Sunday Roast

Time for an update on the arduous task of collating the G.O.A.T Brit Flicks™ . As a solo endeavour, it feels rather cathartic knowing your own choice of films won't be tarnished by some other person's picks on the list; neither would they be collated via a means of average votes. Dada Debaser is an autocratic movie blog, in this regard.

Originally planned to do a brief write up for each film, but I said, "f@ck that!" once I accidentally deleted a long post I was writing and Blogger auto-saved it. Also planned to rank my selection, but that's another headache altogether.

Here are some discoveries/opinions that are worth sharing:

• Abiding by Parliament's somewhat liberal definition of 'what is a British film?', British co-productions, largely partnered with a foreign body (sometimes with a British subsidary), would completely dominate this list. This makes certain films like Alien (1979) or The Elephant Man (1980) very difficult to assess, and forces each film to be treated on a case by case basis.
  
• At least one title from Top of the Flops' 100 Worst British Movies list made it on my first draft.
• Gerald Thomas was a way more prolific film maker than David Lean, Ken Loach or Mike Leigh. More than one Carry On... film made it onto my working list.
• More than one film adaptation based on British sitcom filled a place on the list.
  
• Originally thought the eighties was a low point for British film, but, in hindsight, the nineties was considerably worse. We were starving for good Brit flicks. It was a wilderness, where pretentious dross like Orlando (1992) would appease the hoity-toity Tarquins and Tamaras, and overrated shite like Trainspotting (1996) would endlessly hog up late night television's schedules for the next decade or so.
  
• Billy Elliot (2000) and The King's Speech (2010) were both funded by The National Lottery, which is a good enough reason to make it illegal again.
  
• Lynne Ramsey's filmography is way more depressing than Threads (1984) ever was. As a matter of fact, Glaswegian council estates in Ratcatcher (1999) look even more apocalyptic than any post-nuclear wasteland featured in film.
• Noughties film also tapped into British woes with the same level of fear mongering intensity as the tabloid press. Films like Eden Lake (2008), Harry Brown (2009) and F (2010) exist because of the media outrage headlines.
  
• As phenomenal as British cinema was in the sixties it also caught the new wave fever and we've been suffering from it ever since.

Harry Enfiend's Television Programme (Poppet on a Swing sketch)

Harry Enfield, 1990-1992