Like the little off-shore pirate radio stations playing rock 'n' roll that dared to compete against the massive radio domination of the staid BBC in the 1960s, Pirate Radio debuts against the incalculable might of the $260-million apocalyptic flick 2012 this week. The critics, for the most part, love it. "It skips by like a much-loved old LP," writes Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel. "The film makes for easy viewing and easier listening," says Manohla Dargis in the New York Times , one of several critics who praise the choice of '60s music featured in the movie (and Claudia Puig in USA Today recommends that audiences "stick around through the end credit sequence, which features an array of album covers.") Kyle Smith in the New York Post notes that writer/director Richard Curtis, who wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, "has dropped another bright joy-bomb that explodes in every direction with rock classics used in surprisingly direct and literal ways." On the other hand, Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer accuses Curtis of taking a potentially "great story" about the pirate stations and turning it "into an aggressively irritating floating frat-party romp." And Peter Howell concludes in the Toronto Star "This film doesn't know whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama. By the time it finally reaches its Titanic-style conclusion, you probably won't care."
13/11/2009
