Angeles Times
  
  90
  Amazing, rich in authentic period atmosphere and detail, an ever-changing cyclorama of a movie.

  by Kevin Thomas | Read Full Review »
• [+] LA Weekly
  
  90
  The movie's a rave and a half.

  by Brendan Bernhard | Read Full Review »
• [+] Salon.com
  
  90
  This dizzying saga of the '80s Manchester music scene is garish, reckless, endlessly self-indulgent and totally untrustworthy. What a blast!

  by Jeff Stark | Read Full Review »
• [+] Austin Chronicle
  
  89
  Loud, hilarious, and enormously entertaining, 24 Hour Party People makes you want to toss current FM radio out on its pre-fab, corporate-sponsored backside. And not a moment too soon.

  by Marc Savlov | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  
  88
  So energized by the subject that it overflows with inventiveness.

  by Ray Conlogue | Read Full Review »
• [+] Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  88
  Hopped-up and electrifying. The soundtrack is wall-to-wall and propulsive.

  by Steven Rea | Read Full Review »
• [+] Boston Globe
  
  88
  Just don't expect the truth. An extremely bent, highly amusing form of the truth, maybe, but not the truth. 24 Hour Party People shares with the current Robert Evans documentary ''The Kid Stays in the Picture'' an awareness that a good anecdote often trumps the facts, but here the cheats are cheekily laid bare.

  by Ty Burr | Read Full Review »
• [+] Baltimore Sun
  
  88
  What makes this movie an up is that even when its characters are crying for help, they're also crying for Help!

  by Michael Sragow | Read Full Review »